Susan Shaw
Susan Shaw was an English actress.Life and career
Shaw began her film career in 1946 when she was signed to a contract by the J. Arthur Rank Organisation and trained at its "charm school". She debuted on film in Walking on Air. Her early career showed promise, and Shaw's popularity was established in such films as the Huggetts Trilogy with Jack Warner. Shaw went on to have prominent female lead roles in films such as Pool of London, There is Another Sun and The Large Rope.
Her marriage to Albert Lieven, with whom she had a daughter, ended in divorce in 1953, and in 1954, she married the actor Bonar Colleano, with whom she had featured in the film Pool of London. In 1955, their son Mark was born, and in 1958, Colleano was killed in a traffic collision. Badly affected by Colleano's death, Shaw began to drink heavily, and unable to care for her son because of her emerging alcoholism, she gave him to his paternal grandmother to raise.
She resumed her career, but was unable to sustain it and made her final acting appearance in 1963. She died of cirrhosis of the liver and was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium, North London. The Rank Organisation paid for her funeral.Critical assessment
The film historians Steve Chibnall and Brian McFarlane praise the "sulky, spiky tenacity that differentiated her from many of her contemporaries".Filmography
