George Bernard Shaw throughout the Second World War, starring such actors as Edith Evans, John Gielgud, Deborah Kerr and Robert Donat. In 1944 nine Shaw plays were staged in London, including "Arms and the Man" with Ralph Richardson, Laurence Olivier, Sybil Thorndike and Margaret Leighton in the leading roles. Two touring companies took his plays all round Britain. The revival in his popularity did not tempt Shaw to write a new play, and he concentrated on prolific journalism. A second Shaw film produced by Pascal, "Major Barbara" (1941), was less successful both artistically and commercially than "Pygmalion", partly because of Pascal's insistence on
George Bernard Shaw Margaret Cole, who considered Shaw the greatest writer of his age, professed never to have understood him. She thought he worked "immensely hard" at politics, but essentially, she surmises, it was for fun—"the fun of a brilliant artist". After Shaw's death, Pearson wrote: "No one since the time of Tom Paine has had so definite an influence on the social and political life of his time and country as Bernard Shaw." In its obituary tribute to Shaw, "The Times Literary Supplement" concluded: George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply