Biography

Page III

As the father of Churchill in "Young Winston" he was once again his brilliant self, and stole the scene from John Mills, Patrick Magee, Tony Hopkins and Ian Holm. After his portrayal of Lord Randolph Churchill, he made "A Reflection Of Fear" with Mary Ure, Sandra Locke and Sally Kellerman, a horror film about a mentally unstable girl who goes on killing sprees when her divorced father visits with his new girlfriend. Not his worst, but definitely not his best either and he didn't like the script from the start.

Sally Kellerman did have this to say about Shaw;

"He was so much fun, so lively and boisterous.  I guess he was one of those great English eccentrics.  He seemed bigger than life.  Oh I adored him."

More Than A Life

I thought another one of his greatest performances was as the chauffeur Steven Ledbetter in the 1973 movie, "The Hireling" where he falls in love with Sarah Miles, an aristocratic widow and helps her recover from a nervous breakdown. It took the prestigious Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and was quite a thought provoking film I thought about the barrier between social classes in England during the 1920's. It was in this same year that he began to achieve fame in America, the recognition he had long sought after with his portrayal of the New York racketeer Doyle Lonnegan ('ya falla?') another outstanding, brilliant performance and worthy of an Academy Award. 

Paul Newman was quoted as saying this about his acting experience with Shaw;

“Robert Shaw was an actor that could skewer you with a look.  When I played a scene with him, I had the same sensation that a rodent would lying in the middle of a highway with a tractor trailer coming on full tilt.  This of course, is what every actor hopes for.  He was a delight.” 

Director George Roy Hill claimed that Shaw was "basically much, much misunderstood."  He found him both a "funny" and "a kind man."

Quote from More Than A Life

As Doyle Lonnegan in The Sting 1973

The film that followed was pretty good too and it seemed he was on his way with "The Taking Of Pelham 1, 2, 3" as Mr. Blue. In this one, four men conspire to hijack a New York subway train and demand a ransom for its passengers. Once again, he was a commanding presence onscreen and played the perfect villain to a tee. Despite these two huge successes, Robert Shaw was still not a household name in America, until... In my opinion, the role of Quint was the role of a lifetime for Robert Shaw and so Oscar worthy. He breathed life into Quint and made the movie what it was, after all, part of the appeal was the shark and the special effects of the enormously talented Spielberg, the other half was the story of the three men and their quest to hunt and kill the shark. Shaw's portrayal of Quint was reminiscent of Gregory Peck as Ahab, the performance of a lifetime as well. The scene in which Quint tells the story of the sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis was written by Robert Shaw (okay, as Spielberg put it, it's Shaw rewriting John Milius who rewrote Howard Sackler but it smacks of Shaw) and is still one of the most poignant in the movie. Spielberg even asked him to tone it down; it was so good, he was afraid it would overshadow the climatic ending. Hard to believe that Robert Shaw wasn't that impressed with the script and even confided to a friend, Hector Elizondo, "They want me to do a movie about this big fish. I don't know if I should do it or not." When Elizondo asked why Shaw had reservations he mentioned that he'd never heard of the director and didn't like the title, "JAWS." It is also incredulous that as the biggest box office film he had ever been part of, he didn't make a cent from it with the taxes he had to pay from working in the United States, Canada and Ireland. He was quoted as saying, "The tax situation is just appalling for me in England. They take up to 85 percent of what you earn. I never made any money until I was thirty eight and who knows how long I'll keep earning it? For a few years there, in the late 1960s, I earned more than a million dollars a year; now I'm down to about one fifth of that, because of the slump in the industry. Well, I'm not going to give them the whole lot in taxes, and wind up demeaning myself doing a cheap TV series to support my nine kids. In Ireland, any money I earn outside the country can be protected."

“Robert was the largest personality I ever met. He was outsize in his kindness and in his capability of being nuts.  In private, he was the sweetest man in the world, but then he would walk onto set and turn into this vicious, nasty guy who tried to cut you down at the knees…and I was his greatest target.”

Richard Dreyfuss

I have read that in The Shark is Still Working, Dreyfuss admits to having a big head and that Shaw would bring him back down to earth.  I also have read about a statement from Roy Scheider saying that Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss got along better after filming the scar comparison scene, so Shaw was probably in character waiting for in between shots and would keep it going until the camera rolled again.  Thanks to Jim for his extensive research and insight.

