Martin Shaw is an English actor. He is known for his roles in the television
series The Professionals, The Chief, Judge John Deed and Inspector George
Gently. He has also acted on stage and in film, and has narrated numerous
audiobooks and presented various television series, including the 2006
series Martin Shaw: Aviators. Early life
Shaw was born in Birmingham. His childhood was spent in Erdington and
then Sutton Coldfield near Birmingham. According to him, his first stage
appearance was at age three, during an amateur show in which his parents were
performing. Shaw attended Great Barr School, where
he excelled in English literature and drama lessons. At sixteen, he was
offered a scholarship to a Birmingham drama school. Declining the scholarship,
he left school and, on the advice of his parents, he sought employment. One job
was in the office of a brass foundry. In his youth, Shaw was involved in a
drunken brawl with a friend, suffering broken teeth, injuries to his face and a
fractured skull. A mid-face fracture involving the right cheekbone required
surgical rebuilding. At eighteen, Shaw moved to London to
attend the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. He served his
apprenticeship in repertory as an assistant stage manager at the Queen's
Theatre, Hornchurch and the Bristol Old Vic.
Stage Shaw took key roles in the first revival
of Look Back in Anger; in the National Theatre's Saturday, Sunday, Monday
opposite Laurence Olivier; and in A Streetcar Named Desire presented by the
Piccadilly Theatre in 1974. He later acknowledged the role of Stanley
Kowalski in 'Streetcar' as a point of breakthrough in his career.
In the 1980s, Shaw played Elvis Presley in Alan Bleasdale's critically acclaimed
Are You Lonesome Tonight?. It told the story of Elvis' last few hours. After a
long run in London, the production visited Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide
in Australia. Shaw's portrayal of Lord Goring in An
Ideal Husband on Broadway earned him a Tony Award nomination and a Drama Desk
award. After filming finished on the TV series
Judge John Deed, Shaw took the role of Thomas More in Robert Bolt's play A Man
for All Seasons. Shaw's daughter, Sophie, played opposite him as More's
daughter, Margaret. The production toured Britain's cities before a run in
London at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. In 2013 a new production of the classic
play Twelve Angry Men at the Garrick Theatre London, Shaw played the part of
the dissenting juror Television
Shaw began television work in 1967. Parts in one-off plays for Granada
Television led to his playing hippy student Robert Croft, Lucile Hewitt's
boyfriend, in Coronation Street. Another early role was booze and football-loving
Welsh medical student Huw Evans in the television comedy series Doctor in the
House. Huw Evans later returned in the Doctor at Large episode "Mother and
Father Doing Well" as a nervous expectant father.
Shaw appeared with future co-star Lewis Collins in an episode of The New
Avengers. Both played the roles of terrorists. Shaw portrayed Ray Doyle in
the British television series The Professionals, opposite Collins. Shaw
played another law-enforcement role in the 1990s ITV production The Chief.
In 1983, Shaw played Robert Falcon Scott in The Last Place on Earth. The series
was filmed at Frobisher Bay near the city of Iqaluit on Baffin Island,
Canada. In interview at the time, Shaw commented that he generally responded
well to the testing physical conditions, particularly when they enhanced the
reality of the scene. In the same year he played Sir Henry Baskerville in The
Hound of the Baskervilles, an adaptation of the novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
He acted opposite Ian Richardson's Sherlock Holmes and Donald Churchill's
Dr. Watson. He played Cecil Rhodes in Rhodes, an
eight-part serial that aired in 1996 and was filmed on location in South Africa.
Shaw's younger son, Joe, took early leave of his drama school course to play
the part of the youthful Rhodes. In 2001, he took the title role in the
BBC drama Judge John Deed. The character gave an editorial voice to the
television writer and producer G.F. Newman's ideas about lifestyle choices
such as vegetarianism and alternative medicine as well as issues of social
justice. One episode about the safety of the MMR vaccine was banned.
Between seasons of Judge John Deed, Shaw took the role of poetic bespectacled
forensic detective Adam Dalgliesh in P.D. James's Death in Holy Orders in
2003 and The Murder Room in 2005. After the sixth season of Judge John Deed had
been filmed, Shaw appeared in the series Apparitions broadcast by the BBC in
2008. This was Shaw's first project as executive director.
On 9 May 2015 he recited For the Fallen at VE Day 70: A Party to Remember in
Horse Guards Parade, London which was broadcast on BBC 1.
