In last year’s Netflix phenomenon The Queen’s Gambit, the orphaned prodigy Beth Harmon (Anya Taylor-Joy) ascends from stealing chess magazines at her local Louisville corner store to competing against the world’s best players on the international stage. While their backstories are otherwise wildly different, Malcolm Spellman has had his Queen Gambit’s arc. The writer-producer speaks vaguely of his rough-and-tumble formative years. He doesn’t want to get too into the more illicit details while...