Robert Shaw: The Price of Success

the two bios on Robert Shaw, there is a real person. Both books should be read, but unfortunately "More Than A Life" is very hard to find and quite dear when you do. I was lucky enough to get both books.French present Shaw warts and all, so to speak. The family disapproves of this book possibly because Shaw is presented as only an Agent can do. Actors often hide things from their families that they dump all over an agent. A trusted agent often becomes a kind of sounding board and the more wretched parts of an actor's personality is shown to him but not the family.The other book is also a good read, possibly "cleaned up" a bit as the author never met Shaw that I know of.French writes first hand, but puts himself in the third person so that the book isn't a litany of "I".A fascinating actor and a fascinating life, sadly often unfulfilled. He wanted the stars, reached for the galaxy and got merely part of the earth. He was determined to be A Star, a leading man, but he was not leading man material at that time. He simply wasn't "pretty" enough for the 60's and 70's male lead type. Today, however, he'd fit right in.What is not often known, is that Shaw was a very good writer. Possibly could have been Pulizer winning but he tended to sloth off on his writing.Like many good actors, he needed a strong "Director" to keep him on track.His life stopped at age 51 leaving one to wonder at what he could have accomplished if he had lived into older years and drawn on the wisdom that comes with mellowing.But between Spielberg and Shaw we have the one of the more fascinating characters on film - Quint.

Well written, full of interesting anecdotes.

I’ve been captivated by Robert Shaw ever since I was a teenager when I realized that the guy who played Red Grant in From Russia With Love was Quint from Jaws, and being shocked that the films were only 12 or 13 years apart, in how much he had aged. Robert Shaw had a face cut from granite and a physical magnetism that jumped off screen and commanded your attention; he was a scene stealer who added depth and dimension to his roles and the films he was in.While this book did shed a lot of insight into the tortured soul of one of my favorite actors, it was clearly written from a place of personal bias, the author having been Shaw’s fired agent, and God forbid someone who doesn’t like me write a tell-all about my life.(And as for the writing itself, the editor should have been publicly shamed and pelted with rotten vegetables by toothless Medieval English peasants for the poor job they did, as noted by many other reviewers. The ending from a literary perspective is just horrible.)Shaw definitely had his demons, but he was portrayed often in an almost-cartoonishly negative and even pitiful light by John French, including his post-Jaws career being defined by “six failures, if not disasters.” I cry foul there - while not a massive success, Black Sunday grossed double its budget and is widely looked back upon as a good 70s thriller, and Robin and Marian was a gem that has aged well and Shaw offers the most nuanced portrayal of the Sheriff of Nottingham that I’ve seen, giving a performance that only he could have - making the guy menacing and sympathetic at once; the fight scene between him and Connery was a worthy follow up to their other one in From Russia With Love.Taking of Pelham 1,2,3 is an iconic film with an incredible score by David Shire, capturing NYC in its gritty heyday - probably one of the best heist movies ever - that influenced the likes of Tarantino and inspired a remake that didn’t hold a candle to the original. Granted it was before Jaws, but I feel the need to give context, as the author describes the film as being unsuccessful and grounds for Shaw’s disappointment - total bollocks.In the end, I am glad I read this book - in addition to the YouTube interviews of Robert Shaw on the Dick Cavett Show, it did reveal a lot about the man I was fascinated by - and while there seems no denying that he was in many ways a real bastard, he was clearly an exceptional human being, and it reminds me that people are flawed and complex, and of the need to “separate the art from the artist.”

Robert Shaw comes to vibrant life in all his splendor in this fine, in depth biography of the man who was both a great actor & fine writer. A highly enjoyable read!

Difficult to read for my very senior eyes.

Fantastic book with detailed insight into the movie making business and the difficulties encountered by actors. Quick read-- excellently written. Highly recommend.

This is a biography of the actor (Jaws, From Russia with Love, etc.), playwright, novelist and sometime singer Robert Shaw. Unfortunately, I got the last copy, but I recommend hunting this volume down if you're interested in Shaw. Highly underrated for most of his life, his work was truly art and his quirky personality makes for good storytelling, at which French more often than not succeeds. Fans of his acting will be surprised to find out some of the well-researched factoids about this jack-of-all-trades. The reader will be surprised at how well French demonstrates that Shaw's short life was exciting, yet nearly wasted. (There is another bio of Shaw, "Robert Shaw: More Than a Life" by Georg Gaston.)

