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Susan Shaw
Susan Shaw
Born	Patricia Gwendoline Sloots; 29 August 1929; West Norwood, London, England
Died	27 November 1978 (aged 49); Middlesex, England
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1946–1963
Spouses	; Albert Lieven (m. 1949; div. 1953) ; Bonar Colleano (m. 1954; died 1958) Ronald Rowson (m. 1959; div. 1960)
Children	2

Susan Shaw (29 August 1929 – 27 November 1978; born Patricia Gwendoline Sloots) was an English actress.

Early life

Shaw was born Patricia Gwendoline Sloots^{[citation needed]} on 29 August 1929 in West Norwood, London,^[1] to Edward John Sloots and Lillian Rose Lewis.^[2] She had wanted to become a dress designer and was working as a typist at the Ministry for Information when she did a screen test for the J. Arthur Rank Organisation.^[3] They signed her to a term contract and trained her at its "charm school".^[4]

Career

Shaw had a bit part in the musical London Town (1946) and a larger part in another musical, Walking on Air (1946).^[5]^[6] She had small roles in The Upturned Glass (1947) and Jassy (1947). She was in Holiday Camp (1947), which introduced the Huggett family, although she did not play a Huggett. Shaw was given her most noticeable role to date in It Always Rains on Sunday (1947) for Ealing Studios. She had another support part in My Brother's Keeper (1948) for Gainsborough Pictures, and replaced Pat Roc when she pulled out of London Belongs to Me (1948).^[7]

Shaw's first lead came in To the Public Danger (1948), a short feature directed by Terence Fisher. She had a role in one of the segments of Quartet (1948) and, when Sydney Box decided to make a film series out of the Huggett family with Jack Warner, Shaw was cast as Susan Huggett. There were three films in the series: Here Come the Huggetts (1948), Vote for Huggett (1948) and The Huggetts Abroad (1949).^[8] She was the female lead in the comedies It's Not Cricket (1949) and Marry Me (1949), and one of many actresses in Train of Events (1949).^[9] Shaw was by now one of the busiest young actresses in Britain.^[10] She played support in some thrillers – Waterfront (1950),^[11] The Woman in Question (1950) – before returning to leads in Pool of London (1951) with Bonar Colleano.

Shaw began to appear on television in One Man's Family (1951), and in a BBC version of The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1951).^[12] She was the female lead in some B movies: There Is Another Sun (1951), Wide Boy (1952), A Killer Walks (1952), The Large Rope (1953), and Small Town Story (1953). On TV she did Count Your Blessings (1953). In April 1951, the Daily Mail listed Shaw on a poll from over 2,000 readers as one of the most popular British female actress in the country (after Anna Neagle, Jean Simmons, Jean Kent, Glynis Johns, Greer Garson, Petula Clark, Margaret Rutherford and Patricia Dainton, and in front of Jane Wyman.^[13])

She supported in some A films, such as The Intruder (1953) and The Good Die Young (1954), as well as Time Is My Enemy (1954), and played leads in: Stolen Time (1955); Stock Car (1955); Fire Maidens from Outer Space (1956); in the comedy Davy (1958); The Diplomatic Corpse (1958); and Chain of Events (1958), as well as in the TV play You Can't Have Everything (1958). She appeared in Carry on Nurse (1959) and The Big Day (1960), and in episodes of: All Aboard (1959); Suspense (1960); Richard the Lionheart (1962); and No Hiding Place (1962). Her last films were Stranglehold (1963) and The Switch (1963).

Critical assessment

The film historians Steve Chibnall and Brian McFarlane praised the "sulky, spiky tenacity that differentiated her from many of her contemporaries".^[14]

Personal life

Her marriage to Albert Lieven, with whom she had a daughter, ended in divorce in 1953, and in 1954, she married Colleano,^[8]^[15]^[16] who was killed in a traffic collision on 17 August 1958.^[17]^[18]^[19] Shortly before his death, Colleano admitted he had liabilities of nearly £10,000 due to extravagant living.^[20] He and Shaw had a son, Mark, born in 1955. 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.^[21]

In November 1959 Shaw married TV producer Ronald Rowson.^[22]^[23] The marriage ended officially in November 1960, Rowson claiming that Shaw had been unfaithful to him with writer Stanley Mann, less than two months into their marriage.^[24]

Later life and death

Shaw wound up living alone and broke in Soho.^[25]

She died in Middlesex on 27 November 1978^[1] of cirrhosis of the liver and was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium, north London. Her old friends were going to pay for the funeral but then the Rank Organisation stepped in to do it.^[25] "When we heard of the circumstances of her death we felt it was the least we could do," said a spokesman from the Rank Organisation. Charlie Stevenson, landlord of the Swiss Tavern in Old Compton Street, said, "She came in here every day. They say she died of cirrhosis of the liver and she lived next door to prostitutes in Soho. But this is Soho. We all live next door to prostitutes. We loved her and we weren't going to see her buried in a pauper's grave. Now we shall give the money to medical charities."^[26]

