‘The Sting’ turns 50: Robert Shaw stole the picture from Paul Newman and Robert Redford

Susan King
·6 min read
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Moms loved actor Robert Shaw. He wasn’t traditionally handsome, but he was sexy with his piercing blue eyes and forceful British accent. There was a gravatas to his performances, a danger that was appealing to women of a certain age. And he knew how to make an entrance on the big screen. Who could forget his introduction as the fanatical shark hunter Quint in the 1975 blockbuster “Jaws” when he runs his fingernails down the blackboard. He was the bad boy of many a mother’s dreams in the 1970s.

Let’s face it, they don’t make them like Shaw anymore.  In its 1978 obit of the British actor, the Washington Post declared him as “one of the most forceful and successful character actors on the contemporary English-speaking screen.” He was also a true renaissance man having written five novels and three plays. He was writing his sixth novel when he died of a heart attack at the age of 51 near the family’s home in Tourmakedy, County Mayo in Ireland. In an interview before his death, Shaw noted that “I found acting much easier than writing, but writing is more important to me. I think as I get older, I’d rather write, but acting is so much more profitable.”

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Though he had been in movies since the 1950s, Shaw first gained international attention in the 1963 James Bond classic “From Russia with Love” as Red Grant, the hulking assassin with platinum hair who is determined to kill Sean Connery’s 007. And three years later, he played the larger-than-life Henry VIII in Fred Zinnemann’s multi-Oscar-winning 1966 “A Man for All Seasons,” for which he earned a supporting actor Oscar nomination.

But the role that changed his career was that of the gimpy Irish mobster Doyle Lonnegan who is outconned by Paul Newman and Robert Redford in the multi-Oscar-winning “The Sting,” which opened Christmas Day 50 years ago. According to TCM.com “Shaw’s performance as the barely contained Lonnegan was a terrific counterpoint to Newman’s devil-may-care turn as expert con artist Henry Gondorff, which was perfectly exemplified in card game where Lonnegan is ou-cheated by Gondorff.”

The following year, he played criminal mastermind Mr. Blue in the hit thriller “Taking of Pelham One Two Three.” But Shaw gave his most indelible performance as Quint in Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster “Jaws,” especially in his riveting monologue of the shark attacks on the survivors of the U.S.S. Indianapolis during World War II.

Spielberg recalled in the Washington Post obit that “Mr. Shaw’s first reading of Quint’s speech, which the actor helped rewrite, devastated the set.” Ironically “the effect was so overwhelming that it threatened to capsize everyone prematurely. We had to do it again, with more restraint. In terms of the finished film, the reading was better because Bob was imposing more controls on his emotions.”

Born Aug. 9, 1927, in Westhoughton, Shaw grew up in Cornwall and the Orkney Islands. As a youth, he was quite the sportsman excelling in rugby, squash and track. Though he had a scholarship to Cambridge, he decided to go to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London in 1945. After graduating, he performed at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford-on-Avon and the Old Vic. Some of his most successful performances in London’s West End were “Tiger at the Gates” in 1956 and 1959’s “The Long and the Short and the Tall.” That same year saw the publication of his first novel, “The Hiding Place.”

He had an uncredited appearance in 1951’s “The Lavender Hill Mob” and made his official debut in 1955’s “The Damn Busters.” One of his best and underrated films was the 1964 Canadian drama “The Luck of Ginger Coffey,” in which he starred with his second wife Mary Ure and directed by Irvin Kershner.

He adapted his novel “The Man in the Glass Booth” into a play which premiered on Broadway in 1968 directed by Harold Pinter and starring Donald Pleasance. The play received three Tony nominations for best play, director and actor. He starred in the 1970 musical version of “Elmer Gantry” titled, “Elmer,” which opened and closed on the same night on Broadway. The following year, Shaw, Ure and Rosemary Harris starred in the acclaimed production of Pinter’s “Old Friends.” And the same year as “Jaws,” the film version of “The Man in the Glass Booth” was also released with Maximilian Schell earning a best actor Oscar nomination.

Married three times, Shaw had 10 children; his actor son Ian recently starred in and co-wrote the acclaimed Broadway production of “The Shark is Broken” about the making of “Jaws.” Shaw admitted to Clark Taylor in the Washington Post that he didn’t choose roles just to make money “But I do seem to spend more than I earn. And it takes a lot of money to raise these children of mine. I wake up in the middle of the night, frequently in pain and humiliation and a great deal of shame at some of the work I’ve done in films. And I would do a good movie any day, regardless of the money. Unfortunately, there aren’t many, and…if you are not successful now and again, nobody asks you to be in any movies at all.” His last films were 1978’s “Force 10 From Navarone” and “Avalanche Express” which was released in 1979. Neither were critical or commercial successes.

Shaw bought a 150-year-old mansion in 1975 that was near a lake in Tourmakeady, Ireland and made a home there with his wife and most of his children. The Washington Post noted that according to his friends, Shaw described the location as “the nearest point on earth to heaven. And when I go, I hope it will be from here.” And Shaw got his wish.

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