Robert Shaw
Born
Aug. 9, 1916
in Lancashire, United Kingdom
Died
Aug. 28, 1978
of heart attack in Toormakeady, Ireland
Robert Shaw — a British born actor and writer — portrayed the shark hunter in "Jaws." The burly actor had roles in numerous films in addition to "Jaws." He was a cold-blooded assasin in "From Russia With Love" and the Israeli agent in "Black Sunday," as well as Henry VIII in "A Man for All Seasons" and an Irish mobster in "The Sting." He also played an oceanographer in "The Deep." But it was as a writer that he wanted to be remembered. He wrote five novels and three plays. One of his greatest roles was one he wrote, but never played. It was the title role in "The Man in the Glass Booth," a stage drama inspired by the 1961 trial in Israel of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann. The play, first written as a novel, was a stage hit in London and New York in the later 1960s starring Donald Pleasence. It was made into a film that earned an Oscar nomination for Maximilian Schell in 1976. Shaw had declined to adapt the play for the screen himself and disapproved of the script eventually written by Edward Anhalt. Born in Lancashire, England, Aug. 9, 1927, the son of a doctor, Shaw grew up in the Orkney islands of Scotland. He attended London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art for two years, then spent the next six years playing lesser Shakespearean roles in Stratford. He made his film debut in 1955 in the war film "The Dam Busters." In 1959, he landed a starring role in the London hit "The Long and the Short and the Tall" and soon afterward played in Harold Pinter's Broadway play "The Caretaker." |
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Points of interest
Academy Awards
| Year | Category | Work | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1966 | Best Supporting Actor | A Man for All Seasons | Nomination |
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