In Chapter 7 of Christopher Shaw Myers’s new book, “Robert Shaw: An Actor’s Life on the Set of Jaws and Beyond,” Nelson Mandela pays a visit to an apartheid-era South African school during the mid-1950s. What does this have to do with Robert Shaw, who played Quint in the 1975 film “Jaws”? Well, Mandela engaged in conversation with the actor’s sister Joanna, who was teaching at a blacks-only school in South Africa at the time.
That’s the big problem with this new biography. While the title suggests an in-depth consideration of the great British actor and writer’s work on the landmark film, the book is a bait and switch. It places a very heavy emphasis on Joanna Shaw, who is the author’s mother, and on Doreen Shaw, the family matriarch. The making of “Jaws” becomes a tenuous hook that holds this work together, and Robert Shaw comes across like a supporting player in what is supposed to be the story of his life and his greatest career achievement.
