- Born
- Height5′ 8½″ (1.74 m)
- One of England's most popular actors for more than four decades, Martin Shaw is noted for his versatility. He has featured in over 100 TV roles, his long TV career beginning in 1967 with the television episode Love on the Dole (1967). He achieved genuine stardom with The Professionals (1977), generally seen, along with The Sweeney (1975), as one of the two classic British action series to be spawned from the 1970s. Before that, Mr. Shaw had always been careful to be very different in each of his roles to avoid being typecast, and to spend long periods in the theatre.
His theatrical career has been very distinguished, with a string of West End successes, beginning in 1967 with the first revival of "Look Back in Anger" and most recently on Broadway as Lord Goring in "An Ideal Husband" which won him a Tony nomination and a Drama Desk award for Best Actor. The Professionals was an international hit, and brought him offers of similar roles. Never one to take the obvious route, Shaw refused them all, including the American series The Equalizer (1985), preferring variety of work to riches.
A rare television flop for Shaw was Rhodes (1996), a quickly forgotten mini-series about the highly controversial British imperialist Cecil Rhodes. Later projects have included a hospital drama, Always and Everyone (1999) from Granada, in which he plays consultant Robert Kingsford, and playing Adam Dalgliesh in the BBC adaptations of P.D. James's novels Death in Holy Orders (2003) and The Murder Room (2004).
He works almost exclusively in England, where he lives in a beautiful Quaker house in Norfolk, once owned by an ancestor of Abraham Lincoln. He is a pilot, and owns and flies a vintage biplane, a Boeing Stearman. Reticent about his private life, he dislikes interviews, and has little respect for the press.- IMDb mini biography by: Anonymous - He worked in a chemical company before entering LAMDA He now lives in Norfolk with his wife, actress Jill Allen who he married at 22 and had 3 children Joe ,Luker and Sophie who are all actors, His second wife who he married in 1982 as an alternative therapist and his third, Vicky Kimm is a television presenter.- IMDb mini biography by: Tonyman 5
- SpousesVicki Kimm(1996 - ?) (divorced)Mary Mandsfield(1985 - ?) (divorced)Jill Allen(1968 - ?) (divorced, 3 children)
- Children
- Shaw is patron of the Hillside Animal Sanctuary at Frettenham, Norfolk, England. This was founded in 1995 to help and campaign for animals in need and to bring public awareness to the millions of animals suffering every day in the intensive factory farming industry.
- The episode of The New Avengers (1976) in which he appeared was the first time he and Lewis Collins starred together. They later went on to star in the The Professionals (1977).
- Turned down an offer to audition for the role of James Bond in the late 1970s.
- Has a negative opinion of the British press.
- Although TV is exhausting, the longest performance you do there is about two minutes, and that's your whole performance, then you have a break and then you do another two minutes. Sustaining something for two hours, as you must in theatre - that's when it becomes an art form, this is when you become someone like a ballet dancer or a pianist or painter, where a lifelong training and experience is brought to the fore. So if I'm not going to dishonour and disenfranchise 45 years of work, I need to come back to the theatre whenever I can.
- With TV and films - but TV especially because of the economic pressure - it is always about acting your first idea. Almost invariably the script will have been horrid too, because TV writers write under pressure, they don't have the luxury like a playwright of bringing something up and polishing it and honing it. They just dash it off.
- I was an instant convert to hippiedom. I loved kaftans, long hair, crushed velvet, flared jeans, all of that stuff! And Bob Dylan, of course. I bought a guitar and learned all the songs - I even had a wire frame with a mouth organ on it to do the whole Dylan shtick. All the protests, all that stuff. I didn't go on the marches myself, though. I was probably too stoned to make my way there.
- [on Inspector George Gently (2007)] Every single day on the series takes me back to that time. And I'm one of the few people on the set who can actually remember it. I was there. I'm like an unofficial consultant on the series - whenever they're wondering whether people actually used a certain phrase, or acted in a certain way back then, they ask me.
- The day before an opening night I'm almost physically sick and wish I was on another planet. I have fantasies about cancelling it - the theatre could burn down, they could change their minds and I'd be free! Just before the curtain goes up, I wonder why I do this to myself.
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