- Born
- Died
- Height6′ 2″ (1.88 m)
- The Anglo-Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925, acquired a reputation as the greatest dramatist in the English language during the first half of the 20th Century for the plays he had written at the height of his creativity from "Mrs. Warren's Profession" in 1893 to "The Apple Cart" in 1929. His works have been revived on Broadway from 1894 to 2010. His most famous work in the 21st Century is My Fair Lady (1964), the musical adaptation of Pygmalion (1938).
A Shavian drama (his reputation was so great, he had his own adjective ascribed to his works) had a biting social critique leavened by humor. According to his Nobel Prize citation, "His ideas were those of a somewhat abstract logical radicalism; hence they were far from new, but they received from him a new definiteness and brilliance. In him these ideas combined with a ready wit, a complete absence of respect for any kind of convention, and the merriest humor - all gathered together in an extravagance which has scarcely ever before appeared in literature."
He was a major international celebrity and a force in British politics, being a charter member of the Fabian Society. The Fabians were committed to democratic socialism, that is, using parliamentary mechanisms to encourage a gradual adoption of socialist policies through political reform rather than revolution.
- IMDb mini biography by: Jon C. Hopwood
- SpouseCharlotte Payne-Townshend(June 1, 1898 - September 12, 1943) (her death)
- Shaw and his wife were vacationing at an English seaside resort when someone told them that Harpo Marx was nude-sunbathing, down on the beach. Shaw and his wife immediately went to the beach and surprised Marx in the act. This began their long friendship.
- First person to receive a Nobel Prize and an Oscar (Pygmalion (1938)). When songwriter Bob Dylan won the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature, he became the second person.
- 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.
- It is a common joke among fans of the Board Game "Trivial Pursuit" that "When in doubt, the answer is George Bernard Shaw!".
- Appears on sleeve of The Beatles' "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club".
- He who can, does. He who cannot teaches.
- The golden rule is that there are no golden rules.
- I'm only a beer teetotaller, not a champagne teetotaller.
- Nothing is ever done in this world until men are prepared to kill one another if it is not done.
- There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart's desire. The other is to get it.
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