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1946	London Town	Extra	Uncredited
1946	Walking on Air
1947	The Upturned Glass	2nd Girl Student
	Holiday Camp	Patsy Crawford
	Jassy	Cecily	Uncredited
	It Always Rains on Sunday	Vi Sandigate
1948	My Brother's Keeper	Beryl
	London Belongs to Me	Doris Josser
	To the Public Danger	Nancy Bedford	Short
	Quartet	Betty Baker	(segment "The Kite")
	Here Come the Huggetts	Susan Huggett
1949	Vote for Huggett	Susan Huggett
	It's Not Cricket	Primrose Brown
	The Huggetts Abroad	Susan Huggett
	Marry Me!	Pat Cooper
	Train of Events	Doris Hardcastle	(segment "The Engine Driver")
1950	Waterfront	Connie McCabe
1950	The Woman in Question	Catherine Taylor
1951	Pool of London	Pat
1951	There Is Another Sun	Lillian
1952	Wide Boy	Molly
1953	The Intruder	Tina
	The Large Rope	Susan Hamble
	Small Town Story	Patricia Lane
1954	The Good Die Young	Doris
1954	Time Is My Enemy	Evelyn Gower
1955	Stolen Time	Carole Carlton
1955	Stock Car	Gina
1956	Fire Maidens from Outer Space	Hestia
1958	Davy	Gwen
	The Diplomatic Corpse	Jenny Drew
	Chain of Events	Jill Mason
1959	Carry On Nurse	Mrs Jane Bishop
1960	The Big Day	Phyllis Selkirk
1963	Stranglehold	Actress
1963	The Switch	Search officer	(final film role)

References

^ ^a ^b "Susan Shaw". BFI. Archived from the original on 3 August 2012.
^ ancestry.co.uk
^ Mr Attlee has a chance to tell us the latest score Date: Tuesday, 29 August 1950 Publication: Daily Mail (London, England) Issue: 16935 p 2
^ "Susan Shaw – Biography, Movie Highlights and Photos – AllMovie". AllMovie.
^ "Susan Shaw | TV Guide". TVGuide.com.
^ "Obituary: Peter Noble". The Independent. 29 August 1997. Archived from the original on 25 May 2022.
^ "Film News From England and America". The Sun. No. 11, 818. New South Wales, Australia. 11 December 1947. p. 32 (Late Final Extra). Retrieved 28 September 2020 – via National Library of Australia.
^ ^a ^b Ross, Andrew (19 October 2011). Carry-On Actors. ISBN 9781908382085.
^ "Margaret Aylwards". The Sun. No. 2399. New South Wales, Australia. 3 April 1949. p. 12. Retrieved 28 September 2020 – via National Library of Australia.
^ Author: Cecil Wilson Date: Thursday, 11 November 1948 Publication: Daily Mail (London, England) Issue: 16379 p 2
^ "Susan Shaw". The Australian Women's Weekly. Vol. 17, no. 44. Australia. 8 April 1950. p. 45. Retrieved 28 September 2020 – via National Library of Australia.
^ No Surprises — But Still a Favourite Author: J. Stubbs Walker Date: Monday, 28 May 1951 Publication: Daily Mail (London, England) Issue: 17165 p 2
^ Anna Neagle, John Mills are top stars Author: By Daily Mail Reporter Date: Saturday, 14 April 1951 Publication: Daily Mail (London, England) Issue: 17128 p 3
^ Steve Chibnall & Brian McFarlane, The British 'B' Film, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2009, p. 184.
^ "John Miles Looks At: New Films in Town". News. Vol. 59, no. 9, 036. South Australia. 25 July 1952. p. 10. Retrieved 28 September 2020 – via National Library of Australia.
^ "Colleano, British Actor, Weds", New York Times 11 January 1954: 19.
^ "Susan Shaw – The Private Life and Times of Susan Shaw. Susan Shaw Pictures". glamourgirlsofthesilverscreen.com.
^ Flashback: How the Liverpool Daily Post reported accident forgotten crash site of tragic film star: Campaign for plaque to remember Bonar Colleano Hughes, Lorna. Liverpool Echo; Liverpool (UK), 12 February 2017: 4.
^ Car Accident Fatal to Actor Bonar Colleano Los Angeles Times 18 August 1958: 2.
^ How a Star Gets in Trouble over Tax Author: By Daily Mail Reporter Date: Wednesday, 21 May 1958 Publication: Daily Mail (London, England) Issue: 19309 p 3
^ "BBC On This Day – 15 – 1958: Film stars raise cash for Colleano". bbc.co.uk. 15 December 1958.
^ Bonar Colleano's mother joins a happy marriage Author: Paul Tanfield Date: Monday, 16 November 1959 Publication: Daily Mail (London, England) Issue: 19772 p 14
^ Susan's sunny honeymoon Date: Saturday, 28 November 1959 Publication: Daily Mail (London, England) Issue: 19783 p 5
^ Marriage No 3 ends for Susan Shaw Date: Friday, 18 November 1960 Publication: Daily Mail (London, England) Issue: 20085 p 9
^ ^a ^b "184: The Sad Story of Susan Shaw". norwoodsociety.co.uk.
^ "Soho bids farewell to a fallen star". Daily Mail, 2 December 1978. Issue 25657, p. 3