Bernard Shaw 1940–

Television news anchor and reporter

At a Glance…

Met Journalistic Idol

Hungry for International Experience

“Chicken Noodle Network”

From “The Center of Hell”

A Star Is Born

Sources

Television news anchor Bernard Shaw’s dispassionate manner, steady gaze, rich baritone voice, and crisply precise delivery virtually blend into the fabric of the news. In his twenty years as Cable News Network’s (CNN) principal Washington anchor, he has taken a serious approach to journalism and has been widely regarded for his belief that the messenger should not get in the way of the message. Before joining CNN, Shaw worked for two of the three national television networks, CBS and ABC. In a career spanning three decades, he has covered some of modern history’s most dramatic events: Watergate, the 1978 Jonestown mass suicide, the Nicaraguan Revolution, China’s Tiananmen Square student massacre, and American involvement in the Persian Gulf War. Widely regarded as the nation’s most powerful black television journalist, Shaw, retired from CNN in 2001 in order to pursue his interest in writing.

Shaw grew up during the years of World War II, the emergence of television, and the days that begat the baby boom. His father was a house painter, his mother cleaned other people’s homes, and they lived on the South Side of Chicago. But far from being isolated in the “wrong” part of town and at the wrong end of the economic spectrum, the family brought the world into their home. “In those days,” Shaw told Parade Magazine, “Chicago had four papers and we got all four every day.” Even in his teens, Shaw had an obsessive interest in the news. “My ritual on Sunday morning was to walk to a place called the Green Door bookstore near the University of Chicago, which was the closest place I could find the Sunday New York Times,” Shaw told New York magazine. Fourteen years old, paper cradled in his arms, the boy would plant himself in a coffee shop and read the paper all the way through.

But Shaw was not merely a spectator. He made announcements on:he school public address system, participated in radio amateur hours, and, while some teenagers of the 1950s may have been totally absorbed in the birth of rock ’n roll, Shaw found time to dial up newspaper and broctdcast reporters and pepper them with questions about story preparation and deadline pressures. Even in his youth, Shaw’s tastes in television programming ran toward the news and information genre: he used to watch the television news program Meet the Press religiously, and his hero was legendary journalist Edward R. Murrow. At 16, he personally witnessed his second Democratic convention—he had

At a Glance…

Born May 22, 1940, in Chicago, IL; son of Edgar (a railroad man and house painter) and Camilia (a housekeeper) Shaw; married Linda Allston, 1973; children: Amar Edgar, Anil Louise. Education: University of Illinois, 1963-66. Military Service: U.S. Marine Corps, 1959-63.

Career: Reporter, correspondent, and news anchor. WYNR/WNUS all-news radio, Chicago, IL, reporter and anchor, 1964-66; Westinghouse Broadcasting Company’s Group W, Chicago, reporter, 1966-68, White House correspondent, 1968-71; Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS-TV), reporter for Washington bureau, 1971-74, correspondent, 1974-77; American Broadcasting Companies (ABC-TV), Miami bureau chief and Latin American correspondent, 1977-79, senior Capitol Hill correspondent; Cable News Network (CNN), Washington D.C., news anchor, 1980-2001.

Member: Society of Professional Journalists (fellow); National Press Club; Sigma Delta Chi.

Awards: international Platform Association, Lowell Thomas Electronic Journalist Award, 1988; National Academy of Cable Programming, Award for Cable Excellence, 1988; Emmy Award, 1989; 32nd annual International Film and TV Festival of New York, gold medal, 1989; National Association of Black Journalists, annual award, 1989; George Foster Peabody Broadcasting Award, 1990; ACE Award, 1990; Bernard Shaw Endowment Fund created by University of Illinois, 1991; Eduard Rhein Foundation, Cultural-H/Journalistic Award, 1991.

Addresses: Office— CNN 820 1st St. NE, Washington D.C. 20002-4243 (202)898-7900.

managed to engineer his way into both the 1952 and 1956 conventions. Shaw told Time: “When I looked up at the anchor booths, I knew I was looking at the altar.”

Met Journalistic Idol

On the road to the “altar,” Shaw wangled another opportunity to speak to a journalist about his craft. It was 1961, the beginning of an era of political tensions between the U.S. and Soviet Union. Shaw was a 21-year-old corporal in the Marines stationed in Hawaii at the time, and Walter Cronkite, his other hero, was passing through. With the tenacity of youth—or perhaps that of a budding reporter—the corporal rang Cronkite’s room a total of 34 times. “He was the most persistent guy I’ve ever met in my life,” Cronkite said in the Washington Post, “I was going to give him five begrudging minutes and ended up talking to him for a half hour. He was just determined to be a journalist.” The two have been friends ever since.

In 1963, with four years of the marines behind him, and a new sense of maturity, Shaw entered the University of Illinois, choosing history as his major. His career in journalism officially began just a year later when he joined Chicago’s WNUS, one of the nation’s first all-news radio stations. He worked there as a reporter and anchor until 1966 when Westinghouse Broadcasting Company’s Group W offered him a job. He quit school, relocated to Washington, D.C, and, at 28, became a White House correspondent. In the five years with Westinghouse Shaw’s assignments included local and national urban affairs, and the struggles of Hispanics and Native Americans.

In 1971, Walter Cronkite helped Shaw land a job with CBS. Shaw started as a reporter for the CBS News Washington bureau and in three years became a correspondent. It was during this period that his career got a boost: he conducted an exclusive interview with then-attorney general John Mitchell. It was the height of the Watergate crisis and Mitchell, who was to be convicted for his role in the affair, was a major figure in the scandal. White House correspondent Shaw had pulled off a journalistic coup.

Hungry for International Experience

After nearly ten years of reporting from Capitol Hill, Shaw was restless. He was hungry for international experience. When ABC offered him the job of Miami bureau chief and Latin American correspondent, an impressive but less visible position, he grabbed it. “I pushed myself out the door,” Shaw told the New York Times.The three years he spent with ABC proved especially eventful.

Back at the bureau Shaw told a colleague that he felt very lucky to have gotten the Jonestown story, adding, as quoted in the Washington Post, “You always have luck when you hustle.” And, as if to confirm this philosophy, ABC chose Shaw to file special reports during the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis at the American embassy in Teheran. That led to Shaw’s return to Washington as ABC’s senior Capitol Hill correspondent.

1979 was a tumultuous year for personnel at ABC News. As a result, Shaw’s colleague, Washington bureau chief George Watson, left to help start CNN, a 24-hour, all-news cable network. Watson urged Shaw to follow him as the new network’s principal anchor. “I had been negotiating a new contract with ABC, but I was dissatisfied with the terms, so I started talking to [maverick broadcasting entrepreneur and CNN founder] Ted Turner,” Shaw told New York magazine. “The time period in which I was trying to decide, it seemed like agony to me. I’d only been married three years and our children were very small, and I couldn’t selfishly take that gamble by myself.” His worries were compounded by an economy in recession with double digit inflation. “It’s no exaggeration,” Shaw added, “I walked around the dining room for two weeks, talking to myself. My wife, Linda, would wake up around one in the morning and come downstairs. So, finally we just sat down at the dining room table and she said, ‘Okay, you should take the job, because if you don’t and CNN takes off, I won’t be able to live with you.’” Network bosses told Shaw it would ruin his career, but he disagreed. “I saw it as perhaps the last frontier on television,” he told the New York Times. “The first all-news TV network seemed like revolutionary stuff to me.”

“Chicken Noodle Network”

For three decades the rule of the Big Three had never been seriously challenged and, while they smugly claimed that no one else could pull together the resources to compete, Turner was telling Business Week, “The Turner broadcasting group is going to be the greatest business success story of all time.”

The so-called “Chicken Noodle Network” began broadcasting from its Atlanta headquarters on June 1, 1980. Using new satellite technology for live transmission, CNN’s staff of three hundred fresh faces drew on ceaseless energy to get the news out as it was happening, at any hour of the day or night. The cable network’s viewership rose and its presence began to be felt. But it wasn’t until 1987 that it achieved a contender’s rank. That status seemed to become official when Shaw’s became the fourth chair—joining those of CBS, NBC, and ABC—in a nationally televised interview with then U.S. president Ronald Reagan, held in the Oval Office on the eve of the summit with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. That event served to introduce CNN and Shaw to millions of non-cable viewers. Another nationally televised event only a few months later ingrained Shaw’s face and style into viewers’ minds. But not all liked what they saw.

