Sebastian Shaw (actor) - Later Career and Death

Later Career and Death

Shaw remained active in his later years; along with fellow Royal Shakespeare Company actors Ian Richardson, John Nettles, Martin Best and Ann Firbank, he engaged in discussions and workshops with acting teachers and students in the early 1980s. Although appearances in films became far less common in his later career, he received much acclaim for his performance as the Cold War spy Sharp in Clare Peploe's High Season at the New York Film Festival in 1987; The San Diego Union-Tribune said Shaw played the role with "endearing, sweet gravity". One of his last performances was in the Christmas season of 1988 and 1989, when he played the wizard in a stage production of The Wizard of Oz at the Barbican Centre. The Times said audiences were "delighted to recognise his honeyed threats from behind the great carapace that disguised the Wizard of Oz". Shaw became an honorary life-member at the Garrick Club, which included such past members as writers Charles Dickens, J.M. Barrie, Kingsley Amis and A.A. Milne; artists Dante Gabriel Rossetti and John Everett Millais; and composer Edward Elgar.

Shaw died of natural causes on 23 December 1994 at age 89 in Brighton, East Sussex, England. A memorial service was held 15 February 1995 at St Paul's, Covent Garden, commonly known as the Actors' Church due to its long association with the theatre community. Actors Ian Richardson and Ben Kingsley read works by William Shakespeare, stage actress Estelle Kohler read How Do I Love Thee? by Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, actress Sheila Allen read Life by Welsh poet George Herbert and actor Kenneth Branagh read from the works of Canon Henry Scott Holland. One of Shaw's own poems, Gemini, was also read. Baritone Stephen Varcoe sang Wie bist du meine Königin by Johannes Brahms, accompanied by Graham Johnson on the piano, and guitarist Martin Best performed and sang his composition of Ariel's Songs from The Tempest. Shaw was survived by his partner Joan Ingpen, daughter Drusilla MacLeod, sisters Susan Bonner-Morgan and Penelope Harness, and sister-in-law Olga Young.