ROBERT SHAW: An Actor’s Life On The Set Of JAWS And Beyond
Connecticut author brings famous uncle to life in book about JAWS star

By Christopher Arnott | carnott@courant.com | Hartford Courant
October 27, 2025

Christopher Shaw Myers wrote his book, ROBERT SHAW, to mark the 50th anniversary of the famous British actor/playwright/novelist’s best-known film. But what he really compiled was a wide-ranging family history that shows Shaw — Myers’ uncle — as a devoted brother, father and friend.

“He deserves more attention,” Myers said. “He was in some really big movies, like The Sting and A Man for All Seasons. He was the first Bond villain in From Russia With Love. He was nominated for a Tony Award as a writer.”

The book’s release was timed by its publisher Citadel Press, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the release of JAWS this past summer. The cover has the subtitle, ‘An Actor’s Life on the Set of JAWS and Beyond,’ plus a photos of Shaw as Quint. But it’s much more than that, and will outlast the current fervor over the shark movie’s half-century celebration.

Myers wrote ROBERT SHAW in a distinct style that reads more like a novel than a biography. He recreates lengthy conversations as entertaining dialogues. He uses family stories to humanize Shaw’s work in theater and films. The stories are deeply felt and warmly expressed, probably because Myers heard them his whole life.

Myers is the son of Shaw’s sister Joanna, who left England when she was in her 20s, started a family in the United States, and had a long career as an educator. Joanna is as big a character in the book as her famous brother Robert. After Shaw’s death in 1978 at the age of 51, there are chapters which explain what became of Joanna, as well as their mother, who is referred to throughout the book as ‘Mrs. Shaw.’

Myers majored in English Literature at Trinity College in Hartford in the late 1970s. There’s an anecdote in the book about how his mother tried to talk him out of going there because “no one has ever heard of Trinity.” Joanna changed her mind when she and Christopher went to a special pre-release private screening of JAWS and heard a character announce: “I am a student at Trinity College in Hartford.” Myers writes: Joanna could hear Chris chuckling in the dark. ‘Everyone will have heard of Trinity now,’ he whispered.

Myers eventually settled in Connecticut, living in the Black Rock section of Bridgeport. His children also went to Trinity.

The book references another Connecticut icon, playwright Thornton Wilder, who spent most of his life in New Haven and Hamden. Wilder, who was in his 70s then, visited Robert Shaw in Martha’s Vineyard during the filming of JAWS. Shaw and Wilder knew each other’s work and had great mutual respect, and Wilder gave Shaw timely advice about trust and inspiration, which appeared to indirectly help him find the key to bringing the USS Indianapolis speech to life.

Myers has been holding book signings & readings since ROBERT SHAW was published in June, including numerous events in Connecticut. The next one is on Oct. 29 at 5:30 p.m. at the Harry Bennett branch of Stamford Public Library. He is also speaking at the Bloomfield Public Library on Dec. 20 at 12:30 p.m.

“It’s been a fun summer for me, the pleasure of sharing my family’s story,” Myers said. “In Westport, 300 people wanted to hear about the book. I was also in Martha’s Vineyard this summer,” where his uncle filmed JAWS 50 years ago.

The book features exchanges between Shaw and his co-stars Richard Dreyfuss and Roy Scheider, as well as a moment when Shaw defended the film’s young director, Steven Spielberg, as “a genius.”

“A lot of people tell me they thought they knew Robert Shaw before they read the  book… but now they really know him,” Myers said. “I like to tell people this is not your typical biography. It’s not a Wikipedia / reporter’s view of his life. I consider it a family history. It’s about the hidden figures who shaped his life.

“These are the stories I grew up with. A few years ago I asked my mother to tell me more about the Shaw family. I spent 100’s of hours with her. It’s a cool thing for any child.”

ROBERT SHAW isn’t the only recent project to depict him as the multifaceted, multi-talented person he was. Shaw’s son (and Myers’ cousin) Ian Shaw wrote and starred in a popular play about the making of JAWS called ‘The Shark is Broken.’ West Hartford’s Playhouse on Park staged the New England premiere of the play last year.

Myers is in touch with some of the other members of the extended family, but most of them live in Britain and Ireland, or on the other side of the U.S.

Despite his degree in English from Trinity, “I did not become a writer then,” Myers said. “I went into international business.” ROBERT SHAW is his first book, but he’s already at work on his next book — several books, actually — a series of young adult novels with sports themes.

When he decided to write a biography of his uncle, “I was already a big fan,” Myers said. “My mother was, so I was. But that’s not true of everyone. People could hate him or love him. The people who loved him understood how loyal he could be to his friends and family. At heart he was a family man. He paid for my mother to get her PhD."

“I grew up very interested in Robert. There are two standard biographies of him. I read those, I rewatched his interviews on TV, I’ve read all his novels and plays. I didn’t have to do a lot of additional research.”

Myers remembers JAWS being released and how excited he was to have his uncle starring in the biggest movie of the year. But it was his mother and grandmother who actually visited Shaw in Massachusetts while JAWS was being filmed on Martha’s Vineyard.

“He died when I was 21,” Myers said of his famous uncle. “I was just a kid, but my mother brought him to life for me.”