Peter Shaffer screenplay for "Equus", he was nominated for the 1977 Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar but the award went to Alvin Sargent, who wrote the screenplay for "Julia". For writing the screenplay for "Amadeus", Shaffer received both the 1984 Best Screenplay Golden Globe and the 1984 Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar. Shaffer was homosexual but did not write explicitly about it. His boyfriend Robert Leonard died in 1990. Shaffer died on June 6, 2016, at the age of ninety while on a trip to the south-west of Ireland. He co-wrote three detective novels with his brother Anthony Shaffer under the pseudonym "Peter Antony".
Paul Shaffer on the 40th anniversary special of "Saturday Night Live", playing music to Bill Murray's lounge singer character, a love song from the movie "Jaws". In May 2015, the Ride of Fame honoured Paul Shaffer with a double decker sightseeing bus in New York City to commemorate his long run as the leader of the CBS Orchestra for the "Late Show with David Letterman". Shaffer was the musical director for "A Very Murray Christmas", a 2015 Netflix variety special starring Bill Murray in which Shaffer also appears and performs extensively. In October 2017, Shaffer returned to the late night stage to