In April of 1988 Shaw moderated the second presidential debate from Los Angeles. In his role, he seemed rough with the debate audience, warning them that he would tell them to keep quiet “only once.” And, in general, he was his usual serious self. But it was his opening questions to the two candidates that caused a stir. George Bush was asked if he would be worried about the country under President Dan Quayle’s leadership in the event Bush died before inauguration. Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis was asked if he would still be against the death penalty if someone “raped and murdered” his wife Kitty Dukakis. “I’ve heard the questions called ghoulish and tasteless,” Shaw told the Washington Post, “I spent more than a day and a half working on those two questions. They were not asked with trivia in mind.” It’s difficult to accuse Shaw of being trivial. “I hope I didn’t seem severe,” he added, “1 took the job seriously.”

The next couple of years drew Shaw into international news. He covered the 1988 Reagan-Gorbachev Moscow Summit; Presicent Bush’s first visit to Eastern Europe, and his participation in the 1989 Economic Summit in Paris; Japanese Emperor Hirohito’s funeral; and the 40th-anniversary North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Summit in Brussels. In May of 1989, Shaw received his biggest story yet: he provided 30 hours of continuous live coverage, worldwide, on the historic student demonstrations in Beijing, China. He was one of only two American anchors in Tiananmen Square when the Chinese government’s tanks rolled in and crushed the pro-democracy movement.

From “The Center of Hell”

Although Shaw initially expressed doubts about the probability of war between the United States and Iraq, four months later he admitted in Gentlemen’s Quarterly that this had been a “prediction grounded in hope.” In January of 1991, he was in Baghdad to interview Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein when history took a turn. On the 16th, just one day after the aborted interview, Shaw found himself stranded—along with CNN colleagues, Peter Arnett and John Holliman—in the enemy capital as the allied bombing attack launched the Gulf War. Shaw was one of the first reporters to announce to the world that the United States and its allies had gone to war, and CNN went on to provide continuous coverage for the conflict’s duration. Even after even; major newspaper had pulled out, after the Big Three’s phone lines were cut, and after CNN lost its picture transmission, the network was able to make live reports rrorn Baghdad via its secure phone line.

While the night sky was screaming with gunfire and air-raid warnings, the CNN trio crawled around the floor of their hotel room and delivered some of the most spellbinding audio reporting since Edward R. Murrow’s harrowing World War II accounts of the Nazi bombing of London. “By the time we stopped broadcasting to get some sleep,” Shaw toldParade Magazine, “I was so tired I was making no sense whatsoever. I was no sooner in bed and asleep when the bombing started again, and 1 stumbled down the hall in my pajamas to the suite where we broadcast and went back to work.” The experience unnerved the characteristi cally composed anchor. He announced: “Clearly I’ve never been there, but it feels like we are in the center of hell.”

CNN’s coverage was being cited by top Pentagon officials at press conferences while being eagerly viewed by Iraqi officials. CBS and NBC humbled themselves by asking the cable network’s reporters for interviews. Television coverage of the war belonged to CNN because it provided an uninterrupted flow of raw information. This process empowered the public: the viewer became the news editor. “We’ve been training for this story 24 hours a day for ten years,” CNN’s executive vice-president Ed Turner (no relation to Ted Turner) told the Chicago Tribune.Live wartime coverage from the center of enemy camp is unprecedented.

A Star Is Born

“Bernie” Shaw came back to the U.S. a star. But the kudos and popular attention seemed unprofessional and embarrassing to him. He was happy to be reunited with his family and had more private thoughts on his mind. “I came back from Baghdad a changed man,” he told theLos Angeles Times. “I looked death in the eyes. No human gets many chances to do that twice.”

The journey from the South Side of Chicago to Baghdad was a long one, but Shaw never wavered, and that could have been easy in the beginning. The 1950s had no “black Murrows” as role models for a poor, young black boy with dreams of broadcast journalism. “But I didn’t see Ed Murrow as white,” Shaw told the New York Times, “I saw him as a journalist.” Shaw knew that it was certainly possible that he’d encounter racism along the way, but he has said that he has never been a knowing victim of it in his career.

Although he has never experienced racism in his career, Shaw raised the issue of racial profiling at the vice-presidential debate. As moderator of the second presidential debate in 1988, Shaw had asked the candidates to imagine a situation and then explain how they would respond. Using this same tactic, Shaw asked vice-presidential hopefuls Joseph Lieberman and Dick Cheney to imagine themselves as victims of racial profiling. Whereas in 1988, Shaw was criticized for asking Michael Dukakis if he would reverse his position on the death penalty if his own wife was a victim of a brutal crime, in 2000 Shaw managed to bring an issue that, only a few years before very few had even heard of, into the national consciousness.

As CNN’s top anchor, Shaw stood at the helm of television’s news phenomenon: a 24-hour, all-news cable network. In his twenty years at CNN, he saw the network evolve from a long-shot endeavor known as the “Chicken Noodle Network” to become the top-ranked televison news network. But, in November of 2000, Shaw announced to viewers that he was resigning from CNN, saying that, while he hoped to return for the occasional special assignment, he wanted to spend more time with his family. He also planned to focus much of his time on writing fiction, essays, and a primer on journalism. He decided his first writing project, however, would be his autobiography, for, as he told Broadcasting & Cable, “If I don’t do it now, I’ll never get it done.”

In many ways, Shaw’s departure heralded the end of an era at CNN. A rogue network no longer, talks for an AOL-Time Warner merger began. With a new management team on board, the network also launched plans to experiment with new types of programming. With his final newscast on February 28, 2001, Shaw left the anchor seat he had worked so hard to earn. He told Jet, “Harder than entering this business is leaving it.”

Sources

Periodicals

Business Week, June 1980.

Business Wire, February 12, 2001.

Chicago Tribune, January 20, 1991.

Essence, November 1990.

Gentlemen’s Quarterly, May 1991.

Jet, November 27, 2000.

Los Angeles Times, April 11, 1991.

National Review, February 19, 2001.

New York, February 1991.

New York Times, February 2, 1988; March 20, 1988.

Parade Magazine, June 23, 1991.

Si.Louis Dispatch, March 2, 2001.

Time, February 22, 1988.

Variety, November 13, 2000.

Washington Post, June 22, 1991.

—Iva Sipal and Jennifer M. York

Bernard Shaw 1940–

Television news anchor and reporter

At a Glance…

Hungry for International Experience

Taking a Career Gamble

“Chicken Noodle Network”

From “The Center of Hell”

A Star Is Born

Sources

Television news anchor Bernard Shaw’s dispassionate manner, steady gaze, rich baritone voice, and crisply precise delivery virtually blend into the fabric of the news. As Cable News Network’s (CNN) principal Washington anchor, he takes a serious approach to journalism and is widely regarded for his belief that the messenger should not get in the way of the message. Shaw has worked for two of the three national television networks, CBS and ABC, and holds the number one anchor position at a number one ranked TV news network—the “fourth” network—CNN. In a career spanning three decades, he has covered some of modern history’s most dramatic events: Watergate (a political scandal that centered on the infiltration of Democratic party headquarters by Republicans during the 1972 presidential campaign), the 1978 Jonestown mass suicide, the Nicaraguan Revolution, China’s Tiananmen Square student massacre, and American involvement in the Persian Gulf War. As CNN’s top anchor, Shaw is at the helm of television’s news phenomenon: a 24-hour, all-news cable network that has arisen as a challenge to the three leading networks.

Shaw is one of the rare few who has realized his childhood dreams. He grew up during the years of World War II, the emergence of television, and the days that begat the baby boom. His father was a house painter, his mother cleaned other people’s homes, and they lived on the South Side of Chicago. But far from being isolated in the “wrong” part of town and at the wrong end of the economic spectrum, the family brought the world into their home. “In those days,” Shaw told Parade Magazine, “Chicago had four papers and we got all four every day.” Even in his teens, Shaw had an obsessive interest in the news. “My ritual on Sunday morning was to walk to a place called the Green Door bookstore near the University of Chicago, which was the closest place I could find the Sunday New York Times, ” Shaw told New York magazine. Fourteen years old, paper cradled in his arms, the boy would plant himself in a coffeeshop and read the paper all the way through. But Shaw was not merely a spectator. He made announcements on the school public address system, participated in radio amateur hours, and, while some teenagers of the 1950s may have been totally absorbed in the birth of rock ‘n roll, Shaw found time to dial up newspaper and broadcast reporters and pepper them with questions about story preparation and deadline

At a Glance…

Born May 22, 1940, in Chicago, IL; son of Edgar (a railroad man and house painter) and Camilia (a housekeeper; maiden name, Murphy) Shaw; married Linda Allston, 1973; children: Amar Edgar, Anil Louise. Education: Attended University of Illinois, 1963-66.

