Sebastian Shaw (actor)

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Sebastian Shaw
Born Sebastian Lewis Shaw
May 29, 1905(1905-05-29)
Holt, Norfolk, England
Died December 23, 1994 (aged 89)
Brighton, East Sussex, England
Spouse(s) Margaret Delamere (1929-1956)

Sebastian Lewis Shaw (May 29, 1905 – December 23, 1994) was an English stage, film and television actor.

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[edit] Early life and theatre roles

Shaw was born in Holt, Norfolk, England, and educated at Gresham's School, where his father, Geoffrey Shaw, was a music master. Primarily a stage actor, Shaw began performing in 1914, making his first stage appearance aged eight in The Cockyolly Bird, and graduated to leading roles on stage in the 1920s. His first season with the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre was in 1926 and he was a regular member of the company (by then the RSC) between 1966 and 1976, and again in 1985, with roles ranging from Romeo to Polonius. As well as his Shakespearean roles, he appeared in plays by Oscar Wilde, Anton Chekhov, Henrik Ibsen, John Osborne and Robert Bolt, throughout his career.

[edit] Film career

He made his first film appearance in Caste (1930), and subsequently appeared in over forty other productions. His most notable early film roles were as an aspiring actor opposite Miriam Hopkins and Rex Harrison in the Alexander Korda produced Men Are Not Gods (1936); as a crime suspect in another Korda production, The Squeaker (1937); and the dashing young hero, Blacklock, opposite Conrad Veidt and Valerie Hobson in Michael Powell's The Spy in Black (1939). He continued acting while serving as a member of the Royal Air Force during World War II. His post-war films included a role in Roy Boulting's documentary-style Journey Together (1946); The Glass Mountain (1949); and Laxdale Hall (1953).

In 1965 he was one of the few professional actors who appeared in Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo's semi-documentary style It Happened Here, which showed Britons coping during an imagined Nazi occupation. He also got the chance to mix his stage and film career when he played Quince in Peter Hall's film version of the RSC production of A Midsummer Night's Dream (1968). Towards the end of his film career he portrayed the art critic Mr. Sharpe in High Season (1987).

Shaw gained cult status in 1983 when he played Anakin Skywalker in the film Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. One of the controversies surrounding the 2004 DVD release of the film was that Shaw was replaced as the "ghost" of Anakin by Hayden Christensen, though Shaw is still shown as Anakin/Vader in the scene when Vader is unmasked, and is the only actor credited with the role in that film. In 2006, another DVD release featured the original version of Return of the Jedi, with Shaw restored as the ghost of Anakin Skywalker.

As well as appearing in a number of television roles from the 1930s to the 1990s, Shaw voiced the documentary series The Great War (1964), alongside contemporaries Michael Redgrave and Ralph Richardson. He also wrote an episode of Armchair Mystery Theatre called "Cul de Sac" in 1960, as well as authoring the 1969 play The Cliff Walk and the 1975 novel The Christening.

[edit] Personal life

Shaw was married to Margaret Delamere from 1929 until her death in 1956, producing one daughter, Drusilla. In the early 1980s he began a relationship with the mother of disc jockey John Peel; Peel commented on this in his autobiography, Margrave of the Marshes. He subsequently lived with the classical music and opera talent manager and agent Joan Ingpen. Shaw died on December 23, 1994 in Brighton, East Sussex, England.

[edit] Filmography

[edit] External links