Robert Shaw (actor)

Robert Archibald Shaw (9 August 1927 – 28 August 1978) was an English actor, novelist, playwright and screenwriter.

Beginning his career in theatre, Shaw joined the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre after the Second World War and appeared in productions of Macbeth, Henry VIII, Cymbeline, and other Shakespeare plays.

Robert Archibald Shaw was born on 9 August 1927 at 51 King Street in Westhoughton, Lancashire, the son of Thomas Archibald Shaw and Doreen Nora, née Avery.

His father, a doctor and former Royal Field Artillery Lieutenant, was of Scottish descent; his mother, a former nurse, was born at Piggs Peak, Swaziland.

He had three sisters named Elisabeth, Joanna, and Wendy, and one brother named Alexander.

When he was seven years old, the family moved to Scotland, settling in Stromness, Orkney.

His father killed himself when Shaw was 12, and the family then relocated to Cornwall, where Shaw attended the independent Truro School.

He played Angus in a production of Macbeth at Stratford in 1946.

He played at Stratford for two seasons.

In 1947, he appeared in The Cherry Orchard on British TV; also for that medium, he performed scenes from Twelfth Night and Macbeth.

For a brief period, he was a teacher at Glenhow Preparatory School in Saltburn-by-the-Sea in the North Riding of Yorkshire, before attending the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, graduating in 1948.

Shaw began his acting career in theatre, appearing in regional theatre throughout England.

With the Old Vic company (1951–52), he continued primarily in Shakespearean roles.

He had a small part in The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), playing a police laboratory technician towards the end of the film; the following year he made his London debut, in the West End, at the Embassy Theatre in Caro William.

That year he appeared on TV in A Time to Be Born (1952).

He returned to Stratford in 1953.

Shaw had small roles in The Dam Busters (1955), a TV version of The Scarlet Pimpernel (1956), the films Doublecross (1956) and A Hill in Korea (1956) (alongside other young actors like Michael Caine), and a TV version of Hindle Wakes (1957).

Shaw became a TV star in the UK when he starred as Captain Dan Tempest in The Buccaneers (1956–57) which ran for 39 episodes.

He was by this time a TV leading man, having lead roles in TV films such as Success (1957) and a TV version of Rupert of Hentzau (1957).

Shaw had small roles in Sea Fury (1958) and Libel (1959) and guest-starred on William Tell, ITV Television Playhouse, The Four Just Men, and Danger Man.

He also appeared in TV plays including The Dark Man, Misfire and The Train Set.

In 1959 he starred in a West End production of The Long and the Short and the Tall.

He had a big stage success with The Long and the Short and the Tall on the West End in 1959, directed by Lindsay Anderson, a performance that was filmed for television (though Shaw did not appear in the feature film version).

Shaw's first novel, The Hiding Place, published in 1960, received positive reviews.

In 1961, he appeared in a Broadway production of Harold Pinter's The Caretaker alongside Donald Pleasence and Alan Bates.

Shaw replaced Peter Woodthorpe, who had performed with the others on stage in London.

It ran for 165 performances.

His second novel The Sun Doctor (1961), was awarded the Hawthornden Prize in 1962.

He had good roles in The Valiant, a war film, and Tomorrow at Ten (both 1962), a thriller.

Shaw played the leads in TV versions of The Winter's Tale and The Father (both 1962).

He also played roles in From Russia with Love (1963), Battle of Britain (1969), Young Winston (1972), The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974), Robin and Marian (1976), and Black Sunday and The Deep, both of which were released in 1977.

He, Pleasence, and Bates reprised their performances in a film version of The Caretaker (1963); Shaw was part of the consortium who helped finance the latter.

Shaw became well known as a film actor when cast as assassin Donald "Red" Grant in the second James Bond film, From Russia with Love (1963).

For TV he adapted and appeared in a production of A Florentine Tragedy (1963), and was Claudius in Hamlet at Elsinore (1964) with Christopher Plummer.

He played the title role in The Luck of Ginger Coffey (1964), shot in Canada alongside Mary Ure, who became his second wife.

He had a role in A Carol for Another Christmas (1964).

Shaw later said of his early career, "I could have been a straight leading man but that struck me as a boring life."

In 1964, Shaw returned to Broadway in a production of The Physicists directed by Peter Brook but it ran for only 55 performances.

Shaw was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for his role as Henry VIII in the drama film A Man for All Seasons (1966).

His other film roles included the mobster Doyle Lonnegan in The Sting (1973) and the shark hunter Quint in Jaws (1975).