George Bernard Shaw - Biography

Last Editor: sweethoney4u125				George Bernard Shaw Biography -   Name : George Bernard Shaw Profession : Irish playwright and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature Date of birth : 26 July 1856 Place of birth : Dublin, Ireland Date of death : 2 November 1950 Place of death : Ayot St. Lawrence, Hertfordshire, England, UK. (injuries received after falling from a ladder ) Height : 6' 2" (1.88 m)

George Bernard Shaw Trivia -

Died from injuries received after falling from a ladder while he was trimming a tree on his estate. Born at 12:30am-LMT Nobel Prize for Literature 1925 Only person to receive a Nobel Prize and an Oscar( Pygmalion (1938)). Appears on sleeve of The Beatles' "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Is the great uncle of author, actor and filmmaker Scott Shaw. Until 1938, film versions of his plays were either unauthorized by him or had not met with his approval. He supervised, wrote the screenplays for, and had creative control over three film versions of his plays-- the 1938 "Pygmalion", the 1941 "Major Barbara", and the 1945 "Caesar and Cleopatra". He agreed to cut some of the dialogue for the 1938 "Pygmalion", and it turned out to be the most cinematic of the three films that he was involved with, but he added entire scenes to "Major Barbara" while becoming more sensitive to the idea of having to cut his dialogue, and "Caesar and Cleopatra" was filmed intact, with only minor additions. "Caesar and Cleopatra" was the first authorized film of a Shaw play to receive some harsh criticism, but it has become a classic since its original release. When his house at Ayot St Lawrence became a museum his Oscar statuette was so tarnished the curator, believing it had no value, used it as a door stop.

George Bernard Shaw Detailed Biography -

G. Bernard Shaw (he hated the "George", which was his father's first name, and never used it, either personally or professionally) (July 26, 1856 – November 2, 1950) was an Irish playwright and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925. After those of William Shakespeare, Shaw's plays are some of the most widely produced in English language theatre. Born at 33 Synge Street in Dublin, Ireland to rather poor Church of Ireland parents, Bernard Shaw was educated at Wesley College, Dublin and moved to London during the 1870s to embark on his literary career. He wrote five novels, none of which were published, before finding his first success as a music critic on the Star newspaper. He wrote his music criticism under the pseudonym Corno di Bassetto. In the meantime he had become involved in politics, and served as a local councillor in the St Pancras district of London for several years from 1897. He was a noted socialist who took a leading role in the Fabian Society. In 1895, Shaw became the drama critic of the Saturday Review, and this was the first step in his progress towards a lifetime's work as a dramatist. In 1898, he married an Irish heiress, Charlotte Payne-Townshend. His first successful play, Candida, was produced in the same year. He followed this up with a series of classic comedy-dramas, including The Devil's Disciple (1897), Arms and the Man (1898), Mrs Warren's Profession (1898), Captain Brassbound's Conversion (1900), Man and Superman (1903), Caesar and Cleopatra (1901), Major Barbara (1905), Androcles and the Lion (1912), and Pygmalion (1913). After World War I, during which he was a staunch pacifist, he produced more serious dramas, including Heartbreak House (1919) and Saint Joan (1923). A characteristic of Shaw's published plays is the lengthy prefaces that accompany them. In these essays, Shaw wrote more about his usually controversial opinions on the issues touched by the plays than about the plays themselves. Some prefaces are much longer than the actual play. The political turmoil in his native country did not leave him untouched. Shaw campaigned against the executions of the rebel leaders of the Easter Rising, and he became a personal friend of the Cork-born IRA leader Michael Collins, whom he invited to his home for dinner while Collins was negotiating the Anglo-Irish Treaty with Lloyd-George in London. After Collins's assassination in 1922, Shaw sent a personal message of condolence to one of Collins's sisters. Shaw's correspondence with Mrs Patrick Campbell was adapted for the stage by Jerome Kilty as DEAR LIAR: A Comedy of Letters. His letters to another prominent actress, Ellen Terry, have also been published and dramatised. By the time of his death, Shaw was not only a household name in Britain, but a world figure. His ironic wit endowed the language with the adjective "Shavian" to refer to such clever observations as "England and America are two countries divided by a common language." Concerned about the inconsistency of English spelling, he willed a portion of his wealth to fund the creation of a new phonemic alphabet for the English language. On his death bed, he did not have much money to leave so no effort was made to start such a project. However, his estate began to earn significant royalties from the rights to Pygmalion when My Fair Lady, a musical adapted from the play by his comrade film producer Gabriel Pascal, became a hit. It then became clear that the will was so badly worded that the relatives had grounds to challenge the will, and in the end an-out-of-court settlement granted only a small portion of the money to promoting a new alphabet. This became known as the Shavian alphabet. The National Gallery of Ireland also received a substantial donation. Shaw had a long time friendship with G. K. Chesterton, the Catholic-convert British writer, and there are many humorous stories about their complicated relationship. Another great friend was the composer Edward Elgar. Shaw is the only person ever to have won both a Nobel Prize (for Literature in 1925) and an Academy Award (Best Screenplay for Pygmalion in 1938). From 1906 until his death in 1950 at the age of 94 from natural causes, Shaw lived at Shaw's Corner in the small village of Ayot St Lawrence, Hertfordshire. The house is now a National Trust property, open to the public. The Shaw Theatre, Euston Road, London was opened in 1971 to honour G.B. Shaw. The Shaw Festival, an annual theater festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, began as an eight week run of Don Juan in Hell and Candida in 1962 and has grown into an annual festival with over 800 performances a year, dedicated to producing the works of Shaw and his contemporaries.