Reporter, correspondent, and news anchor. WYNR/WNUS all-news radio, Chicago, IL, reporter and anchor, 1964-66; Westinghouse Broadcasting Company’s Group W, Chicago, reporter, 1966-68, White House correspondent, 1968-71; Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS-TV), reporter for Washington bureau, 1971-74, correspondent, 1974-77; American Broadcasting Companies (ABC-TV), Miami bureau chief and Latin American correspondent, 1977-79, also ABC-News’ senior Capitol Hill correspondent; Cable News Network (CNN), Washington DC, news anchor, 1980—; one of three CNN Gulf War correspondents in Baghdad, 1991. Military service: U.S. Marine Corps, 1959-63.

Awards: International Platform Association’s Lowell Thomas Electronic Journalist Award, 1988; Award for Cable Excellence from the National Academy of Cable Programming, 1988; Emmy Award, 1989, for outstanding coverage of a single breaking news story; gold medal, 32nd annual International Film and TV Festival of New York, 1989; National Association of Black Journalists annual award, 1989; George Foster Peabody Broadcasting Award, 1990; ACE Award, 1990; Bernard Shaw Endowment Fund created by University of Illinois, 1991; Eduard Rhein Foundation’s Cultural-H/Journalistic Award, 1991.

Member: Society of Professional Journalists (fellow), National Press Club, Sigma Delta Chi.

Addresses: Office —Cable News Network, Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., 111 Massachusetts Ave. N.W., 3rd Floor, Washington, D.C. 20001.

pressures. Even in his youth, Shaw’s tastes in television programming ran toward the news and information genre: he used to watch the television news program Meet the Press religiously, and his hero was legendary journalist Edward R. Murrow. At 16, he personally witnessed his second Democratic convention—he had managed to engineer his way into both the 1952 and 1956 conventions. Shaw told Time: “When I looked up at the anchor booths, I knew I was looking at the altar.”

On the road to the “altar,” Shaw wangled another opportunity to speak to a journalist about his craft. It was 1961, the beginning of an era of political tensions that resulted in such historic moves as the construction of the Berlin Wall by the East German government and the infamous Cuban Missile Crisis (a period of threatened military confrontation between the U.S. and Soviet governments following the American discovery of Soviet missile sites in Cuba). Shaw was a 21-year-old corporal in the Marines stationed in Hawaii at the time, and Walter Cronkite, his other hero, was passing through. With the tenacity of youth—or perhaps that of a budding reporter—the corporal rang Cronkite’s room a total of 34 times. “He was the most persistent guy I’ve ever met in my life,” Cronkite said in the Washington Post, “I was going to give him five begrudging minutes and ended up talking to him for a half hour. He was just determined to be a journalist.” The two have been friends ever since.

In 1963, with four years of the marines behind him, a new sense of maturity, and college money, Shaw entered the University of Illinois, choosing history as his major. His career in journalism officially began just a year later when he joined Chicago’s WNUS, one of the nation’s first all-news radio stations. He worked there as a reporter and anchor until 1966 when Westinghouse Broadcasting Company’s Group W offered him a job. He quit school, relocated to Washington, D.C., and, at 28, became a White House correspondent. In the five years with Westinghouse Shaw’s assignments included local and national urban affairs, and the struggles of Hispanics and Native Americans.

In 1971, Walter Cronkite helped Shaw land a job with CBS. Shaw started as a reporter for the CBS News Washington bureau and in three years became a correspondent. It was during this period that his career got a boost: he conducted an exclusive interview with then attorney general John Mitchell. It was the height of the Watergate crisis and Mitchell, who was to be convicted for his role in the affair, was a major figure in the scandal. White House correspondent Shaw had pulled off a journalistic coup.

Hungry for International Experience

After nearly ten years of reporting from Capitol Hill, Shaw was restless. He was hungry for international experience. When ABC offered him the job of Miami bureau chief and Latin American correspondent, an impressive but less visible position, he grabbed it. “I pushed myself out the door,” Shaw told the New York Times. The three years he spent with ABC proved especially eventful.

As Latin American correspondent from 1977 to 1979, Shaw covered the 1979 resignation and exile of Nicaragua’s enigmatic president, General Anastasio Somoza, and the months of simmering civil war that enveloped it. The year before, Shaw flew to South America when assigned to investigate rumors of a bizarre massacre in the remote jungles of Guyana. The scene was Jonestown, a religious commune named after its leader, Reverend Jim Jones, and populated by transplanted American families. Shaw was one of the first reporters to file from location, and he scooped the other networks by providing the only aerial photos of the tragedy. The picture that confronted them was sickening: the decomposing bodies of 911 men, women, and children who had died by drinking poisoned punch. The reverend had led the cultists to this mass suicide-execution as a reaction to a U.S. representative’s investigation of alleged mistreatment of the American citizens. Shaw commented in Parade Magazine, “You know how cameramen will shoot 15 minutes of tape just to be sure they get one shot right? Well, at Jonestown, a cameraman could [only] shoot for about six seconds before turning around and retching. That’s how bad it was.”

Back at the bureau Shaw told a colleague that he felt very lucky to have gotten the Jonestown story, adding, as quoted in the Washington Post, “You always have luck when you hustle.” And, as if to confirm this philosophy, ABC chose Shaw to file special reports during the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis at the American embassy in Teheran. That led to Shaw’s return to Washington as ABC’s senior Capitol Hill correspondent.

Taking a Career Gamble

1979 was a tumultuous year for personnel at ABC News. As a result, Shaw’s colleague, Washington bureau chief George Watson, left to help start CNN, a 24-hour, all-news cable network. Watson urged Shaw to follow him as the new network’s principal anchor. “I had been negotiating a new contract with ABC, but I was dissatisfied with the terms, so I started talking to [maverick broadcasting entrepreneur and CNN founder] Ted Turner,” Shaw told New York magazine. “The time period in which I was trying to decide, it seemed like agony to me. I’d only been married three years and our children were very small, and I couldn’t selfishly take that gamble by myself.” His worries were compounded by an economy in recession with double digit inflation. “It’s no exaggeration,” Shaw added, “I walked around the dining room for two weeks, talking to myself. My wife, Linda, would wake up around one in the morning and come downstairs. So, finally we just sat down at the dining room table and she said, ‘Okay, you should take the job, because if you don’t and CNN takes off, I won’t be able to live with you.”’ Network bosses told Shaw it would ruin his career, but he disagreed. “I saw it as perhaps the last frontier on television,” he told the New York Times. “The first all-news TV network seemed like revolutionary stuff to me.”

“Chicken Noodle Network”

For three decades the rule of the Big Three had never been seriously challenged and, while they smugly claimed that no one else could pull together the resources to compete, Turner was telling Business Week, “The Turner broadcasting group is going to be the greatest business success story of all time.”

The so-called “Chicken Noodle Network” began broadcasting from its Atlanta headquarters on June 1, 1980. Using new satellite technology for live transmission, CNN’s staff of three hundred fresh faces drew on ceaseless energy to get the news out as it was happening, at any hour of the day or night. The cable network’s viewership rose and its presence began to be felt. But it wasn’t until 1987 that it achieved a contender’s rank. That status seemed to become official when Shaw’s became the fourth chair—joining those of CBS, NBC, and ABC—in a nationally televised interview with then U.S. president Ronald Reagan, held in the Oval Office on the eve of the summit with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. That event served to introduce CNN and Shaw to millions of non-cable viewers. Another nationally televised event only a few months later ingrained Shaw’s face and style into viewers’ minds. But not all liked what they saw.

