George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw was born July 26, 1856, in Dublin, Ireland. In 1876 he moved to London. He wrote regularly, but struggled financially. In 1895, he became a theatre critic for the Saturday Review and he began writing plays. His play Pygmalion was later made into the film My Fair Lady. His screenplay won an Oscar. He later won a Nobel Prize. During his lifetime, he wrote more than 60 plays.

George Bernard Shaw had been persuaded by his wife Charlotte to leave Britain for an extended holiday in Madeira to enjoy "the flowers, sunshine, bathing and no theatres". He was 68 years old and feeling "too old - I ought to be retiring". But far from a relaxing break, Shaw arrived at Reid's Palace on 30th December 1924 to hear the news of the death of his dearest and closest friend, William Archer. Shaw was devastated by the news of Archer's sudden death. He counteracted his grief by working and writing frantically, then making his way down the steps to the rock pool and plunging into the Atlantic Ocean. In the afternoons while others played tennis he sat in the sunshine, consoled in part perhaps by the beauty of the tropical flowers. "This is one of those unnaturally lovely hells of places where you bathe amid innumerable blossoms in midwinter," he wrote.

One evening he decided to overcome his sense of bereavement with a whimsical piece of therapy - on the dance floor and agreed to take a tango lesson from the resident dancing instructor, Max Rinder. When Shaw left Reid's on 12 February, he gave Rinder a signed photograph, "To the only man who ever taught me anything". He died on November 2, 1950 in Dublin, Ireland.He was 94 years old.