Robert Shaw

Robert Shaw, the iconic star of Steven Spielberg's Jaws, comes boisterously to life in anup-close-and-personal biography that reveals the brilliant actor, esteemed playwright,prize-winning novelist, and loving and hard-living family man as never before.Robert Shaw unforgettably commanded attention as the weathered seaman Captain Quint in theblockbuster sensation, Jaws. But what came before and after that landmark film is as dramatic as the huntfor the great white shark itself.Capturing the many facets of the vibrant, generous, and sometimes polarizing man is his nephew,Christopher, who explores the forces that shaped a dynamic personalityincluding Robert's indomitablemother, his deeply troubled father, and his activist sister, Joanna, with whom Robert shared anunbreakable bond. Out of the traumatic events of their childhood in the Orkney Islands and Cornwall,Mrs. Shaw pushed her children to pursue their dreams. For Robert, that dream was acting and writing.Despite a storied career on the British and American stageas both performer and playwrightand astring of hit films including From Russia with Love, A Man for All Seasons, The Sting, and The Taking ofPelham One Two Three, international celebrity eluded Robert . . . until he was summoned to star in ';alittle horror film' called Jaws.What happened on-screen was unforgettable. What happened off-screen was chaos. Now ChristopherShaw Myers reveals the true story of the making of the classic. Jaws would become both an artisticsuccess and a worldwide triumph for Robert Shaw. Tragically, for a man shadowed by his father'sdemons, it would also signal the beginning of the end.Drawing on family recollections, personal letters, scrapbooks, recordings, extensive interviews, and alifetime of his own memories, Christopher paints a unique, intimate, and honest portrait of a man he wasproud to call his uncle.