In April of 1988 Shaw moderated the second presidential debate from Los Angeles. In his role, he seemed rough with the debate audience, warning them that he would tell them to keep quiet “only once.” And, in general, he was his usual serious self. But it was his opening questions to the two candidates that caused a stir. George Bush was asked if he wouldn’t be worried about the country under President Dan Quayle’s leadership in the event Bush died before inauguration. Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis was asked if he would still be against the death penalty if someone “raped and murdered” his wife Kitty Dukakis. “I’ve heard the questions called ghoulish and tasteless,” Shaw told the Washington Post, “I spent more than a day and a half working on those two questions. They were not asked with trivia in mind.” It’s difficult to accuse Shaw of being trivial. “I hope I didn’t seem severe,” he added, “I took the job seriously.”

The next couple of years drew Shaw into international news. He covered the 1988 Reagan-Gorbachev Moscow Summit; President Bush’s first visit to Eastern Europe, and his participation in the 1989 Economic Summit in Paris; Japanese Emperor Hirohito’s funeral; and the 40th-anniversary North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Summit in Brussels. In May of 1989, Shaw received his biggest story yet: he provided 30 hours of continuous live coverage, worldwide, on the historic student demonstrations in Beijing, China. He was one of only two American anchors in Tiananmen Square when the Chinese government’s tanks rolled in and crushed the pro-democracy movement.

From “The Center of Hell”

Although Shaw initially expressed doubts about the probability of war between the United States and Iraq, four months later he admitted in Gentlemen’s Quarterly that this had been a “prediction grounded in hope.” In January of 1991, he was in Baghdad to interview Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein when history took a turn. On the 16th, just one day after the aborted interview, Shaw found himself stranded—along with CNN colleagues, Peter Arnett and John Holliman—in the enemy capital as the allied bombing attack launched the Gulf War. Shaw was one of the first reporters to announce to the world that the United States and its allies had gone to war, and CNN went on to provide continuous coverage for the conflict’s duration. Even after every major newspaper had pulled out, after the Big Three’s phonelines were cut, and after CNN lost its picture transmission, the network was able to make live reports from Baghdad via its secure phoneline. While the night sky was screaming with gunfire and air-raid warnings, the CNN trio crawled around the floor of their hotel room and delivered some of the most spellbinding audio reporting since Edward R. Murrow’s harrowing World War II accounts of the Nazi bombing of London. “By the time we stopped broadcasting to get some sleep,” Shaw told Parade Magazine, “I was so tired I was making no sense whatsoever. I was no sooner in bed and asleep when the bombing started again, and I stumbled down the hall in my pajamas to the suite where we broadcast and went back to work.” The experience unnerved the characteristically composed anchor. He announced: “Clearly I’ve never been there, but it feels like we are in the center of hell.”

CNN’s coverage was being cited by top Pentagon officials at press conferences while being eagerly viewed by Iraqi officials. CBS and NBC humbled themselves by asking the cable network’s reporters for interviews. Television coverage of the war belonged to CNN because it provided an uninterrupted flow of raw information. This process empowered the public: the viewer became the news editor. “We’ve been training for this story 24 hours a day for ten years,” CNN’s executive vice-president Ed Turner (no relation to Ted Turner) told the Chicago Tribune. Live wartime coverage from the center of enemy camp is unprecedented.

A Star Is Born

“Bernie” Shaw came back to the U.S. a star. But the kudos and popular attention seemed unprofessional and embarrassing to him. He was happy to be reunited with his family and had more private thoughts on his mind. “I came back from Baghdad a changed man,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “I looked death in the eyes. No human gets many chances to do that twice.”

The journey from the South Side of Chicago to Baghdad was a long one, but Shaw never wavered, and that could have been easy in the beginning. The 1950s had no “black Murrows” as role models for a poor, young black boy with dreams of broadcast journalism. “But I didn’t see Ed Murrow as white,” Shaw told the New York Times, “I saw him as a journalist.” Shaw knew that it was certainly possible that he’d encounter racism along the way, but he says he has never been a knowing victim of it in his career.

Widely regarded as the nation’s most powerful black television journalist, Shaw has maintained his professional philosophy: a reporter must never get in the way of a story. As he told Essence magazine, “I never wanted to sit in this chair until I felt in my mind and heart that I had the necessary experience to anchor.”

Sources

Business Week, June 1980.

Chicago Tribune, January 20, 1991.

Essence, November 1990.

Gentlemen’s Quarterly, May 1991.

Los Angeles Times, April 11, 1991.

New York, February 1991.

New York Times, February 2, 1988; March 20, 1988.

Parade Magazine, June 23, 1991.

Time, February 22, 1988.

Washington Post, June 22, 1991.

—Iva Sipal

George Bernard Shaw

Personal

Born July 26, 1856, in Dublin, Ireland; died November 2, 1950, in Ayot Saint Lawrence, Hertfordshire, England; son of George Carr (an agricultural merchant) and Lucinda Elizabeth (a singer, musician, and music teacher; maiden name, Gurly) Shaw; married Charlotte Francis Payne-Townshend, 1898 (died, September, 1943). Education: Attended Wesleyan Connexional School (now Wesleyan College), 1867-68, Central Model Boys' School, 1868, and English Scientific and Commercial Day School, 1869.

Career

Playwright, novelist, essayist, critic, and lecturer. Cashier for land agent in Dublin, Ireland, 1871-76; writer and commercial laborer, c. 1876-85; public speaker and lecturer, beginning 1883; cofounder of Fabian Society, London, England, 1884; cofounder, with Sidney and Beatrice Webb, of London School of Economics, 1895; vestryman and borough councilor in London, 1897-1903.

Member

Society of Authors, Playwrights, and Composers, Fabian Society (member of executive committee, 1885-1911), British Interplanetary Society, Royal Automobile Club, Burlington Fine Arts Club.

Awards, Honors

Nobel Prize for literature, 1925, for Saint Joan; Irish Academy of Letters Medal, 1934; Academy Award for best screenplay, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, 1938, for Pygmalion.

Writings

PLAYS; UNDER NAME BERNARD SHAW, EXCEPT AS NOTED

Widowers' Houses (produced in London, England, at the Royalty Theatre, 1892), Henry (London, England), 1893, Brentano's (New York, NY), 1913.

The Man of Destiny produced in Croydon, England, at the Grand Theatre, 1897, produced in London, England, at the Royal Court Theatre, 1907.

The Devil's Disciple (produced in Albany, NY, at Hermanus Bleecker Hall, 1897, produced in London, England, at the Savoy Theatre, 1907), Constable (London, England), 1906, Brentano's (New York, NY), 1913, with an introduction and notes by A. C. Ward, Longman (London, England), 1958, with illustrations by Leonard Everett Fisher, F. Watts (New York, NY), 1967.

The Gadfly; or, The Son of the Cardinal, produced in Bayswater, England, at the Bijou Theatre, 1898.

You Never Can Tell (produced in London, England, at the Royalty Theatre, 1899), Constable (London, England), 1906, Brentano's (New York, NY), 1913, with introduction by Margery M. Morgan, Hicks Smith (Sydney, Australia), 1967.

Captain Brassbound's Conversion (produced in London, England, at the Strand Theatre, 1900), Constable (London, England), 1906, Brentano's (New York, NY), 1913.

(Under name George Bernard Shaw) The Admirable Bashville; or, Constancy Unrewarded (based on Shaw's novel Cashel Byron's Profession; produced in London, England, at the Imperial Theatre, 1903), Brentano's (New York, NY), 1909.

How He Lied to Her Husband, produced in New York, NY, at the Berkeley Lyceum Theatre, 1904, produced in London, England, at the Royal Court Theatre, 1905.

Passion, Poison, and Petrifaction; or, The Fatal Gazogene (produced in London, England, at the Theatrical Garden Party, Regent's Park, 1905), H. B. Claflin (New York, NY), 1905.

Man and Superman (produced in London, England, at the Royal Court Theatre, 1905; revised version, including Don Juan in Hell [also see below], produced in Edinburgh, Scotland, at the Lyceum Theatre, 1915; revised version produced in London at the Regent Theatre, 1925), Constable (London, England), 1903, with introduction and notes by A. C. Ward, Longman (London, England), 1947, with introduction by Lewis Casson, illustrated by Charles Mozley, Heritage Press (New York, NY), 1962.

The Doctor's Dilemma (produced in London, England, at the Royal Court Theatre, 1906), Constable (London, England), 1908, Brentano's (New York, NY), 1911, revised with new preface, 1913, Dodd (New York, NY), 1941, with an introduction and notes by A. C. Ward, Longman (London, England), 1957.

