Sebastian Lewis Shaw (29 May 1905 – 23 December 1994) was an English actor, theatre director, novelist, playwright and poet. During his seven-decade career, he appeared in dozens of stage performances and more than 40 film and television productions.
Shaw was born in Holt, Norfolk, and made his acting debut at age eight at a London theatre. He studied acting at Gresham's School and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Although he worked primarily on the London stage, he made his Broadway debut in 1929, when he played one of the two murderers in Rope's End. He appeared in his first film, Caste, in 1930 and quickly began to create a name for himself in films. He described himself as a "rotten actor""Sebastian Shaw Obituary", the Daily Telegraph, 2 January 1995. as a youth and said his success was primarily due to his good looks. He claimed to mature as a performer only after returning from service in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War.
Shaw was particularly known for his performances in productions of Shakespeare plays which were considered daring and ahead of their time. In 1966 he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, where he remained for a decade and delivered some of his most acclaimed performances. He also wrote several poems, as well as a novel, The Christening, which was published in 1975. In 1983 he appeared in the third instalment of the original Star Wars Trilogy, Return of the Jedi, as the redeemed Anakin Skywalker, as well as Skywalker's ghost in the original 1983 theatrical release of the film.
Early life Sebastian Lewis Shaw was born in Holt, Norfolk, on 29 May 1905, as one of three children born to Geoffrey Shaw, the music master at Gresham's School, a Norfolk independent boarding school, where Shaw began his education.Leech, Richard. "Better Than Beefcake: Sebastian Shaw", The Guardian, 29 December 1994, Features (section), p. T12. His uncle, Martin Shaw, was a composer of church music, and his family's love of music heavily influenced Shaw's career path."Sebastian Shaw", The Times, 30 December 1994, Features (section).
Career Early career Shaw made his acting debut at age eight on the London stage as one of the juvenile band in The Cockyolly Bird at the Royal Court Theatre in Chelsea on 1 January 1914. During his time at Gresham's, he also played Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew, his first of many performances from the works of William Shakespeare; his schoolmate W. H. Auden, who would go on to become a highly regarded poet, portrayed Katherina in the play opposite him. After Gresham's, Shaw planned to become a painter and spent two years at the Slade School of Fine Art before switching his interests to acting; regarding the change, his father informed him, "I wondered when you would come to your senses." He earned a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in Bloomsbury, London. The actor Charles Laughton enrolled in the academy at the same time as Shaw, who later said his first impression of Laughton was "a poor fat boy".Kernan, Michael. "Sebastian Shaw & the Shades of the Bard", The Washington Post, 1 March 1980, Style (section), p. B2. Although Shaw and his fellow students initially felt pity for Laughton, they were quickly impressed with his talent.
Shaw appeared in regional theatres in Bristol, Liverpool and Hull. In 1925 he performed in London as the Archangel in The Sign of the Sun, and played first Lewis Dodd and then the Major in separate productions of The Constant Nymph. He received instruction in verse speaking under the theatre director William Bridges-Adams in the Stratford Festival Company at Stratford-upon-Avon, where he played some of his early Shakespeare roles, including Romeo in Romeo and Juliet, Ferdinand in The Tempest and Prince Hal in Henry IV in 1926. He was criticised for the audacity he displayed in the latter role. When Prince Hal takes on his kingship and rejects the self-indulgent character Falstaff, convention of the day called for Prince Hal to change from a jovial drinking partner to an arrogant snob, but Shaw saw the view as simple-minded and contradictory toward Shakespeare's script. Instead, he displayed inward regrets about leaving Falstaff and accepting the new responsibilities. The interpretation was criticised at the time but, years later, became the standard approach to the character.Seaton, Ray. "Mr. Shaw's Voyage of Discovery", Express and Star, 29 April 1974.
Shaw made his Broadway debut in 1929, when he played the murderer Wyndham Brandon in Patrick Hamilton's stage thriller, Rope's End. In 1929 he married Margaret Delamere and lived with her in Albany, an apartment complex off Piccadilly in Westminster. The two would eventually have a daughter together named Drusilla (born 1932)."IN MEMORIAM Mr. Sebastian Shaw", The Daily Telegraph, 15 February 1995. He returned to the works of William Shakespeare in 1931, playing Claudio in Measure for Measure at London's Fortune Playhouse. In 1932 he once again played Romeo at the Embassy Theatre. Other works around this period included productions of Ivor Novello's Sunshine Sisters in 1933, Double Door alongside Sybil Thorndike in 1934, J. M. Barrie's A Kiss for Cinderella in 1937, and Robert Morley's Goodness, How Sad in 1938.
