Sebastian Shaw

Actor

May 29, 1905 (89 years)

† December 23, 1994

Holt, Norfolk, England, UK

Biography

Sebastian Lewis Shaw was an English actor, director, novelist, playwright and poet. During his 65-year career, he appeared in dozens of stage performances and more than 40 film and television productions. Shaw was born and brought up in Holt, Norfolk, and made his acting debut at age eight at a London theatre. He studied acting at Gresham's School and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Although he worked primarily on the London stage, he made his Broadway debut in 1929, when he played one of the…

Filmography

6.2

Casualty

Charles Howlett

Drama series about the staff and patients at Holby City Hospital's emergency department, charting the ups and downs in their personal and professional lives.

7.1

Rumpole of the Bailey

Mr. Justice Skelton

Rumpole of the Bailey is a British television series created and written by the British writer and barrister John Mortimer. It stars Leo McKern as Horace Rumpole, an aging London barrister who defends any and all clients, and has been spun off into a series of short stories, novels, and radio programmes.

7.0

Playhouse

Crusty Old Party

A one-hour anthology television series of one-off contemporary and classic dramas produced by the BBC.

7.2

Theatre 625

Theatre 625 is a British television drama anthology series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC2 from 1964 to 1968. It was one of the first regular programmes in the line-up of the channel, and the title referred to its production and transmission being in the higher-definition 625-line format, which only BBC2 used at the time.

4.2

Thirty-Minute Theatre

The Judge

An anthology of short plays shown on BBC Television between 1965 and 1973, used in part at least as a training ground for new writers, on account of its short length, and which therefore attracted many writers who later became well known.

7.9

Return of the Jedi

Anakin Skywalker

Luke Skywalker leads a mission to rescue his friend Han Solo from the clutches of Jabba the Hutt, the Emperor prepares to crush the Rebellion with a more powerful Death Star, and the Rebel fleet mounts a massive attack on the space station. Luke Skywalker confronts Darth Vader in a final climactic duel before the evil Emperor.

7.0

BBC2 Play of the Week

Carl Fiodorich

An anthology of plays and novels adapted into feature length TV movies, broadcast on BBC2 from September 1977 to April 1979.

7.1

Out of the Unknown

Major Gregory

Out of the Unknown is a British television science fiction anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and broadcast on BBC2 in four series between 1965 and 1971. Each episode was a dramatisation of a science fiction short story; some were created for the series, but most were adaptations of already published stories. The first three years were exclusively science fiction, but that genre was abandoned in the final year in favour of horror and fantasy. A number of episodes were wiped during the early 1970s, as was standard procedure at the time.

7.0

Reilly: Ace of Spies

Reverend Thomas

Reilly, Ace of Spies is a 1983 television miniseries dramatising the life of Sidney Reilly, a Russian Jew who became one of the greatest spies ever to work for the British. Among his exploits, in the early 20th-century, were the infiltration of the German General Staff in 1917 and a near-overthrow of the Bolsheviks in 1918. His reputation with women was as legendary as his genius for espionage.

8.3

The Great War

A milestone 26-part history of the First World War, conceived to mark the 50th anniversary of its outbreak.

7.5

The Old Curiosity Shop

Grandfather

The Old Curiosity Shop is a 1979 BBC miniseries based on the novel by Charles Dickens. It was directed by Julian Amyes, and adapted by William Trevor. A kindly shop owner whose overwhelming gambling debts allow a greedy landlord to seize his shop of dusty treasures. Evicted and with no way to pay his debts, he and his granddaughter flee.

8.0

Dead of Night

Powys Jubb

Dead of Night is a British television anthology of supernatural fiction, produced by the BBC and broadcast on BBC2 in 1972. It ran for a single series; of its seven 50-minute episodes, only three—'The Exorcism', 'Return Flight', and 'A Woman Sobbing'—are known to survive in the Archives. Another programme made by the same production team under Innes Lloyd, 'The Stone Tape', intended to be the eighth episode, does survive in the Archives but was not broadcast under the Dead of Night banner.

6.0

Chimera

Dr. Liawski

A journalist investigates the death of his girlfriend at a fertility clinic where she worked and uncovers a plot to create a new breed of human based on crossing the genetics of man and ape.

5.2

High Season

Sharp

On the isle of Rhodes, Katherine, an expatriate English photographer, lives with her daughter. A young local wants to encourage tourism, so he commissions a sculpture of the Unknown Tourist for the town square; the sculptor he brings to Rhodes is Kate's ex-husband. Also there to see Kate is Sharp, an aging antiquarian and her dear friend. He has something important to tell her. As Kate, her ex, and Sharp sort out things that go back years, two English tourists bumble about, one thinking he's fallen in love with Kate, his wife thinking she's found her own lover. A rare vase, a spy, old friendships, the statue's unveiling, and off-hand English sorting-out play into the resolution.

N/A

Monkey Boy

Dr. Liawski

Half man, half monkey, Chad was born in a lab and kept hidden from the world. A journalist, investigating a macabre mass-murder, discovers the mutant boy — a creature with the mind of a child and superhuman strength. But the reporter finds out the hard way that nothing, and nobody, can stand in the way of progress. (Re-titled for its American VHS release, "Monkey Boy" is an abbreviated film version of Lawrence Gordon Clark's 1991 mini-series "Chimera".)

7.2

The Story of Star Wars

Anakin Skywalker (archive footage)

The Skywalker family is at the heart of the Star Wars saga. Now hear the inside story of Luke and Anakin Skywalker from the characters who witnessed it all: the famous droid duo C-3PO and R2-D2. Episodes IV,V and VI are explored in "The Story of Luke Skywalker," which follows the young man escaping from his daily chores on Tatooine to his becoming a hero in the Rebal Alliance. In "The Story of Anakin Skywalker," you'll go behind the mask of the greatest Star Wars villain and discover how Darth Vader started life as a young Podracing Champ on Tatooine and later became a headstrong young Jedi seduced by the Dark Side of the Force. With clips from the Star Wars films, C-3PO and R2-D2 take you on an hour-long journey through the saga and prepare you for the explosive final chapter: Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith.

6.5

The Spy in Black

Ashington

A German submarine is sent to the Orkney Isles in 1917 to sink the British fleet.

5.8

Chernobyl: The Final Warning

Grandpa

True story about the tragic nuclear power plant accident in Chernobyl.

N/A

The Master Builder

Knut Brovik

Ibsen's play is the story of Halvard Solness, Master Builder of a town in Norway. Solness is a successful architect but he's afraid of the being surpassed by those younger than himself. The arrival of a young woman called Hilda stirs up memories and feelings with stories of a promise he made her many years ago.

6.3

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Quince

Peter Hall's film adaptation of Shakespeare's comedy, filmed in and around an English country house and starring actors from the Royal Shakespeare Company.