Personal Life
His childhood was spent in Erdington and then Sutton Coldfield near Birmingham. In his youth, Shaw was involved in a drunken brawl with a friend, suffering broken teeth, injuries to his face and a fractured skull. A mid-face fracture involving the right cheekbone required surgical rebuilding.
In 1971, Shaw became a follower of Charan Singh, a master of the ancient spiritual tradition of Sant Mat. This involved a strict lacto vegetarian diet, meditation, yoga and the avoidance of alcohol and other mind-altering drugs.
He is a celebrity activist for animal rights and animal welfare. He is the patron of the Hillside Animal Sanctuary in Norfolk, a charity organisation which provides a safe home for neglected and abused animals. He also supports Viva!
In interviews and in the Martin Shaw - Aviators documentary series, Shaw readily shares his passion for vintage aeroplanes. He is the holder of a private pilot's licence. For several years, Shaw owned a 1943 Boeing Stearman PT-17 Kaydet (G-BAVO) and now flies a Piper Cub (G-BFBY).
Shaw has three children by his first wife, actress Jill Allen, whom he married in 1968: Luke Shaw, an actor; Joe Shaw, an actor and director and Sophie Shaw, an actor and singer with the band "Blue Harlem".
Shaw's second wife was former nurse turned alternative therapist and core process psychotherapist, Maggie Mansfield.
Shaw's third wife was TV presenter, environmental activist and fellow pilot Vicky Kimm.
For a while he also lived with the late actress Morag Hood.
Between January 2003 and July 2008, Shaw and his current partner, Karen da Silva, were stalked by Sandra Price, a divorcee in her sixties. Price sent Shaw several letters (which he said he found "offensive and intrusive") as well as a 120-page dossier of her views on his career and a 45-minute cassette tape.
In the early hours of a morning in July 2008, Price poured petrol through the door of Ms da Silva's home. This action precipitated Price's arrest by police. In a two-day trial at King's Lynn Magistrates' Court (6–7 January 2009), Price pleaded guilty to damage to property. She was also convicted of harassment. Price was sentenced on 28 January. Although she avoided a custodial sentence, she was ordered to perform 240 hours of unpaid community work and to pay a contribution towards the Crown's costs of £800. An electronically monitored curfew between 19:00 and 07:00 was imposed and the complainants received a restraining order against Price.
On 18 August 2010, Shaw collapsed during the first act of the matinee showing of A Country Girl at Shrewsbury's Theatre Severn. His agent, Roger Charteris, said he had been suffering from cracked ribs and was taking antibiotics for a severe chest infection. An understudy went on in his place.
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“A man lives not only his personal life, as an individual, but also, consciously or unconsciously, the life of his epoch and his contemporaries.”
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certain, certain way he lived his own, private life,
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“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest—whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories—comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)