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" 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 World War II.
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 and a novel, The Christening, in 1975. In 1983, he appeared in the third installment 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
Shaw was 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. His uncle, Martin Shaw, was a composer of church music, and his family's love of music heavily influenced Shaw's career path.
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 Although Shaw and his fellow students initially felt pity for Laughton, they were quickly impressed with his talent.
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. 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. 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. 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.
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.
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. 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.
In 1965, 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.
Shaw wrote The Christening, his only novel, in 1975.
A description in the book cover flap reads, "In this tender, sensitive and blackly comic novel, Sebastian Shaw, the distinguished Shakespearean actor, explores areas of sexual and emotional encounter that are rarely seen and, unfortunately, too rarely understood."
Return of the Jedi
thumb|Shaw as the unmasked [[Darth Vader|Anakin Skywalker in the 2004 DVD re-release of Return of the Jedi, in which his eyebrows were digitally removed and eye colour altered to match that of Hayden Christensen.]]
In 1982, Shaw was chosen for the brief but significant role of the unmasked and dying Anakin Skywalker in Return of the Jedi, the third and final film in the original Star Wars trilogy. As in the previous films, David Prowse and Bob Anderson played the costumed scenes, while James Earl Jones and Ben Burtt provided the voice and breaths of Darth Vader. Shaw was cast in a single scene with Mark Hamill, during the moment aboard the second Death Star when Luke Skywalker (Hamill) unmasks his dying father. Since this scene was unequivocally the emotional climax of the film, the casting crew sought an experienced actor for the role. His presence during the filming was kept secret from all but the minimum cast and crew, and Shaw was contractually obliged not to discuss any film secrets with anyone, even his family. The unmasking scene, directed by Richard Marquand, was filmed in one day and required only a few takes, with no alteration from the original dialogue. he received more fan mail and autograph requests from Return of the Jedi than he had for any role in the rest of his career. He later reflected in a 1987 interview that he very much enjoyed his experience filming for Return of the Jedi and was "oddly flattered" that an action figure by Kenner was made of him from the film.
Star Wars creator George Lucas personally directed Shaw for his appearance in the final scene of the film, in which he is a Force ghost of Anakin. Shaw’s appearance as Anakin's Force ghost was preserved in the 1997 Special Edition, featuring revised music and additional ending sequences. Leading up to and during the release of The Phantom Menace, interviews and reference materials continued to acknowledge Shaw as the canonical portrayal of older Anakin, including retrospective discussions of the character’s and Shaw's legacy.
When the film was re-released on DVD in 2004, a few changes were made. The unmasking scene with Hamill remained mostly the same, but Shaw's eyebrows were digitally removed to maintain continuity with the injuries Darth Vader suffers at the end of Revenge of the Sith. His naturally brown eyes were also recolored blue to match those of Hayden Christensen, who portrayed Anakin in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.
Most notably, Shaw's image as a Force ghost in the final scene was replaced with that of Christensen in the 2004 DVD release. This last attempt to tie the prequel and original trilogies together proved to be among the most controversial changes in the Star Wars re-releases.
Later career
Shaw remained active in his later years; along with fellow Royal Shakespeare Company actors Ian Richardson, John Nettles, Martin Best and Ann Firbank, he engaged in discussions and workshops with acting teachers and students in the early 1980s. Although appearances in films became far less common in his later career, he received much acclaim for his performance as the Cold War spy Sharp in Clare Peploe's High Season at the New York Film Festival in 1987; One of his last performances was in the Christmas season of 1988 and 1989, when he played the wizard in a stage production of The Wizard of Oz at the Barbican Centre. The Times said audiences were "delighted to recognise his honeyed threats from behind the great carapace that disguised the Wizard of Oz".
