SHAW – June 14, 2014 - Wed

A self-anointed 8-handicapper, I wanted only to play golf with the late actor Robert Shaw, but I wound up getting blind drunk with him instead.

We met in the First Class Lounge at Aer Lingus at Kennedy in New York one day in 1968, and because of Shaw’s brogue and the fact he told me he was getting off at Galway, I assumed (incorrectly) he was Irish. Years later I learned he was English.

His father and mother were both Brits; Shaw was the eldest son of Dr. Thomas Shaw and his missus. The young doctor (Thomas) had met his future wife when she was a nurse at hospital in Westhoughton, Lancashire, England, where baby Robert was born in 1927.

“Anyway,” he said, “I doan ever play golf, with or withou’ a handicap, ‘cept I doan even know the rules of how to play. I only drink Scotch whisky, though; I cannot abide dat swill dey serve as Scotch on Aer Lingus. Dat’s why I always bring me own!”

Whereupon he produced from his battered flight bag an unopened bottle of Old Paar Scotch Whisky.

Anyway, we drank Aer Lingus’s entire supply until the plane landed at Galway, and as the pilot looked for a gate at which to park. My two business partners sat elsewhere in First Class, and Shaw and I had the entire front rows to ourselves and our trays.

When we had drunk all the Scotch whisky with which the stews were plying us, Shaw brought forth his bottle of Old Paar and handed it to the nearest attendant. “I trus’ ye will make sure, for certain, only me,” he said, emphatically, “an’ me frien’ here frum Amur-a-ka will partake of dis private label!”

While rummaging in that old flight bag, Shaw had come across a marked-up and well-thumbed movie script, which he handed me.

“Spielberg called me at me hotel las’ night, an’ told me he had noticed me in DA STING and wanted me fer Quint in dis ting called JAWS. I toll him I was gawan tuh da ol sod tuh spend sum tyme wid me kids, an’ I’d look at it dere. Wha’ you tink?”

I glanced at the script. “Looks okay,” I said; “you should do it, if it’s as good as it looks.”

“Okay,” he said, retrieving the script. “Maybe hit’s gotta a Acad-a-me Award attach’ tuh hit, I doan know; maybe hit ain’t.”

We parted after we landed at Galway after finding an empty gate several hours later, after a bit of much-needed sleep. My business partners and I were met in the terminal by Lee Gow, an Irishman who was the New York District rep for Aer Lingus.

Lee had a rental car in preparation for driving us to Limerick where we had reserved rooms at the newly remodeled Ardleigh House.

“I t’ought we would take a spin by da Cliffs of Moooooohr,” he said, as we waited for our luggage. “Who’s dis?” Lee asked, indicating a badly unshaven and disarrayed Robert Shaw, who had gotten in line with us at baggage claim.

“Nobody,” I said; “just the actor — Robert Shaw. Perhaps you remember him in FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, or as Henry the 8th in A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS.

It suddenly dawned on Gow. He smacked his forehead with his palm in recognition.

“Ah, stupid o’ me!” he cried. “Of course, I knew it all da time: Sean Connery an’ Paul Scofield! Of course! Funny how ya meet people in first class! Did I eve’ tell ya ‘bout da tyme I met Zazu Pitts an’ her frien’, Irene Fabuskja, in first class on da Orient Express! Hit was sum’ting, I tell ya! We was on our way ta . . .”

By the time we got to the Cliffs of Mohr, I knew more about the Orient Express than I knew about Phineas Fogg.

I never saw Robert Shaw again (except as Quint in JAWS and at the subsequent Academy Awards telecast later that year) after we said goodbye at the Galway airport.



Robert A. Mills
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