As Quint in JAWS

It was also during this time that he became a depressed recluse following the death of his wife Mary Ure who took an accidental overdose of barbiturates and alcohol. He was working on the movie "Diamonds" at the time and when going to work one morning, found her asleep on the sofa. Checking her forehead, he found her cold but then warm, so he went to work and never thought anything of it again until he returned home on his lunch break and found her still there. Much speculation has been made that her death was suicidal but it actually seemed to be  nothing more than a severe case of opening night nerves, according to many members of the cast who had observed her anxiety during rehearsals.  Another case of sensationalism about people who are no longer living and cannot defend themselves.  As Mary Ure once said about Robert in an interview, "They never print how nice he is." After her death, he was again plagued by the nightmares he had when his father passed away and would wake up screaming and crying in the middle of the night, insisting his children sleep with him. Her death took its toll and friends and co-workers would comment that it was all over his face and eyes. Including one friend, Sean Connery who would comment to the same friend Robert had confided to about his reservations on making Jaws, Hector Elizondo,  that when asked how Robert was doing, Connery would say "I'm worried about him. He looks exhausted". You can see it in any of his movies, from Diamonds to Black Sunday; he looks both haggard and tormented. I think he may have blamed himself for not discovering Mary Ure was dead earlier on and saving her life. Following "Diamonds" he made "Der Richter und sein Henker (The End of the Game)" directed by Maximilian Schell and co-starring Jacqueline Bisset and Jon Voight. Not a huge box office success but it did do well with critics.

"On March 2, 1976 Robert helped save the life of a California man, Mike Maxon who suffered a cardiac arrest-and authorities decided Shaw’s heroics were worthy of recognition.  He was awarded a certificate that read “In recognition of cool, clear thinking while responding to an emergency situation necessitating the use of mouth to mouth resuscitation.”  The award stands prominently in Robert’s study."  You can read more about this in the articles section, Hero On or Off The Screen.

The next role was a breath of fresh air and would pit him against his old on screen rival but personal friend, Sean Connery once again as The Sheriff Of Nottingham in 1976's Robin and Marian. He received hefty praise for his portrayal from critics, playing the Sheriff who once again finds himself against his old rival Robin, who has returned from the Crusades a middle-aged man. It was in 1976 that I also noticed Robert Shaw in a completely new light, having seen him as so many heavies earlier in his career, in the pirate movie "Swashbuckler" with Genevieve Bujold, James Earl Jones and Peter Boyle. Some critics said that he was too old to play a pirate but I thought it was a wonderful little gem of a movie, very light-hearted and uplifting. Set in 18th century Jamaica, Robert Shaw played Ned Lynch, who saves Genevieve Bujold's father and their property which has also been seized by the evil tyrant, Lord Durant played by Peter Boyle.  It was a physically demanding role but he was quoted as saying, "I loved it.  I was brought up on the old pirate movies.  Swashbuckler is a return to the type of film that packed movie houses all over the world.  It has a certain savage energy but it is also a romantic love story with humor and joy."  I absolutely adored it and him and wrote a letter to tell him so in 1976.  I received what I believed to be an autographed picture from him as the writing on the envelope matched the autograph which I later had analyzed (refer to the autograph in the Personal Photos section.)  Sadly, I could no longer bear to look at it when he passed away and threw it, along with a very large collection of books, soundtrack albums, articles and pictures of him away. 

Genevieve Bujold called Shaw a "great and unique character.  They broke the mold when they made him."

Quote from More Than A Life

It had taken him more than two decades to achieve recognition in America, perhaps due to the fact that each role was completely different, making him almost unrecognizable. In my opinion, a truly great actor in every sense of the word. He said to Cosmopolitan magazine in 1974, "it can harm you commercially. I once asked Otto Preminger if it was possible to be a straight Peter Sellers and Otto said no. I've been trying to disprove him ever since. I have no desire to be a conventional leading man; I like to be different every time. Brando does it and that's why he had such a hard time between The Godfather and Last Tango in Paris. Besides, I think I have gotten the recognition I deserve. I may have had more than I deserve. I can walk down the street in New York and have people say 'You're the best professional actor there is.' But it's not true-Brando is. He's the best because he always does something different, good or bad." A point I would have disagreed on to a degree. Both actors in my mind were of equal caliber. And Brando, to my knowledge, was not an accomplished author or playwright to boot. In my opinion, Robert Shaw was a genius. He had me fooled at 11, having just seen him in Swashbuckler; I asked my parents if I could watch From Russia with Love. When my mother pointed him out as Red Grant, I argued emphatically that it was not Robert Shaw. I was still looking for him by the end of the movie. It wasn't until a year or so later that I realized and fully appreciated his chameleon like acting ability.