Film Although Shaw is not classified as a
film actor he has had several roles over the years. His first film role was an
Irish communist in Love on the Dole. Better known is his 70s role of Banquo
in Roman Polanski's Macbeth. He has also been seen as an undercover Second World
War operative in Operation Daybreak; a singing and dancing futuristic magician
"Zax" in Facelift; the role of Rachid in the 1974 film The Golden Voyage of
Sinbad, and a wanted villain leading a life on the run in a circus troop in
Ladder of Swords. Narration and documentaries
Shaw has narrated many audiobooks, including Tolkien's The Hobbit and The
Silmarillion; Swift's Gulliver's Travels; and Emily Brontë's Wuthering
Heights. In 2006, Shaw narrated and appeared in a
DVD chronicling the "Merlins over Malta" project. This featured the return of a
World War II Supermarine Spitfire and Hawker Hurricane from Britain to Malta
for the first time in fifty years. In December 2006, Shaw presented the
six-part Discovery Channel Real Time TV series Martin Shaw: Aviators, produced
by Twofour, which followed the two-year restoration of his Boeing Stearman
biplane after it was crashed by another pilot at Old Buckenham airfield in
Norfolk. Shaw fulfilled a lifetime ambition to take the controls of a
Spitfire and, though take-off was not permitted, he also powered an English
Electric Lightning to 150 mph in three seconds along the runway at Cranfield
Airport. Shaw also compared notes with the nonagenarian builder and developer
of the modern autogyro, Wing Cdr. Ken Wallis.
In 2010 he presented a documentary for the BBC titled Dambusters Declassified
in which he investigated and debunked some of the myths of the dambusters raid
known as Operation Chastise story which had been portrayed in the books Enemy
Coast Ahead and The Dambusters, and the film The Dam Busters.
Advertisements Among several voiceovers and
appearances, in 1974, Shaw starred in a three-minute advertisement for the Mk II
Ford Capri and in 1987, a TV advert for the Vauxhall Cavalier.
Activism and charity work Shaw is a celebrity activist for animal
rights and animal welfare. He is the patron of the Hillside Animal Sanctuary
in Norfolk, a charity organisation which provides a safe home for neglected and
abused animals. He also supports Viva! and Dr. Hadwen Trust.
In March 2012, he also announced that he would become the official patron to the
community organisation Stop Norwich UrBanisation or SNUB, which is trying to
protect Norfolk's countryside from overdevelopment and excessive
urbanisation. In the press release, he stated that he was "simply furious and
upset by your plight and that of all of us who wish to live in quiet and peace.
I will be your Patron and keep fighting".
Personal life Shaw has been married three times. His
first wife was actress Jill Allen, whom he married in 1968. They had three
children together: Luke Shaw, an actor; Joe Shaw, an actor and director and
Sophie Shaw, an actor and singer with the band "Blue Harlem".
Shaw's second wife was former nurse turned alternative therapist and core
process psychotherapist, Maggie Mansfield.
Shaw's third wife was TV presenter, environmental activist and fellow pilot
Vicky Kimm. For a while he also lived with the
actress Morag Hood. In 1971, Shaw became a follower of
Charan Singh, a master of the ancient spiritual tradition of Sant Mat. This
involved a strict lacto vegetarian diet, meditation, yoga and the avoidance of
alcohol and other mind-altering drugs. In interviews and in the Martin Shaw –
Aviators documentary series, Shaw readily shares his passion for vintage
aeroplanes. He is the holder of a private pilot's licence. For several
years, Shaw owned a 1943 Boeing Stearman PT-17 Kaydet and now flies a 1943 Piper
Cub which saw action at Dunkirk. The aircraft retains original markings but
has a modern registration of G-BFBY. It is operated from Old Buckenham Airport
Between January 2003 and July 2008, Shaw and his current partner, Karen da Silva,
were stalked by Sandra Price, a divorcee in her sixties. Price sent Shaw several
letters as well as a 120-page dossier of her views on his career and a 45-minute
cassette tape. In the early hours of a morning in July
2008, Price poured petrol through the door of da Silva's home. This action
precipitated Price's arrest by police. In a two-day trial at King's Lynn
Magistrates' Court, Price pleaded guilty to damage to property. She was also
convicted of harassment. Price was sentenced on 28 January. Although she
avoided a custodial sentence, she was ordered to perform 240 hours of unpaid
community work and to pay a contribution towards the Crown's costs of £800. An
electronically monitored curfew between 19:00 and 07:00 was imposed and the
complainants received a restraining order against Price.
On 18 August 2010, Shaw collapsed during the first act of the matinee showing of
A Country Girl at Shrewsbury's Theatre Severn. His agent, Roger Charteris, said
he had been suffering from cracked ribs and was taking antibiotics for a severe
chest infection. An understudy went on in his place.
Awards and nominations Shaw won two awards in 1996 for his
performance as Lord Goring in the Broadway production of An Ideal Husband
and was nominated for a third: Winner of the Drama Desk Award for
Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play Winner of the Theatre World Special
Award for Ensemble Performance Nominated for the Tony Award for Best
Actor in a Play Appearances
= Television= = Theatre=
= Film= References
External links Martin Shaw at the Internet Broadway
Database Martin Shaw at the Internet Movie
Database