Je pense que certaines choses révélées dans ce livre n'auraient pas dû être écrites car cela tâche l'image de cet acteur hors normes. Il n'était certes pas 'parfait' mais je trouve que pour sa famille lire par exemple qu'il aurait frappé Mary Ure la veille de son décès me choque profondément. Et puis s'avancer comme une certitude vraie sur certains sujets notamment ses motivations 'cachées' pour son 3e mariage ne peuvent être connues, il n'en a pas discuté avec quiconque.Dans l'ensemble je trouve cette dissection de la vie privée de Shaw d'un goût assez douteux.

I have always been a huge fan of Robert Shaw but didn't know much about him as a man. This book reveals him as a highly complex and contradictory character. He clearly had huge talent and intelligence as a writer, as well as his great ability as an actor, but had a self-destructive drive. The later parts of the book detail his chronic alcoholism and make fascinating reading; having seen Force Ten From Navarone several times and enjoyed it (it was the first film I ever saw at the pictures - I read in the book that it was viewed as a very poor film) I was amazed to read that Shaw was drunk throughout the weeks of filming but I for one couldn't tell!Well worth a read if you're a fan of Robert Shaw and/or the film and theatre industries in the 60s and 70s.

What if such a man had survived his demons what resurgence he might have known in later years as young directors might have brought still the best of him. A tragic story from the inside a brand new perspective on a movie icon!

A book I enjoyed, but understand many will not enjoy the book as I did, due to the author and to Robert Shaw the personality.I think most people will agree he was quite a difficult person, aggressive, rude, arrogant, he could have been a major star, but bad choices, bad attitude, large ego, and of course a rough personality, I am sure he lost good film roles, as he wanted his name first above the title.The book shows very strongly timing, choices, decisions, attitude, drinking, relationships, money problems, even in the last few years, made more money, but spent more, and bad choices of films roles, not one successful film after Jaws.Robert Shaw was a talented and celebrated actor and an Oscar-nominated star in movies like From Russia with Love, A Man For All Seasons, The Sting and - most memorably of all - as Quint in the record-breaking Jaws, his best role.His breakthrough came when Hollywood was experiencing something of a British Invasion. Sean Connery, Peter O'Toole, Vanessa Redgrave and Richard Burton were among the new stars. But Shaw was arguably more talented than any, a figure of extraordinary and wide-ranging promise. More than just a mesmerising actor on stage and screen, he was also a gifted writer. He wrote no less than six published novels (winning the Hawthornden Prize), while his plays include the acclaimed Man in The Glass Booth. The flipside to Shaw's diverse abilities was his well-earned reputation as a hellraiser.A fiercely competitive man in all areas of his life, whether playing table tennis or drinking whisky, he emptied mini-bars, crashed Aston Martins, fathered nine children by three different women, made (and spent) a fortune, and set fire to Orson Welles' house. He died at 51, having driven himself too hard, too fast, but unable to get over his father's suicide when Shaw was just 11.John French, Shaw's biographer, knew him well, as he was his agent in the later years of Shaw's life, professionally and personally. Robert Shaw: The Price of Success is a perceptive, sympathetic, but unsparing portrait of the blessings and curses endowing this mercurial, enigmatic and deeply engaging man, also a tormented character, aggressive and a wild personality and a drinker.This edition features a new foreword written by Richard Dreyfuss.

The author seems to hold a grudge against Robert Shaw, the book is certainly filled with bitterness. It also contains several basic mistakes about his films and his books, as well as huge typos. It is a rather shallow study of the man, the actor and the writer. Several passages of the book just feel like a list of the movies he made, how much he was paid for them and what it meant in terms of taxes.It is moderately interesting for true fans, but only AFTER having read the far superior biography “More than a life” by Karen Carmean and Georg Gaston.This book by John French is unfortunately far easier to acquire, and I’m sorry to see so many people believing it to be an accurate Shaw biography and having a bad opinion of this late great man because of it. Some of his daughters reportedly complained that the book was “full of lies”, I would advise anyone reading it to take everything it contains with a grain of salt.All in all, it can be interesting for fans. But for anyone who is just interested in Robert Shaw and wants to know more about him, I would advise to avoid this book completely and try to find “More than A Life”. There is also a very good Irish documentary on YouTube with interviews of his widow and several of his children.