The Interlude at the Playhouse, produced in London, England, at the Playhouse Theatre, 1907.

Don Juan in Hell (from Man and Superman), produced in London, England, at the Royal Court Theatre, 1907.

The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet (produced in Dublin, Ireland, at the Abbey Theatre, 1909, produced in London, England, at the Everyman Theatre, 1921), Brentano's (New York, NY), 1909.

Press Cuttings (produced in Manchester, England, at the Gaiety Theatre, 1909), Brentano's (New York, NY), 1909.

Misalliance, produced in London, England, at the Duke of York's Theatre, 1910.

The Dark Lady of the Sonnets, produced in London, England, at the Haymarket Theatre, 1910.

Fanny's First Play, produced in London, England, at the Little Theatre, 1911.

Arms and the Man (produced in London, England, at the Avenue Theatre, 1894), Brentano's (New York, NY), 1913, with introduction by A. C. Ward, Longman (London, England), 1956, with introduction by Louis Kronenberger, Bantam (New York, NY), 1960, with introduction and notes by Louis Crompton, Bobbs-Merrill (Indianapolis, IN), 1969, definitive text edition, Penguin (New York, NY), 1977.

Candida (produced in Aberdeen, Scotland, at Her Majesty's Theatre, 1897, produced in London, England, at the Royal Court Theatre, 1904), Brentano's (New York, NY), 1913, with an introduction and notes by A. C. Ward, Longman (London, England), 1956.

Mrs. Warren's Profession (also see below; produced in London, England, at the New Lyric Club, 1902), Brentano's (New York, NY), 1913.

John Bull's Other Island (produced in London, England, at the Royal Court Theatre, 1904), Brentano's (New York, NY), 1913.

The Philanderer (produced in London, England, at the New Stage Club, Applegate Institute, 1905, produced in London at the Royal Court Theatre, 1907), Brentano's (New York, NY), 1913.

Major Barbara (produced in London, England, at the Royal Court Theatre, 1905), Brentano's (New York, NY), 1913, Dodd (New York, NY), 1941, with introduction and notes by A. C. Ward, Longman (London, England), 1958, revised edition edited by Elizabeth T. Forter, Appleton-Century-Crofts (New York, NY), 1971.

Caesar and Cleopatra (produced in Berlin, Germany, then in New York, NY, at the New Amsterdam Theatre, 1906; produced in London, England, at the Savoy Theatre, 1907), Brentano's (New York, NY), 1913, revised edition edited by Elizabeth T. Forter, Appleton-Century-Crofts (New York, NY), 1965.

Great Catherine, produced in London, England, at Vaudeville Theatres, 1913.

Getting Married, (produced in London, England, at the Haymarket Theatre, 1908), Brentano's (New York, NY), 1913, reprinted, Players Press (Studio City, CA), 1995.

Pygmalion (also see below; produced in Siegfried Trebitsch's German translation in Vienna, Austria, at the Hofburg Theatre, 1913; produced in English in London, England, at His Majesty's Theatre, 1914), 1920, with an introduction by A. C. Ward, Longman (London, England), 1957, definitive text edition, illustrated by Feliks Topolski, Penguin (New York, NY), 1982.

The Music-Cure, produced in London, England, at the Little Theatre, 1914.

Overruled (produced in London, England, at the Duke of York's Theatre, 1912), Constable (London, England), 1915.

The Inca of Perusalem, produced in Birmingham, England, at the Repertory Theatre, 1916, produced in London, England, at the Criterion Theatre, 1917.

Augustus Does His Bit, produced in London, England, at the Royal Court Theatre, 1917.

Annajanska, the Wild Grand Duchess, produced in London, England, at the London Coliseum, 1918.

O'Flaherty, V. C., produced in New York, NY, at the 39th Street Theatre, then in London, England, at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, 1920.

Back to Methuselah (produced in New York, NY, at the Garrick Theatre, 1922; produced in London, England, at the Royal Court Theatre, 1924), Brentano's (New York, NY), 1921, revised edition with a postscript, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1946, definitive text edition, Penguin (New York, NY), 1977, published as Back to Methuselah: A Metabiological Pentateuch, Penguin (New York, NY), 1988.

Jitta's Atonement (adapted from Siegfried Trebitsch's Frau Gittas Suehne), produced in Washington, DC, at the Shubert Theatre, then in New York, NY, at the Comedy Theatre, 1923, produced in London, England, at the Arts Theatre, 1930.

Saint Joan (produced in New York, NY, at the Garrick Theatre, 1923, produced in London, England, at the New Theatre, 1924), Brentano's (New York, NY), 1923, revised edition edited and with an introduction and notes by Stanley Weintraub, Bobbs-Merrill (Indianapolis, IN), 1971.

The Glimpse of Reality, produced in London, England, at the Arts Theatre Club, 1927.

The Fascinating Foundling, produced in London, England, at the Arts Theatre Club, 1928.

The Apple Cart (produced in Warsaw, Poland, at the Teatr Polski, 1929, then in London, England, at the Queen's Theatre, 1929), Constable (London, England), 1930, Brentano's (New York, NY), 1931.

Too True to Be Good, produced in Boston, MA, at the National Theatre, then in New York, NY, at the Guild Theatre, 1932.

On the Rocks, produced in London, England, at the Winter Garden Theatre, 1933.

Village Wooing, produced in Dallas, TX, at the Little Theatre, 1934.

(With Jean Froissart and Auguste Rodin) The Six of Calais (produced in London, England, at the Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park, 1934), privately printed, 1934.

The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles, produced in New York, NY, at the Guild Theatre, 1935.

The Millionairess, produced in Vienna, Austria, at the Akademie Theatre, then in Melbourne, Australia, at the King's Theatre, 1936.

Cymbeline Refinished (produced in London, England, at the Embassy Theatre, Swiss Cottage, 1937), privately printed, 1937.

Geneva (produced in Malvern, England, at the Festival Theatre, then in London, England, at the Saville Theatre, 1938), Constable (London, England), 1939.

"In Good King Charles's Golden Days" (produced in Malvern, England, 1939; produced in London, England, at the Streatham Hill Theatre, 1940), illustrated by Feliks Topolski, Constable (London, England), 1939.

Buoyant Billions (produced in Zurich, Switzerland, at the Schauspielhaus, 1948; produced in Malvern, England, at the Festival Theatre, 1949), Constable (London, England), 1949.

Shakes versus Shav (puppet play), produced in Malvern, England, at the Waldo Lanchester Marionette Theatre, Lyttleton Hall, 1949, produced in London, England, 1951.

Farfetched Fables, produced in London, England, at the Watergate Theatre, 1950.

Androcles and the Lion (produced in Berlin, Germany, at Kleines Theatre, 1912; produced in London, England, at St. James's Theatre, September 1, 1913), Penguin (New York, NY), 1951, with an introduction and notes by A. C. Ward, Longman (London, England), 1957.

Why She Would Not, produced in New York, NY, by the Shaw Society of America at the Grolier Club, 1957.

Heartbreak House (produced in New York, NY, at the Garrick Theatre, 1920, produced in London, England, at the Royal Court Theatre, 1921), Penguin (New York, NY), 1964, published as Heartbreak House: A Fantasia in the Russian Manner on English Themes, Signet (New York, NY), 1996.

SCREENPLAYS

(With others) Pygmalion (based on his play; produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1938), Dover Publications (Mineola, NY), 1994.

(With Anatole de Grunwald) Major Barbara (based on his play), United Artists, 1941.

(With Marjorie Deans and W. P. Lipscomb) Caesar and Cleopatra (based on his play), Eagle-Lion, 1946.

LETTERS, CONVERSATIONS, AND DIARIES; UNDER NAME BERNARD SHAW , EXCEPT AS NOTED

Table-Talk of G. B. S.: Conversations on Things in General between George Bernard Shaw and His Biographer, compiled and edited by Archibald Henderson, Harper (New York, NY), 1925.

Ellen Terry and Bernard Shaw: A Correspondence, edited by Christopher St. John, Putnam (New York, NY), 1931, with illustrations, Theatre Arts Books (New York, NY), 1969.

Some Unpublished Letters of George Bernard Shaw, edited by Julian Park, [Buffalo, NY], 1939.

Florence Farr, Bernard Shaw, and W. B. Yeats, edited by Clifford Bax, Cuala Press (Dublin, Ireland), 1941, Dodd (New York, NY), 1942.