His next film "Black Sunday" 1977 about a terrorist organization called Black September plotting an attack at the Super Bowl was a big success both with critics and at the box office. I wasn't surprised considering the depth that he was also involved in writing the script although he didn't receive billing for it. He was very happy with his career but remained a depressed recluse in his personal life until he finished "Black Sunday" when he found himself in love with his secretary of 15 years, Virginia Dewitt Jansen (Jay). I remember reading a while ago that his first memory of her was sending her flowers and although she didn't want to marry him at first, she finally gave in to his persistent proposals. They were wed on the 29th of July 1976 in Hamilton, Bermuda. He adopted her son Charles and the couple also had one son, Thomas born in New York City in December of 1976. 

Virginia was once quoted as saying this about Robert's relationship with their son Thomas; "When Robert went to play golf, Tom was always with him.  Even when he was writing, Tom would lie on the floor looking up at him without making any distracting sound at all.

There was a tremendous bond between them, far more than I would think for a normal father and son.  Perhaps it was because Robert, at 50, was so excited about this child."

"If you had Robert as a true friend you couldn't ask for anyone better.  He was an incredible man, even a shy little boy on occasions.  But he was a man who would go that extra mile and even lay down his own life for a friend.  I would like the world to know that.  Robert had a reputation as a womanizer, but a lot of it was myth.  He liked women, he was interested in them and he liked to flirt.  But that was as far as it went.  When the time came, he would get nervous and was very much back home at night."

Virginia Jansen, Robert Shaw's widow

As Major David Kabakov in Black Sunday 1977

"The Deep" 1977 teamed Shaw and Peter Benchley once again and maybe that was a mistake, in that everyone expected another Jaws. Or maybe it was the lack of substance with the script; something Shaw voiced a concern with fellow actors Eli Wallach and Nick Nolte. At one point, discussing how bad the film was going, Shaw could be quoted as saying to Nolte, "It's a treasure picture Nick, it's a treasure picture". It did well at the box office but not with critics, although they did hail Robert Shaw as the saving grace. He had done it for the money, as he was to do with his next film, for he had decided when Mary Ure had died that life was short and that he needed to provide for his ten children. Taxes were killing him financially.  "I'm in the ironic position of someone who achieved commercial success rather late in life after spending years on the stage and in making quality films that no one went to see,"  "Being 51 years old and having 10 children-the youngest is thirteen months (March 1978)-creates the economic necessity that forces me into all those big budget movies in which I often don't have a single realistic line." "Writing is where the real center of my integrity lies.  I never write for money.  I only act for money, but not invariably of course.  I would never write certain sentences that I say in films, or even that I write in films, because I often fix up my lines."  I can think of one in particular that makes me grit my teeth every time I hear it.  It's from The Deep, where he and Nick Nolte are heading out on their first dive, "If the Jamaican pirates don't get you, it'll be the cold embrace of the sea and that's no lover's kiss." 

"He was an adorable mad man, a real little devil-one of the naughtiest men I've ever met.  There was a mischievousness there, you could see it bubbling underneath.  He enjoyed showing off to women.  It wasn't a lethal flirtation; it was light, it was fun.  It was 'I'm very much alive and I'm going to make you laugh.'"

Jacqueline Bisset

In "Force Ten from Navarone", a poor remake of the 1961 "The Guns of Navarone", he revived the lead role of Mallory originally played by Gregory Peck. It was referred to by Robert Shaw as a "genuine piece of shit". I had to laugh when I read that comment, he was indeed a realist. He hated it and was in his mind, becoming the English Elvis in America. "I find it a bit ridiculous at my age to be running around a mountain in Yugoslavia waving a machine gun, saying, 'Let's go' as I did in Force Ten."  "And location shooting means you work six long days a week.  Thank God, in 'Avalanche Express' I'm a prisoner through most of the movie, Lee Marvin, Mike Connors and Joe Namath do the running around.  I sit and play patience and talk." 

