Why Robert Shaw’s no Oscar nomination for Jaws is the biggest award snub of all time

Robert Shaw was a playwright, a novelist and an actor. An insanely talented creator who didn’t know how to do anything other than give 100%. He described his work in 1974’s ‘The Taking of Pelham 1,2,3’, as “Most of the time about 50 times larger than the part.”

Dominated every film he was in, Shaw was an actor who made sure you noticed him.

As Red Grant in 1963’s ‘From Russia With Love’, he thumped James Bond like a blond battering ram so convincingly, you started to wonder if 007 might not get to sip another martini ever again.

And then 12 years later, along came Quint.

The script describes the shark hunter as:

a large, rough man, a professional fisherman marked by daily physical toil, About 45 or 50, it's hard to tell where the scars leave off and the wrinkles begin. There is a bit of the showman in him, as well as a bit of killer-whale.

Shaw gave such intensity to the role, it looked like he might just take the shark on single-handed and win - singing a song all the while.

When he lays down the law to Amity’s Town Council, it’s the perfect introduction of the film’s anti-hero.

Quint doesn’t wait his turn, why should he? He’s better and more experienced than everyone here. He knows it and they know it too. So why waste time?

Dragging his nails down a blackboard, the room falls silent.

Then it’s down to business: “I’ll catch him and kill him for 10. For that you get the head, the tail, the whole…damn…thing”.

Shaw recognised Quint as a showman, craving an audience and feeding off the attention - even though he viewed these people as something he might scrape off his shoe.

Shaw seems an obvious pick for the role, but he wasn’t Spielberg’s first choice - that honour went to Sterling Hayden, a veteran of World War II and keen sport fisherman who mostly starred in westerns and war films.

Coincidently, Hayden and Shaw had acted together in 1964’s - ‘Carol for Another Christmas’ but it was Hayden’s role as Brigadier General Jack Ripper in ‘Dr Strangelove’ that really caught Spielberg’s eye. Ripper is unhinged, constantly spinning wild conspiracy theories to fit his world view. He tells Peter Sellers’ cautious British Group Captain Mandrake that the Soviets have been spiking American water supplies with fluoride and obviously the only way to deal with them was nuke them.

Robert Shaw and Bruce the shark taking a break while filming Jaws (1975)

The foreshadowing of Quint’s paranoia and boiling rage is all there in Hayden’s performance. In the end though, the American said he didn’t want to hunt a ‘fake Hollywood shark’, but rather go fishing for real.

The other actor in the frame was Lee Marvin, another cigar chomping man’s-man from movies like ‘The Dirty Dozen’ but in the end he turned Quint down too.

Producers Zanuck and Brown had worked with Shaw in ‘The Sting’ where he’d eaten up the screen as Irish mobster Doyle Lonnegan, again stealing every scene he was in. And when the stars of the movie are Redford and Newman, that’s no mean feat.

The producers recommended Shaw, Spielberg saw him and knew he’s found his man.

No doubt about it, Quint elevates Jaws immeasurably. If you strip away the director, the editing, the score and even the shark you’d still have Shaw sipping his moonshine, growling those incredible lines and staring down the lens from the Orca’s pulpit as the sun sets behind him. From the moment he appeared, he utterly ruled the movie.

Richard Dreyfuss was both smitten and terrified, described Shaw as “…an enormous personality, and he radiated it, and in private he was the kindest, gentlest, funniest guy you ever met. Then we’d walk to set and…he was possessed by some evil troll who would make me his victim.”

So who won Best Supporting Actor in 1976?

80 year old George Burns for his role in ‘The Sunshine Boys’.

The movie was an ambling comedy about two vaudeville comedians who hate each other. It was Burns’ first movie since 1939 and while he did well, is it really a better performance than Shaw in Jaws? No.

Putting it bluntly, Shaw was robbed.

Many say the reason he didn’t even get nominated - which is even more extraordinary - was that Jaws was the most successful movie of all time. If Oscar sees box office success, he turns his back.

Quite rightly, Jaws swam off with Best Editing for Verna Fields and Best Score for John Williams but nothing in the Best Picture/Director/Actor categories. Jaws was snubbed, everyone with any sense knew it and shamefully this meant Shaw lost out.

‘The Sunshine Boys’, however, collected a few actor wins and the statuette for Best Screenplay, but was a dud with the public.

Big box office does not equal a classic, but when virtually nobody goes to see your movie and yet you’re showered with awards, something weird’s going on.

Quint doesn’t appear properly until almost an hour in to Jaws but Shaw does more in half the time that most actors can manage these days in an entire franchise!

One more indignity for Robert Shaw was that The Academy chose to be a host for the ceremony. They didn’t think he was worth an Actor mention, but sure, let him read a few lines from a cue card!

Robert Shaw was a giant of stage and screen and died tragically at just 51 years of age, just three years after making Jaws. Quint will always be his defining role.

He starts as a vulgar, arrogant tyrant but as the hunt intensifies, he softens, recognising that he might have to rely on his ‘crew’ if he’s to make it out alive. Sadly, it’s not to be and he dies in much the same way as Herbie Robinson did back in 1945 - bitten in half below the waist.

Shaw wasn’t convinced if he should take the role either, saying the novel was “a story written by a committee, a piece of shit” but his wife and his secretary, thought otherwise. They insisted he grab it with both hands, thankfully he did as he was told.

“The last time they were that enthusiastic was ‘From Russia With Love’. And they were right.”

Robert Archibald Shaw, played pirates, bank robbers, gangsters, Kings and even the 7th Cavalry’s most famous and most arrogant General, he truly was ‘a man for all seasons’.

Every season save one, that is - Awards Season.

Words by Tim Armitage

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