Bernard Shaw and Mrs. Patrick Campbell: A Correspondence, edited by Alan Dent, Knopf (New York, NY), 1952.

Advice to a Young Critic, and Other Letters, notes and introduction by E. J. West, Crown (New York, NY), 1955.

Bernard Shaw's Letters to Harley Granville Barker, edited by C. B. Purdom, Phoenix House (London, England), 1956, Crown (New York, NY), 1957.

To a Young Actress: The Letters of Bernard Shaw to Molly Tompkins, edited with an introduction by Peter Tompkins, Potter (London, England), 1960.

Collected Letters, four volumes, edited by Dan H. Laurence, Volume 1: 1874-1897, Dodd (New York, NY), 1965, Volume 2: 1898-1910, Dodd (New York, NY), 1965, Volume 3: 1911-1925, Viking (New York, NY), 1985, Volume 4: 1926-1950, Viking (New York, NY), 1988.

Bernard Shaw and Alfred Douglas: A Correspondence, edited by Mary Hyde, Ticknor & Fields (New Haven, CT), 1982.

The Playwright and the Pirate: Bernard Shaw and Frank Harris, a Correspondence, edited with an introduction by Stanley Weintraub, Pennsylvania State University Press (University Park, PA), 1982.

Agitations: Letters to the Press, 1875-1950, edited by James Rambeau and Dan H. Laurence, Ungar (New York, NY), 1985.

Bernard Shaw's Letters to Siegfried Trebitsch, edited by Samuel A. Weiss, Stanford University Press (Palo Alto, CA), 1986.

Bernard Shaw: The Diaries, 1885-1897, edited and annotated by Stanley Weintraub, Pennsylvania State University Press (University Park, PA), 1986.

Dear Mr. Shaw: Selections from Bernard Shaw's Postbag, edited by Vivian Elliot, Bloomsbury (London, England), 1988.

Theatrics, edited by Dan Laurence, University of Toronto Press (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1995.

Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells, edited by J. Percy Smith, University of Toronto Press (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1995.

Bernard Shaw and Gabriel Pascal, edited by Bernard F. Dukore, University of Toronto Press (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1996.

NOVELS; UNDER NAME BERNARD SHAW, EXCEPT AS NOTED

Cashel Byron's Profession, Harper (New York, NY), 1886, revised edition, Stone (Chicago, IL), 1901, edited with an introduction by Stanley Weintraub, Southern Illinois University Press (Carbondale, IL), 1968, definitive text edition edited by Dan H. Laurence, Penguin (New York, NY), 1979.

An Unsocial Socialist, Lowry (London, England), 1887, Brentano's (New York, NY), 1900.

Love among the Artists, Stone (Chicago, IL), 1900.

The Irrational Knot, Brentano's (New York, NY), 1905.

Immaturity, Constable (London, England), 1931.

My Dear Dorothea: A Practical System of Moral Education for Females, Embodied in a Letter to a Young Person of That Sex, illustrated by Clare Winsten, with a note by Stephen Winsten, Phoenix House (London, England), 1956, Vanguard Press (New York, NY), 1957.

An Unfinished Novel, edited by Stanley Weintraub, Dodd (New York, NY), 1958.

NONFICTION; UNDER NAME BERNARD SHAW, EXCEPT AS NOTED

(Editor) Fabian Essays in Socialism, Fabian Society (London, England), 1889.

The Quintessence of Ibsenism, Tucker (Boston, MA), 1891, 3rd edition, Constable (London, England), 1922, revised and enlarged edition published as Shaw and Ibsen: Bernard Shaw's The Quintessence of Ibsenism and Related Writings, edited by J. L. Wisenthal, University of Toronto Press (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1979.

The Perfect Wagnerite, Grant Richards (London, England), 1898, Stone (Chicago, IL), 1899.

(Editor) Fabianism and the Empire: A Manifesto by the Fabian Society, Grant Richards (London, England), 1900.

The Common Sense of Municipal Trading, Constable (London, England), 1904, revised edition with preface, A. C. Fifield (London, England), 1908, John Lane (New York, NY), 1911.

The Author's Apology from Mrs. Warren's Profession: The Tyranny of Police and Press, introduction by John Corbin, Brentano's (New York, NY), 1905.

(Under name G. Bernard Shaw) An Essay on Going to Church, J. W. Luce (Boston, MA), 1905.

(Under name G. Bernard Shaw) Dramatic Opinions and Essays, with a word by James Huneker, Brentano's (New York, NY), 1906, published under name Bernard Shaw, with an apology by Shaw, 1907.

The Sanity of Art, Tucker (Boston, MA), 1908.

Socialism and Superior Brains, John Lane (New York, NY), 1910.

Peace Conference Hints, Constable (London, England), 1919.

Imprisonment Brentano's (New York, NY), 1925, published as The Crime of Imprisonment, illustrated by William Gropper, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 1946.

Translations and Tomfooleries, Brentano's (New York, NY), 1926.

The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism, Brentano's (New York, NY), 1928, with an introduction by Susan Moller Okin, Transaction Books (New Brunswick, NJ), 1984, published as The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism, Capitalism, Sovietism, and Fascism, Penguin (London, England), 1965.

Bernard Shaw and Karl Marx: A Symposium, 1884-1889, Georgian Press (London, England), 1930, Norwood Editions, 1978.

What I Really Wrote about the War (includes "Common Sense about the War"), Constable (London, England), 1931, Brentano's (New York, NY), 1932.

Doctor's Delusions, Crude Criminology, and Sham Education, Constable (London, England), limited edition, 1931, revised standard edition, 1932.

Pen Portraits and Reviews, Constable (London, England), 1932.

Essays in Fabian Socialism, Constable (London, England), 1932.

Our Theatres in the Nineties, Constable (London, England), 1932.

The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God, Constable (London, England), 1932, Dodd (New York, NY), 1933.

(Under name George Bernard Shaw) American Boobs, E. O. Jones, 1933, published as The Future of Political Science in America, Dodd (New York, NY), 1933, published as The Politicial Madhouse in America and Nearer Home, Constable (London, England), 1933.

William Morris as I Knew Him, Dodd (New York, NY), 1936.

London Music in 1888-1889 as Heard by Corno di Bassetto, Dodd (New York, NY), 1937.

Shaw Gives Himself Away: An Autobiographical Miscellany, Gregynog Press (Newton, England), 1939.

Everybody's Political What's What, Dodd (New York, NY), 1944.

Sixteen Self Sketches, Dodd (New York, NY), 1949.

How to Become a Musical Critic, edited by Dan H. Laurence, Hart-Davis (London, England), 1960, Hill & Wang (New York, NY), 1961.

Platform and Pulpit, edited by Dan H. Laurence, Hill & Wang (New York, NY), 1961.

The Matter with Ireland, edited with an introduction by David H. Greene and Laurence, Hill & Wang (New York, NY), 1962.

(Under name George Bernard Shaw) On Language, edited with an introduction and notes by Abraham Tauber, foreword by James Pitman, Philosophical Library (New York, NY), 1963.

(Under name George Bernard Shaw) The Rationalization of Russia, edited with an introduction by Harry M. Geduld, Indiana University Press (Bloomington, IN), 1964.

Shaw: An Autobiography, 1856-1898, compiled and edited by Stanley Weintraub, Weybright & Talley (New York, NY), 1969.

Shaw: An Autobiography; The Playwright Years, 1898-1950, compiled and edited by Stanley Weintraub, Weybright & Talley (New York, NY), 1970.

Practical Politics: Twentieth-Century Views on Politics and Economics, edited by Lloyd J. Hubenka, University of Nebraska Press (Lincoln, NE), 1976.

(Presumed author) Lady, Wilt Thou Love Me? (eighteen love poems to Ellen Terry attributed to Bernard Shaw), edited with introduction and notes by Jack Werner, Stein & Day (New York, NY), 1980.

Shaw's Music, three volumes, edited by Dan H. Laurence, Dodd (New York, NY), 1981.

Sheffielder: A Life in the City (social commentary), Alan Sutton (Gloucestershire, England), 1993.

