Robert Shaw's Biography Part Two

By the time Jaws even opened in theatres Robert Shaw had gone through one of the most difficult periods of his entire life. The death of his wife Mary. He had just begun filming the movie "Diamonds", which follwed another movie he made after Jaws called "End Of The Game". Her death came as a shock to him. She had just finally gotten a great part in the stage production of The Exorcism. It was getting great reviews. One night she came home, fell asleep on the couch and Robert, waking in the morning and seeing her still on the couch, went over to her and touched her forehead. It was cold, but when he moved his hand down it got warmer. So he thought nothing of it and went on to work. When he got a chance to go home for lunch he found that she hadn't moved. Her death, it was decided by the powers that be, was caused by an accidental lethal combination of alcohol and barbituates. Shaw was devastaed. Being the professional he was, he still insisted on finishing the film. The next few days he would break down sobbing during filming, but would always wash his face off and perform admirally when the cameras came on. One wonders if Shaw had guilt about not discovering earlier that his wife was in trouble. He must have wondered if he could have saved her life. It amazed everyone involved with the film how Shaw resourcefully went about finishing the product, and how accurately he still portrayed his character when the cameras were rolling. The film didn't do as well as hoped, it was panned by critics and the public didn't even notice it. End Of The Game, which would be released the following year, did critically well, but did not draw in much money. The next film that Shaw would make would put him up against an old film rival in a tale about one of the most classic rivalries that the literature world ever created.

The role was The Sherrif of Nottingham. His Robin Hood was Sean Connery. Once again the two british actors and friends were going to get to work together. It's a film that Shaw has gotten alot of well deserved praise from critics for. However the American public, expecting a movie about death and murder and crime, were dissapointed when they discoverd the film had more depth. It did not do horrible at the box office, but it was far from being a success. The film is "Robin And Marian" Robert was just about to put his sword down when he was called on to do another picture,...

"Swashbuckler" is in my opinion, one of the most underated of all of Robert Shaw's films. The critics panned it because,...get this,...they felt Robert Shaw was too old to play a pirate. As if, once a pirate reached the age of 40 he ceased being a pirate. The film is not a classic by any means, but it is a fun adventure and a very accurate portrayal of the culture it was written about. The film starred Shaw, James Earl Jones, Genivieve Bujold, and Peter Boyle. There is also a hilarious performance by Beau Bridges as an overly patriotic klutz, whom you laugh at but still feel admiration for, even though he's one of the bad guys. Indeed, Boyle's character garners no sympathy from the viewer at all. He is pure evil. And he delivers one of the most chilling lines I've ever heard a villian say on flim. "Suffering becomes all mankind, but it find's it's most perfect expressions in the faces of the young." There is not one actor that does not give a satisfactory performance in this film. The critics in my opinion were harsh on this film and the public didn't even really get a chance to see it. It wound up being one of many movies buried under a film that was realeased right about the same time,... Star Wars.

The film that Robert Shaw finally starred in, that got both critical and box office success in America was "Black Sunday" Though Jaws had been a huge success, the biggest of them all, Shaw had only been a co-star in that one. In other films he starred in he got great critical acclaim from America, but never big box office reciepts. The closest he came was "A Man For All Seasons", which had been considered a success in America, even won best picture at the oscars, but again his part was not a starring one. The film was not a huge financial success either.
Americans were, at the time, more interested in watching The Beverly Hillbillies. In Black Sunday he got top billing. And he was sensational in it. Not surprisingly he also helped write the script, and as usual was not given billing for it. With our current rise in world terrorism, Black Sunday holds up even better today than when it was released. It is a masterly crafted Crime Drama that has one of the most intense endings ever filmed. It was Shaw's finest hour. He had proven Otto Preminger wrong.

With his work he was happy, but at home he was a depressed recluse. The death of his wife Mary had caused the nightmares to return. It must have been tough to lose his father and wife in such similar fashions. He would wake up screaming and crying and insist that his children sleep with him so that he wouldn't wake up alone. Friends and co-workers could see the toll her death was taking on him. It was all over his face and eyes. And then after he made Black Sunday a wonderful thing happened. Robert Shaw fell in love again. Her name was Virginia Jansen and she had been Shaw's secretray for years. Once Robert became alone again he ended up falling in love with the woman he was closest to. At first she didn't want to get married but she finally relented to his persistent proposals and the two were wed on July 29th 1976.

Robert was not a fan of his next film. He didn't hate it, but he and his costar Eli Wallach found the plot to be shallow. The movie was doomed from the beginning in my opinion because since both Peter Benchley and Robert Shaw were both involved in it, if it didn't have as much impact as Jaws had, the word would get around that it was not as good and it would not sell tickets. Which is precisely what happened. "The Deep" despite it's flaws was not that bad of a movie though. It did make money but the critics were cruel to it, but they did however single out Shaw as a saving grace for the film. It was another one of those films that Robert did for the money. And he had decided that since Mary died, and life was indeed short, he would continue taking films that offered the most money so that he could provide for his 10 children in case of his early demise. The taxes of where he chose to live were killing him financially.

Robert Shaw's next film would be the same kind of situation. He was doing it for the money. He was a big box office draw still and some producers were willing to pay high wages for his work now. "Force Ten From Navarone" was what Robert liked to refer to as 'a genuine peice of sh*t.' he was often complaining on the set that he should be at home writing instead of being involved with this terrible film. The script was an obvious rip-off of it's predecessor, Guns Of Navarone. Shaw hated it. The film managed to do pretty good in theatres though. Sadly, Robert Shaw was becoming, in his own mind, the English Elvis in America. He was making money at an art, but restricted with material that he despised. It wasn't long before he retreated back to the typewriter to work on his next novel.

His final film, "Avalanche Express" was the kind of film Shaw liked making. It was considered a sure success by all involved. Unfortunately it was never really finished. Robert Shaw died before the film had been completed. He was driving with his wife Virginia when he felt chest pains and pulled the car over. He told her it was nothing and that he should probably just walk it off. He got out of the car, walked about 4 or 5 steps, and fell to the ground. He was dead 15 minutes later. Thousands of letters and telegrams from the world's biggest stars arrived at Virginia's home within the next few days. Hundreds of townspeople came by and helped the family by throwing off the press whenever they could. Another actor was hired to dub over all of Robert Shaw's lines in his last movie. They didn't want the obvious difference between voices to show so they cut all of Shaw's audio out of the film. It's impossible to enjoy for just that very reason. Otherwise it would have been a pretty decent film. The kind of film that Shaw would have been happy to end his career with.

Robert Shaw lived a very full life, but I sometimes wonder how often he could have possibly sat back and relaxed long enough to enjoy it. His list of works, when you consider his short career, reads like the work of two men, not one. And although his novels were not the biggest sellers at the time, they all recieved success in both sales and critical acclaim. He was one of the most talented people that ever graced our planet. And his hard passion for work was what contributed to his early demise.

I don't want the world to forget this man. I don't want the world to forget what he accomplished. Without this man there wouldn't be James Bond. Without this man Jaws would have been called Gums. Without this man many great stories would have never been told. Genevieve Bujold, Shaw's co-star in the film Swashbuckler summed it up with an old cliche, "He was a great and unique character. They truely broke the mold when they made him."