Irwin Shaw

Author profile

born

February 27, 1913 in South Bronx, New York City, New York, The United States

died

May 16, 1984

gender

male

genre

Literature & Fiction

About this author

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Shaw was born Irwin Gilbert Shamforoff in the South Bronx, New York City, to Russian Jewish immigrants. His parents were Rose and Will. His younger brother, David Shaw (died 2007), became a noted Hollywood producer. Shortly after Irwin's birth, the Shamforoffs moved to Brooklyn. Irwin changed his surname upon entering college. He spent most of his youth in Brooklyn, where he graduated from Brooklyn College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1934. Shaw died in Davos, Switzerland on May 16, 1984, aged 71, after undergoing treatment for prostate cancer.

Shaw began screenwriting in 1935 at the age of 21, and scripted for several radio shows, including Dick Tracy, The Gumps and Studio One. He recaptured this period of his life in his short story "...more Shaw was born Irwin Gilbert Shamforoff in the South Bronx, New York City, to Russian Jewish immigrants. His parents were Rose and Will. His younger brother, David Shaw (died 2007), became a noted Hollywood producer. Shortly after Irwin's birth, the Shamforoffs moved to Brooklyn. Irwin changed his surname upon entering college. He spent most of his youth in Brooklyn, where he graduated from Brooklyn College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1934. Shaw died in Davos, Switzerland on May 16, 1984, aged 71, after undergoing treatment for prostate cancer.

Shaw began screenwriting in 1935 at the age of 21, and scripted for several radio shows, including Dick Tracy, The Gumps and Studio One. He recaptured this period of his life in his short story "Main Currents of American Life," about a hack radio writer grinding out one script after another while calculating the number of words equal to the rent money:

"Furniture, and a hundred and thirty-seven dollars. His mother had always wanted a good dining-room table. She didn't have a maid, she said, so he ought to get her a dining room table. How many words for a dining-room table?"

Shaw's first play, Bury the Dead (1936) was an expressionist drama about a group of soldiers killed in a battle who refuse to be buried. During the 1940s, Shaw wrote for a number of films, including Talk of the Town (a comedy about civil liberties), The Commandos Strike at Dawn (based on a C.S. Forester story about commandos in occupied Norway) and Easy Living (about a football player unable to enter the game due to a medical condition). Shaw married Marian Edwards (daughter of well known screen actor Snitz Edwards.) They had one son, Adam Shaw, born in 1950, himself a writer of magazine articles and non-fiction.

Shaw enlisted in the U.S. Army and was a warrant officer during World War II. The Young Lions, Shaw's first novel, was published in 1949. Based on his experiences in Europe during the war, the novel was very successful and was adapted into a 1958 film. Shaw was not happy with it.

Shaw's second novel, The Troubled Air, chronicling the rise of McCarthyism, was published in 1951. He was among those who signed a petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the John Howard Lawson and Dalton Trumbo convictions for contempt of Congress, resulting from hearings by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Falsely accused of being a communist by the Red Channels publication, Shaw was placed on the Hollywood blacklist by the movie studio bosses. In 1951 he left the United States and went to Europe, where he lived for 25 years, mostly in Paris and Switzerland. He later claimed that the blacklist "only glancingly bruised" his career. During the 1950s he wrote several more screenplays, including Desire Under the Elms (based on Eugene O'Neill's play) and Fire Down Below (about a tramp boat in the Caribbean).

While living in Europe, Shaw wrote more bestselling books, notably Lucy Crown (1956), Two Weeks in Another Town (1960), Rich Man, Poor Man (1970) (for which he would later write a less successful sequel entitled Beggarman, Thief) and Evening in Byzantium (made into a 1978 TV movie). Rich Man, Poor Man was adapted into a highly successful ABC television miniseries in 1976.

His novel Top of the Hill, about the Winter Olympics at Lake Placid in 1980, was made into a TV movie, starring Wayne Rogers, Adrienne Barbeau, and Sonny Bono.

His last two novels were Bread Upon the Waters (1981) and Acceptable Losses (1982).

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Books by Irwin Shaw

Average rating: 3.90 · 3,295 ratings · 192 reviews · 47 distinct works

	Rich Man, Poor Man 4.07 avg rating — 1,678 ratings — published 1969 — 13 editions	My rating:
	The Young Lions by Irwin Shaw, James Salter (Foreword by) 4.04 avg rating — 361 ratings — published 1948 — 13 editions	My rating:
	Beggarman, Thief 3.62 avg rating — 300 ratings — published 1977 — 12 editions	My rating:
	Night Work 3.71 avg rating — 151 ratings — published 1975 — 7 editions	My rating:
	Bread upon the Waters 3.62 avg rating — 159 ratings — 12 editions	My rating:
	Evening In Byzantium 3.44 avg rating — 137 ratings — published 1973 — 8 editions	My rating:
	The Top of the Hill 3.62 avg rating — 84 ratings — published 1981 — 8 editions	My rating:
	Lucy Crown 3.69 avg rating — 72 ratings — published 1956 — 10 editions	My rating:
	Acceptable Losses 3.41 avg rating — 71 ratings — published 1983 — 6 editions	My rating:
	Two Weeks In Another Town 3.76 avg rating — 55 ratings — published 1960 — 8 editions	My rating:

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Quotes by Irwin Shaw

“I cringe when critics say I'm a master of the popular novel. What's an unpopular novel?”
― Irwin Shaw

tags: humor , writing

15 people liked it

“There are too many books I haven't read, too many places I haven't seen, too many memories I haven't kept long enough”
― Irwin Shaw

14 people liked it

“An absolutely necessary part of a writer's equipment, almost as necessary as talent, is the ability to stand up under punishment, both the punishment the world hands out and the punishment he inflicts upon himself.”
― Irwin Shaw

12 people liked it

See all Irwin Shaw's quotes »

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Irwin Shaw

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Quotes by Irwin Shaw

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Books by Irwin Shaw