Reviewer, Pall Mall Gazette, 1885-88; music critic, Dramatic Review, 1886; art critic, 1886-89, and music critic, 1890-94, under name G. B. S., for World; music critic under pseudonym Corno di Bassetto, London Star, 1888-90; drama critic, Saturday Review, 1895-98. Contributor to newspapers and periodicals, including London Daily Telegraph and Daily Sketch.

COLLECTIONS; UNDER NAME BERNARD SHAW

Plays: Pleasant and Unpleasant, two volumes, Stone (Chicago, IL), 1898.

Three Plays for Puritans, Stone (Chicago, IL), 1901, abridged edition published as Two Plays for Puritans, illustrated by George Him, Heritage Press (New York, NY), 1966.

The Wisdom of Bernard Shaw (passages from Shaw's works), selected by Charlotte F. Shaw, Brentano's (New York, NY), 1913.

The Socialism of Shaw, edited with an introduction by James Fuchs, Vanguard Press (New York, NY), 1926.

The Works of Bernard Shaw, Collected Edition, thirty volumes, Constable (London, England), 1930-1932, revised edition published as The Works of Bernard Shaw, Ayot St. Lawrence Edition, Wise (New York, NY), 1931-32, enlarged edition published as Standard Edition of the Works of Bernard Shaw, thirty-six volumes, Constable, 1947-52.

The Complete Plays of Bernard Shaw, Constable (London, England), 1931.

Music in London, 1890-1894 (criticism; originally published in World), Constable (London, England), 1932.

Major Critical Essays, Constable (London, England), 1932, published as Major Critical Essays: The Quintessence of Ibsenism, The Perfect Wagnerite, The Sanity of Art, Penguin (New York, NY), 1986.

Short Stories, Scraps, and Shavings, illustrated by John Farleigh, Dodd (New York, NY), 1934, published as The Black Girl in Search of God, and Some Lesser Tales, Penguin (New York, NY), 1964.

Three Plays: Too True to Be Good, Village Wooing, and On the Rocks, Dodd (New York, NY), 1934.

Prefaces, Constable (London, England), 1934, published as Prefaces by Bernard Shaw, Reprint Services (Temecula, CA), 1988.

Nine Plays, Dodd (New York, NY), 1935.

Six Plays (companion to Nine Plays), Dodd (New York, NY), 1941.

Selected Novels, introduction by Arthur Zeiger, Caxton House (London, England), 1946.

Selected Plays (includes prefaces), Dodd (New York, NY), 1948-57.

Shaw on Vivisection, compiled and edited by G. H. Bowker, Allen & Unwin (London, England), 1949, published as Are Doctors Really Inhuman?, Fridtjof-Karla (Michigan City, IN), 1957.

Plays and Players: Essays on the Theatre, selected with an introduction by A. C. Ward, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1952.

Selected Prose, selected by Diarmuid Russell, Dodd (New York, NY), 1952.

Shaw on Music, selected by Eric Bentley, Doubleday (Garden City, NY), 1955, reprinted, Applause (New York, NY), 1995.

Selected Plays and Other Writings, introduction by William Irvine, Rinehart (New York, NY), 1956.

The Illusions of Socialism, Together with Socialism: Principles and Outlook, Shaw Society (New York, NY), 1956.

Shaw on Theatre, edited by E. J. West, Hill & Wang (New York, NY), 1958.

Shaw's Dramatic Criticism: 1895-1898 (selections from Saturday Review), edited by John F. Matthews, Hill & Wang (New York, NY), 1959.

A Prose Anthology, selected with introduction and notes by H. M. Burton, preface by A. C. Ward, Fawcett (New York, NY), 1959.

Shaw on Shakespeare, Dutton (New York, NY), 1961, edited with an introduction by Edwin Wilson, Books for Libraries Press (Freeport, NY), 1971.

G. B. S. on Music, foreword by Alec Robertson, Penguin (New York, NY), 1962.

Religious Speeches, edited by Warren Sylvester Smith, foreword by Arthur N. Nethercot, Pennsylvania State University Press (University Park, PA), 1963.

Selected Nondramatic Writings of Bernard Shaw, edited by Dan H. Laurence, Houghton (Boston, MA), 1965.

Bernard Shaw: Selections of His Wit and Wisdom, compiled by Caroline Thomas Harnsberger, Follett (New York, NY), 1965.

The Complete Prefaces of Bernard Shaw, Hamlyn Publishing (London, England), 1965.

Bernard Shaw's Ready-Reckoner, edited with an introduction by N. H. Leigh-Taylor, Random House (New York, NY), 1965.

Four Plays, foreword and introduction by Paul Kozelka, Washington Square Press (New York, NY), 1965.

Selected One-Act Plays, Penguin (New York, NY), 1965.

Seven Plays with Prefaces and Notes, Dodd (New York, NY), 1966.

Shaw on Religion, edited with an introduction and notes by Warren Sylvester Smith, Dodd (New York, NY), 1967.

Three Shorter Plays, Heinemann Educational (London, England), 1968.

Bernard Shaw's Plays, edited by Warren Sylvester Smith, Norton (New York, NY), 1970.

The Bodley Head Bernard Shaw, seven volumes (includes A Passion Play), Bodley Head (London, England), 1970, Reinhardt (London, England), 1970-74, published as Collected Plays with Their Prefaces, Dodd (New York, NY), 1975.

The Road to Equality: Ten Unpublished Lectures and Essays, 1884-1918, introduction by Louis Crompton, edited by Crompton and Hilayne Cavanaugh, Beacon Press (Boston, MA), 1971.

Collected Music Criticism, Vienna House (New York, NY), 1973.

The Portable Bernard Shaw, edited with an introduction by Stanley Weintraub, Penguin (New York, NY), 1977.

The Great Composers: Reviews and Bombardments, edited with an introduction by Louis Crompton, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 1978.

The Collected Screenplays of Bernard Shaw, edited by Bernard F. Dukore, University of Georgia Press (Athens, GA), 1980.

Selected Plays, preface by Rex Harrison, introductory essay by David Bearinger, Dodd (New York, NY), 1981.

Shaw on Dickens, edited and with introduction by Dan H. Laurence and Martin Quinn, Ungar (New York, NY), 1985.

Selected Short Plays, Viking Penguin (New York, NY), 1988.

Monologues from George Bernard Shaw, edited by Ian Michaels, Dramaline Publications (Rancho Mirage, CA), 1988.

Shaw on Photography: Essays and Photographs, edited by Bill Jay and Margaret Moore, P. Smith (Salt Lake City, UT), 1989.

Shaw on the London Art Scene, 1885-1950, edited by Stanley Weintraub, Pennsylvania State University Press (University Park, PA), 1990.

Not Bloody Likely!: And Other Quotations from Bernard Shaw, edited by Bernard F. Dukore, Columbia University Press (New York, NY), 1996.

Unpublished Shaw, edited by Dan H. Laurence and Margot Peters, Pennsylvania State University Press (University Park, PA), 1996.

Bernard Shaw on Cinema, edited by Bernard F. Dukore, Southern Illinois University Press (Carbondale, IL), 1997.

The Cambridge Companion to George Bernard Shaw, edited by Christopher Innes, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1998.

Facsimile editions of plays published as Early Texts: Play Manuscripts in Facsimile, twelve volumes, edited by Dan H. Laurence, Garland (New York, NY), 1981.

Adaptations

Among the films adapted from Shaw's plays are Arms and the Man, 1932 and 1962; Androcles and the Lion, 1952; Saint Joan, 1957 and 1994; The Doctor's Dilemma, 1958; The Devil's Disciple, 1959; The Millionairess, 1960; Mrs. Warren's Profession, 1960; and Great Catherine, 1968. Pygmalion, was adapted by Alan J. Lerner and Fritz Loewe as the stage musical My Fair Lady, 1956, and filmed in 1964; The Devil's Disciple, was recorded for sound cassette in 1994 by L.A. Theatre Works.

