Though primarily a stage actor, Sebastian Shaw appeared in some forty film and television productions from 1930 to 1991. Born on May 29, 1905 in Holt, Norfolk, England, he first appeared on stage as a child in 1913, graduating to lead roles by the late 1920s. It was in 1930 that he made his first film appearance in Caste (1930). His most notable film roles of this period were as an aspiring actor opposite Miriam Hopkins and Rex Harrison in the Alexander Korda produced Les Hommes ne sont pas des dieux (1936); as a crime suspect in another Korda production, The Squeaker (1937) and a role opposite Conrad Veidt and Valerie Hobson in Michael Powell's L'espion noir (1939). His later films included a role in Roy Boulting's documentary-style La grande aventure (1945); La montagne de verre (1949) and as a Scottish MP in Laxdale Hall (1953).
In the 1960s, he appeared in Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo's imaginative En Angleterre occupée (1965), made in semi-documentary style showing Britons coping during a Nazi persecution. Mostly stage and television work followed (including an appearance as a judge in Rumpole of the Bailey (1978)). In 1982, Shaw was approached by George Lucas to make an appearance in the final episode of his Star Wars films - Le retour du Jedi (1983). The role was the small but crucial one at the film's climax of the unmasked Darth Vader and later as the disembodied spirit of Anakin Skywalker. The role has since made him a cult figure all over the world. The rest of Shaw's career was largely spent playing distinguished elderly gent roles such as the art critic Mr. Sharpe in Soleil grec (1987). Shaw continued to act on stage, film and television well into his eighties. Sebastian Shaw died at age 89 of natural causes on December 23, 1994.
