Despite being born George Bernard Shaw, the wordsmith dropped his Christian name and became known simply as Bernard Shaw. It is said that his distaste for the name ‘George’ traces back to his childhood and that, as per his wishes, it went unused by those outside of his family. [1]
George Bernard Shaw was born in Dublin, Ireland on 26 July 1856. Although best known for drama, he was also a journalist, musician, and critic.
Shaw was the youngest of three children to George Carr Shaw and Lucinda Elizabeth Gurly Shaw and grew up in an atmosphere of genteel poverty. He was tutored in his early years by his uncle and his mother who educated him in the arts, taking him to museums, galleries, and libraries.
In 1876 Shaw moved to London with the ambition of becoming a writer and novelist. By the mid-1880s he had become a respected theatre critic while also writing his own plays. This period also marked his political awakening. He read Marx and became a member of the Fabian Society. His views were often controversial, he was a committed vegetarian, and he used his plays as tools to discuss his ideas about politics and society. Two of his greatest influences were Henrik Ibsen and Henry Fielding. Shaw married fellow Fabian member and Irish heiress Charlotte Payne-Townshend in 1898 when they were both 41, and they remained together until Charlotte’s death in 1943.
His influence on Western theatre, culture, and politics extended from the 1880s to his death and beyond. He wrote more than 60 plays, including major works such as Man and Superman (1902), Pygmalion (1913) and Saint Joan (1923). With a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory, Shaw became the leading dramatist of his generation. He was the first person to be awarded the Nobel prize for Literature (in 1925) as well an Academy Award for Writing (in 1939) for his work on Pygmalion, which was an adaptation of his play of the same name. Famously, Pygmalion was adapted for the screen in the 1938 film of the same name, and then for the stage in the musical My Fair Lady in 1956 with Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews in the lead roles and again in the 1964 film.
Shaw reached the grand age of 94, still writing to the end when he died due to injuries incurred from falling while pruning a tree in November 1950.