Sidelights

George Bernard Shaw has earned almost universal recognition as the chief English-speaking dramatist of the modern age, second only to William Shakespeare in his contribution to the British theatrical tradition. "One after another," H. W. Nevinson wrote in the New Leader, "his plays and the prefaces to his plays have laid bare the falsities and hypocrisies and boastful pretensions of our . . . time. I can think of no modern prophet who has swept away so much accepted rubbish and cleared the air of so much cant." A great innovator, Shaw invented the theater of ideas, turned the stage into a forum for moral instruction, altered outmoded and unrealistic theatrical conventions, and paved the way for later symbolist drama and the theater of the absurd. As such, he is credited with returning intellect to the theater. As Joseph Knight wrote in Athenaeum in 1907, before Shaw had even written his masterpieces, he "put new brains into the theatre, and ruthlessly taxed the brains of his audiences. He it is who has shown that it is possible to have an intellectual drama even in England, and an intellectual drama that shall be amusing." According to Archibald Henderson in European Dramatists, "Back of all surface manifestations lies the supreme conviction of Shaw that the theatre of today, properly utilized, is an instrumentality for the molding of character and the shaping of conduct no whit inferior to the Church and the School."

Born on July 26, 1856, in Dublin, Ireland, Shaw was the third and youngest child as well as the only son of George Carr and Lucinda Elizabeth (née Gurly) Shaw. Shaw's childhood was a difficult one: his father was an unsuccessful grain merchant who drank heavily, and his pretentious mother showed him little affection. Shaw attended a succession of schools, but his formal education left much to be desired. At age fifteen he began working as a rent collector for a land agent.

A Zealous Autodidact

Largely self-educated, Shaw read widely, devouring the works of William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, John Bunyan, William Blake, Lord Byron, and Percy Bysshe Shelley. He attended the theater to see French melodramas, Shakespearean comedies and dramas, and the works of the Irish-born playwright Dion Boucicault. Shaw also frequented the National Gallery of Ireland, where he encountered the works of Michelangelo. According to Dictionary of Literary Biography essayist John Greenfield, "The strongest and most immediate and pervasive influence on him at this time, however, was neither literature nor art but music. His mother made sure that the Shaw household never lacked for music; she and Shaw's two older sisters, Agnes and Lucy, all aspired to be professional singers, and Shaw himself sang and played the piano." Shaw's mother eventually moved to London, England, to pursue a career in music. In 1876 Shaw joined his mother in London, determined to pursue his own career in literature.

The next ten years were lean ones financially for Shaw. He wrote book reviews, drama reviews, and music and art criticism for various magazines, and he produced several unsuccessful novels. He often spent time at the British Museum Reading Room in pursuit of additional self-education, and he plunged himself into the London intellectual scene. Beginning in 1880 Shaw joined various philosophical, literary, and political organizations, including the Zetetical Society, the Dialectical Society, the Shelley Society, and the New Shakespeare Society. In 1882, after hearing a lecture by American economist and reformer Henry George, Shaw converted to socialism. He became a driving force in the Fabian Society, a middle-class socialist group, developing into an effective pamphleteer and public speaker. "Despite his failure in fiction, the 1880s were the decade in which Shaw found himself," wrote Stanley Weintraub in the Dictionary of Literary Biography. "He became a vegetarian, a socialist, a spellbinding orator, a polemicist, even, tentatively, a playwright."

During this time Shaw became acquainted with William Archer, a journalist who persuaded his editor to hire Shaw as an art critic. According to Weintraub, "Shaw had been experimenting in the drama since his early twenties, but not until William Archer in 1884 suggested a collaboration (Archer to
supply the plot, Shaw the dialogue) did serious work result. Even then the project was abandoned after Shaw used up all the projected plot; but eight years later, in 1892, Shaw completed the play on his own for J. T. Grein's fledgling Independent Theatre Society." Widowers' Houses, informed by his experiences as a rent collector, was Shaw's first play to reach the stage.

Recognition as a major force in the theater came slowly for Shaw, partly because he was already a celebrity when Widowers' Houses appeared in 1892. By that time Shaw had developed a public personality as the impudent, iconoclastic, paradoxical, and witty "G. B. S." who combined elements of the clown and the crank in his strident platform utterances and devastating published criticism of art, literature, music, and drama. J. I. M. Stewart wrote in Eight Modern Writers that Shaw "consistently employed arts of showmanship that are not commonly held becoming in a writer unquestionably eminent."

Theatrical Peaks and Valleys

Shaw's own career in the theater developed in four phases. In the initial period—from 1892 to 1902—his plays appeared in suburban and matinee performances in England and won wider audiences only through publication. During the second period, running from 1903 to the eve of World War I, Shaw secured a place in the London theater, scoring successes at the Royal Court Theatre and in the commercial West End. The third phase began in 1914 with intense public disapproval of his "Common Sense about the War" but took a turn in 1923 with public adulation for Saint Joan and peaked in 1925 with Shaw receiving the Nobel Prize for literature. In the final stage, which extended from 1929 to his death, Shaw became preoccupied with political issues, and he alienated many people with his often controversial views on European dictators.

In retrospect, the first period of Shaw's dramatic career suggests a surprising reluctance on the part of critics to recognize his genius. His plays had short runs in small cities; only a few were staged in London. Widowers' Houses was performed only twice in London, in 1892. Shaw's next several plays were staged only after difficulties. The Philanderer, a satire, found no producer until 1905, and Mrs. Warren's Profession, addressing the social issues implicit in prostitution, was banned by the Lord Chamberlain, thus limiting it to club performances until the ban was removed late in 1924. In 1897 Shaw's first study in greatness, his playlet on Napoleon called The Man of Destiny, had one performance in the London suburb
of Croydon. Candida, which presents a memorable woman choosing her conventional husband over an admiring young poet for unconventional reasons, also had one 1897 performance in Aberdeen, Scotland, and The Devil's Disciple, an inverted melodrama set in America during the war for independence, had one 1897 performance in Albany, New York.

Although Shaw's plays also had a few London performances at the turn of the twentieth century—You Never Can Tell in 1899 and Captain Brassbound's Conversion in 1900—his impact on the stage was almost nonexistent. His importance came when his works appeared in print. When he published Plays: Pleasant and Unpleasant he provided elaborate prefaces raising the significant issues of his plays. He also wrote his stage directions in a narrative form more congenial than the terse notations common to dramatic scripts. As T. F. Evans commented in Shaw: The Critical Heritage, Shaw took great pains with every detail of publication: He "had much to say to [publisher] Grant Richards on the physical appearance of the books, the type, the binding, the advertisements, the sales policy and the author's royalties."

Shaw's plays were criticized on several counts. One common charge was that his plays are not really plays at all. Arnold Bennett, writing for Academy, felt that Shaw's works are "decidedly not drama" even if they include "amusing and edifying dialogue." Another charge that contemporary critics frequently leveled at Shaw concerns the supposed heartlessness of his approach to life and the ostensibly inhuman nature of his characters. Responding to Arms and the Man, William Archer commented in World: "To look at nothing but the seamy side may be to see life steadily, but is not to see it whole. As an artist, Mr. Shaw suffers from this limitation; and to this negative fault, if I may call it so, he super-adds a positive vice of style." Further, Archer criticized Shaw for his "peculiar habit of straining all the red corpuscles out of the blood of his personages. They have nothing of human nature except its pettinesses; they are devoid alike of its spiritual and its sensual instincts."

During the playwright's second phase, some critics expressed greater understanding of Shaw's methods. In 1900, reviewing Captain Brassbound's Conversion for World, Archer ridiculed theater managers' failures to realize that Shaw's plays could be commercially successful in West End theaters. Archer contended that audiences were enjoying Shaw's plays thoroughly despite the disapproval of drama critics. Max Beerbohm, reviewing the published volume Man and Superman for the Saturday Review in 1903, also blamed theater managers for the commercial failure of Shaw's plays. "It is only the theatrical managers," he wrote, "who stand between him and the off-chance of a real popular success."

Finds Commercial Success in London

Man and Superman was an important turning point in Shavian drama, presenting for the first time a coherent statement—in the Don Juan in Hell interlude—of Shaw's ideal of the "Life Force." To the consternation of the author's socialist friends, the play treats Fabianism comically, satirizing socialist movements among the brigands and commenting—specifically in the Revolutionist's Handbook appended to the public version of the play—that Fabianism is one of socialism's failed experiments. In The Bishop of Everywhere, Warren Sylvester Smith declared that the play's "subject is simple: The Life Force, acting through the will of woman, subdues man to its purpose, and thereby moves the race to its next higher level. That is the subject that gives unity to the play, even though it proves somewhat limiting to its philosophical development." Smith agreed with Alfred Turco, Jr., who in Shaw's Moral Vision noted that Man and Superman is the culmination of Shaw's career, "the first play in which Shaw's belief in the possibility of an effective idealism is presented with real conviction."