Holding infant son Thomas

He was a big box office draw and some producers were willing to pay top wages for his work but he felt restricted by the parts he was being offered. "I have it in mind to stop making these big-budget extravaganzas, to change my pattern of life.  I wanted to prove, I think, that I could be an international movie star.  Now that I've done it, I see the valuelessness of it."  He was also quoted as saying, "I can't say that I enjoy working as an actor the way I used to, but at the same time I can see the way things are going, and to know that it's better to be at the top of the heap than at the bottom.  I have no intention of having to make television commercials when I'm old.  Money in the bank means freedom of choice, and if someone wants to pay me $1 million to make a film I'll make it."

"Avalanche Express" was Robert Shaw's last film in which he played General Marenkov a senior Russian official who decides to defect to the west and reveals to a CIA agent played by Lee Marvin that the Russians are trying to develop biological weapons. It was a good film, the type he enjoyed making but I don't think I am the only Robert Shaw fan who felt cheated and disappointed in that his voice was dubbed over by another actor and that ruined it for me. Not only that but I found it quite difficult to watch as it was evident how ill he had become as my parents pointed out to me when I went to the opening.  Robert Shaw died before ever finishing the film, of a heart attack at the age of 51 in Tourmakeady Ireland on August 28, 1978. He was quite happy there, saying in an interview that he "loved Ireland more than any other country in the world" and that it was the only completely unspoiled place in which he had ever lived. The Irish people adored him and at his local pub, where he could often be found tending bar when it was busy, he was known and loved as "The Big Fella."  A favourite past time would be to jump in his Range Rover with his wife and their son Thomas to explore the countryside.  He was about to start filming a movie about the spy Kim Philby at the time of his death and had also been working on another novel, The Ice Floe for five or six years which he never finished. He was driving with his wife Virginia and Thomas in their Range Rover when he said he was feeling strange.  He told her he would get out and walk it off and after 4 or 5 steps, he collapsed and was pronounced dead 15 minutes later.

"I remember going over to Steven (Spielberg)'s house" said Richard Dreyfuss of the day he heard the news of Robert's death.  "He was sitting at his piano, which at the time, he didn't play very well.  He just kind of plunked around and sat there for a very long time, an hour and he didn't say anything, and I tried to say, "Wow, it's terrible" and he couldn't speak, he just played."

Robert Shaw will always be remembered as an actor, especially for a certain role in a certain movie but he was much more than that.  He would have preferred to have been remembered as an author and if you haven't had the opportunity to read one of his novels, may I suggest you seek out one of his titles as he was equally gifted.  The purpose of creating this site is mainly educational, he should never be forgotten but I would like him remembered for the man he truly was, not the icon he became to so many.  Robert Shaw should be remembered as an exemplary father who adored his children, a warm, funny, highly intelligent, generous, unpretentious man who could at times appear almost shy.  That surprised me most about him as he was also very outgoing and often outrageous.  He was certainly complex, a fascinating, unique and wonderful soul. He had a great sense of humour, he was a lot of fun, a mischievous man but despite the rumours about other women, he was, for the most part, monogamous and although he flirted with and adored women, they were not serious flirtations and he was home at night.  The man knew how to live life and he lived it to its fullest and for those of you who judge him for doing so, it is certainly no revelation that we all have flaws and his do not need to be mentioned here, if they had not been exacerbated by the press for decades, I would include them as well.  Those of us who have done our research are aware of them and better than most to what extent.  Did he drink too much?  Yes, he did.  Do I need to elaborate?  I see no reason to. 

He valued his privacy and were he still alive today, this website would not exist as I would respect his desire for a private life and his dislike of fame and anything to do with Hollywood.  I have touched upon his personal life with reservation only to enlighten everyone and to discredit inaccurate and misleading biographies that have been written in the past.  It is written from the heart, honestly, sincerely, to the best of my knowledge and ability and with my utmost respect and admiration.  May he never be forgotten but remembered for the man he was.  A man for all seasons in his life and in his work.

""I can see it now, the twinkle in his eye.  I still miss him." 

Harold Pinter

We all do.

Most excerpts were taken from http://www.robertshaw.freeservers.com, an excellent tribute to the actor as well as the biography More Than A Life, umpteen articles generously submitted by fans, some anecdotes contributed by individuals who knew Mr. Shaw and extensive research by myself over the past three years.  I will say that I have never contacted any of the Shaw family or friends regarding quotes on either Robert's personal or professional life (with the exception of Ian Shaw, in a brief letter seeking affirmation and approval of my former Angelfire website).  I find it unnecessary and I respect their privacy. All information is obtained from numerous contributions submitted to me by other fans and by research I have done.  My heartfelt thanks to all of you, for making this website what it is today.

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