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| rowspan="3" | 1933
| Little Miss Nobody
| Pat Carey
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| House of Dreams
| Unknown
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| Taxi to Paradise
| Tom Fanshawe
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| rowspan="4" | 1934
| The Way of Youth
| Alan Marmon
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| The Four Masked Men
| Arthur Phillips
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| Get Your Man
| Robert Halbean
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| Adventure Ltd.
| Bruce Blandford
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| rowspan="6" | 1935
| Brewster's Millions
| Frank
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| The Lad
| Jimmy
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| The Ace of Spades
| Trent
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| Three Witnesses
| Roger Truscott
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| Jubilee Window
| Peter Ward
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| Department Store
| John Goodman Johnson
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| rowspan="4" | 1936
| Tomorrow We Live
| Eric Morton
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| Birds of a Feather
| Jack Wortle
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| Jury's Evidence
| Philip
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| Men Are Not Gods
| Edmund Davey
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| rowspan="2" | 1937
| Farewell Again
| Capt. Gilbert Reed
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| The Squeaker
| Frank Sutton
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| 1938
| Julius Caesar
| Marcus Brutus
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| rowspan="4" | 1939
| Too Dangerous to Live
| Jacques Leclerc
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| Prison Without Bars
| Doctor
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| Table d'Hote
| Adam
| "Doubting Hall" section
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| The Spy in Black
| Lieutenant Ashington<br />Commander David Blacklock
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| rowspan="4" | 1940
| Now You're Talking
| Charles Hampton
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| Three Silent Men
| Sir James Quentin
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| Bulldog Sees It Through
| Derek Sinclair
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| The Flying Squad
| Inspector Bradley
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| 1941
| East of Piccadilly
| Tamsie Green
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| 1945
| Journey Together
| Squadron Leader Marshall
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| 1947
| Hamlet
| Claudius
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| rowspan="2" | 1949
| The Glass Mountain
| Bruce McLeod
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| Landfall
| Wing Commander Dickens
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| 1952
| BBC Sunday Night Theatre
| Archdeacon Adam Brandon
| Episode: "The Cathedral"
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| 1953
| Laxdale Hall
| Hugh Marvell, MP
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| 1958
| Armchair Theatre
| Unknown
| Episode: "The Terrorist"
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| 1960
| Here Lies Miss Sabry
| James "Cracker" Talbot
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|1961
|For Elise
|Chief Inspector Lynch
|BBC Home Service Radio Drama
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| rowspan="2" | 1966
| It Happened Here
| Dr. Richard Fletcher
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| Out of the Unknown
| Major Gregory
| Episode: "Walk's End"
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| rowspan="2" | 1968
| All's Well That Ends Well
| King of France
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| A Midsummer Night's Dream
| Quince
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| rowspan="2" | 1972
| Thirty-Minute Theatre
| Judge
| Episode: "The Judge's Wife"
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| Dead of Night
| Powys Jubb
| Episode: "Death Cancels All Debts"
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| 1975
| Village Hall
| Ralph
| Episode: "Lot 23"
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| 1977
| Play for Today
| Abbot General
| Episode: "A Choice of Evils"
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| 1978
| BBC2 Play of the Week
| Carl Fiodorich
| Episode: "Liza"
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| rowspan="2" | 1979
| Rumpole of the Bailey
| Mr. Justice Skelton
| Episode: "Rumpole and the Show Folk"
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| The Old Curiosity Shop
| Grandfather
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| rowspan="2" | 1981
| Nanny
| Mr. Starkie
| Episode: "Goats and Tigers"
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| Timon of Athens
| Old Athenian
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| rowspan="4" | 1983
| Reilly: Ace of Spies
| Reverend Thomas
| Episode: "An Affair with a Married Woman"
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| The Weather in the Streets
| Mr. Curtis
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| Return of the Jedi
| Anakin Skywalker
|<!-- Note: Please do not change this to mention the "unmasked" scene: that is in ALL the versions. Thank you. --> Also appears as Anakin Skywalker's force ghost in original release and 1997 Special Edition; replaced by Hayden Christensen in all DVD and Blu-ray releases since 2004
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| The Nation's Health
| Dr. Thurson
| Episodes: "Collapse" and "Decline"
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| 1984
| Crown Court
| Justice Bewes
| Episodes: "There Was an Old Woman" and "Drunk, Who Cares"
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| 1987
| High Season
| Sharp
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| rowspan="2" | 1988
| The Master Builder
| Knut Brovik
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| Casualty
| Charles Howlett
| Episode: "Drake's Drum"
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| 1989
| Chelworth
| Lord Toller
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| rowspan="2" | 1991
| Chernobyl: The Final Warning
| Grandpa
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| Chimera
| Dr. Liawski
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| 1992
| Growing Rich
| Mr. Sallace
| Final Acting Role
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