Artie Shaw - Personal Life

Personal Life

A self-proclaimed "very difficult man," Shaw was married eight times: Jane Cairns (1932–33; annulled); Margaret Allen (1934–37; divorced); actress Lana Turner (1940; divorced); Betty Kern (1942–43; divorced), the daughter of songwriter Jerome Kern; actress Ava Gardner (1945–46; divorced); Forever Amber author Kathleen Winsor (1946–48; annulled); actress Doris Dowling (1952–56; divorced); and actress Evelyn Keyes (1957–85; divorced). He had one son, Steven Kern, with Betty Kern, and another son, Jonathan Shaw (a well-known tattoo artist who founded Fun City Tattoo), with Doris Dowling. Both Lana Turner and Ava Gardner later described Shaw as being extremely emotionally abusive. His controlling nature and incessant verbal abuse in fact drove Turner to have a nervous breakdown, soon after which she divorced him. Shaw even briefly dated actress Judy Garland in 1940.

In 1946, Shaw was present at a meeting of the Independent Citizens' Committee of the Arts, Sciences and Professions. Olivia de Havilland and Ronald Reagan, part of a core group of actors and artists who were trying to sway the organization away from communism, presented an anti-communist declaration which, if signed, was to run in newspapers. There was bedlam as many rose to champion the communist cause, and Artie Shaw began praising the democratic standards of the Soviet constitution. In 1953, Shaw was brought up before the House Un-American Activities Committee for his leftist activities. The committee was investigating a peace activist organization, the World Peace Congress, which it considered a communist front.

He was a precision marksman, ranking fourth in the United States in 1962, as well as an expert fly fisherman. In his later years, Shaw lived and wrote in the Newbury Park section of Thousand Oaks, California. Shaw had long suffered from adult onset diabetes and eventually died of complications of the disease at age 94. In 2005, Shaw's eighth wife, Evelyn Keyes, sued Shaw's estate, claiming that she was entitled to one-half of Shaw's estate pursuant to a contract to make a will between them. In July 2006, a Ventura, California jury unanimously held that Keyes was entitled to almost one-half of Shaw's estate, or $1,420,000.