Robert Shaw (August 9, 1927 – August 28, 1978) was an English stage and film actor and writer.

Robert Shaw (left) as Mallory in ‘Force 10 From Navarone’.

Shaw’s best-known film performances include a turn as the dangerous enemy secret agent Red Grant in the James Bond film From Russia with Love (1963); the relentless panzer officer Colonel Hessler in Battle of the Bulge (1965); a young Henry VIII in A Man for All Seasons (1966); Lord Randolph Churchill, in Young Winston (1972); the ruthless mobster Doyle Lonnegan in The Sting (1973); and the bombastic, obsessed shark fisherman Quint in Jaws (1975). Shaw contributed to the script of Jaws as well as acting in the film, having written the memorable USS Indianapolis speech given by Quint.

Shaw was nominated for the Golden Globe Award and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in A Man for All Seasons.

He performed on stage as well, both in Britain and on Broadway, where his notable performances include ‘Harold Pinter’s Old Times’ and ‘The Caretaker’, Friedrich Duerrenmatt’s ‘The Physicists’ directed by Peter Brooks, and ‘The Man in the Glass Booth’, inspired by the abduction and trial of Adolf Eichmann, written by Shaw himself, and directed by Pinter.

In addition to his acting career, Shaw was also an accomplished writer of novels, plays and screenplays. His first novel, The Hiding Place, published in 1960, met with positive reviews. His next, The Sun Doctor, published the following year, was awarded the Hawthornden Prize in 1962.

Shaw then embarked on a trilogy of novels – The Flag (1965), The Man in the Glass Booth (1967) and A Card from Morocco (1969); it was his adaptation for the stage of The Man in the Glass Booth which gained for Shaw’s writing the most attention. The book and play present a complex and morally ambiguous tale of a man who, at various times in the story, is either a Jewish businessman pretending to be a Nazi war criminal, or a Nazi war criminal pretending to be a Jewish businessman. The play was quite controversial when performed in the US and the UK, some critics praising Shaw’s sly, deft, and complex examination of the moral issues of nationality and identity, others sharply criticizing Shaw’s treatment of such a sensitive subject. The Man in the Glass Booth was further developed for the screen, but Shaw disapproved of the resulting film and had his name removed from the credits.