The first film Shaw appeared in was Caste in 1930. He soon began to make a name for himself in films such as Brewster's Millions in 1935, Men Are Not Gods in 1936 and Farewell Again in 1937. He was making about £300 a week during this stage of his career, a significant sum, higher than the salary of the British prime minister of the time. He brought what the Daily Telegraph described as a "smooth villainy" to the role of Frank Sutton in The Squeaker in 1937, while in 1939 he played the hero Cdr. David Blacklock alongside Conrad Veidt and Valerie Hobson in The Spy in Black, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's first collaboration. Shaw described himself as a film buff and called the Academy Award-winning actor Spencer Tracy his "great god of all screen actors";Pirani, Adam. "Sebastian Shaw: The Return of Anakin Skywalker", Starlog, July 1987, Vol. 11, Issue 120, pp. 56–57, 96. he was so impressed by Tracy's technique that he claimed to become depressed while watching his films because Tracy made acting look simple, while Shaw claimed to find it so difficult to master himself.
Second World War and post-war career
When the Second World War broke out, Shaw took a break from acting and joined the Royal Air Force. On 25 April 1941 he was commissioned as an acting-pilot officer on probation in the Administrative and Special Duties Branch and over the next three months was speedily promoted to pilot officer on probation, flying officer and flight lieutenant. According to his obituary in the Guardian, Shaw saw little action in the service and was told the only chance he would have to fly would be as a rear gunner. Some of his fellow airmen hounded Shaw for autographs, while others mocked his posh accent, to which he retaliated with an excellent and unflattering imitation of their less refined speech. He continued to hold a Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve commission after the war until he resigned his commission on 10 February 1954; he was permitted to retain his rank.
Immediately upon returning to London after the war, Shaw lost his Albany flat and his acting contract, and essentially had to restart his acting career. Although he had made twenty films before the war and had already begun to develop a reputation as a strong leading man, in later years he would describe himself as "a rotten actor" in the 1930s who landed roles based mainly on his good looks. He used the phrase "a piece of cinema beefcake" to describe himself as an actor during that period. He felt that after his return home from military service, he learned to act properly and began to mature as a performer. Shaw's Royal Air Force experience was put to good use when he played a pilot in Journey Together, the 1946 RAF training film in which the actor Edward G. Robinson coached the actor Richard Attenborough in the rudiments of flying.Benedick, Adan. "Sebastian Shaw", The Independent, 13 February 1995 Gazette (section), p. 12.
In 1945 Shaw returned to the Embassy Theatre to direct Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Gambler. Significant theatre roles that decade included Hercules in The Thracian Horses at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith in 1946, Mr. Hern-Lawrence in Florida Scott-Maxwell's experimental I Said to Myself at the Mercury Theatre, Notting Hill Gate in 1947, Sir James Kirkham in His Excellency at Prince's Theatre in 1950, and Filmer Jesson, MP, in Arthur Wing Pinero's His House in Order at New Theatre in 1951. In 1956, he played the title role in the first British production of Hugo von Hofmannsthal's Everyman. That same year, he wrote the lyrics to his father's ballad-opera, All at Sea, which played at the Royal College of Music. In 1957 he played Lucifer in Brother Lucifer in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, and a sinister Venetian agent in Jonathan Griffin's The Hidden King in Edinburgh.
As Shaw grew older, his reputation as a dramatic actor grew stronger, and he became known for a sharp intelligence and dignified style. Although his good looks diminished, reviewers felt that he used his florid and weatherbeaten face well in evoking grandeur and self-assuredness in such roles as generals, priests and his familiar Shakespearean parts. In 1956, his wife Margaret Delamere died; she was survived by their daughter Drusilla. Shaw began a romantic relationship in the mid-1950s with Joan Ingpen, the well-known classical music and opera talent agent who had previously represented him. The two were romantically involved, to the point that she took his surname, until Shaw's death.Sutcliffe, Tom. "Obituary: Joan Ingpen, Inspirational artistic organiser at Covent Garden, Paris Opera and the New York Met", the Guardian, 14 January 2008, Obituaries Pages (section), p. 34. During the 1980s, however, Shaw also had a brief relationship with Harriet Ravenscroft, the mother of the disc jockey John Peel, whom he met while performing at Ludlow Castle at Ludlow. He split his time between Ingpen and Ravenscroft on a four-day rotating basis to which both women consented. Although Peel got along with Shaw and said he made his mother happy, he said he did not feel comfortable with the arrangement. He felt it disrupted his mother's friendships and prospects for a more stable relationship.Peel, John and Ravenscroft, Sheila (2007). Margrave of the Marches, Chicago: Chicago Review Press, p. 87–89. .
In 1965 the British theatre director William Gaskill was named artistic director of the Royal Court Theatre, where he hoped to re-establish a repertoire. He approached Shaw, who had made his acting début at the Royal Court Theatre as a youth, and Shaw agreed to return. There he delivered several performances over the next year, including General Conrad von Hotzendorf in John Osborne's A Patriot for Me; various roles in Ann Jellicoe's Shelley; Sir Francis Harker in N. F. Simpson's The Cresta Run and Pte Atterclife in John Arden's Serjeant Musgrave's Dance.
Royal Shakespeare Company