The early years for young 'Sonny' (as he was known as a child) were a struggle in the Shaw residence. He had two older sisters, Lucinda Frances (1853-1920) and Elinor Agnes (1855-1876). His parents were George Carr Shaw (1815-1885), a retired civil servant, and 'Bessie' Lucinda Elizabeth nee Gurly (1830-1913), amateur mezzo soprano singer. George Bernhard Shaw was born on 26 July 1856 at what is now 33 Synge Street in Dublin, Ireland. An avid photographer, social reformer, women's rights advocate, satirist, popular public speaker, vegetarian (after reading Percy Bysshe Shelley), accomplished music and theatre critic, the term Shavian is now used in reference to all things Shaw, also known as G.B.S. Like his rival of the time Oscar Wilde, the oft-quoted Shaw inspired countless authors and poets and became one of the most popular playwrights of his time, infusing irony and wit into his over fifty plays, many of which are still in production today. In 1956 it was first adapted as a musical titled "My Fair Lady". In 1938 he won the Oscar award for Best Screenplay for his film adaptation of Pygmalion starring Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller. Cloaked in witty humour, Shaw examines the superficiality of class behaviour and distinctions. As in the Greek myth where Pygmalion falls in love with a statue that he has carved, so too does phonetics professor Henry Higgins fall in love with his creation, a transformed Lady of Society. The story of Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle, who utters one of Shaw's then-controversial lines ( "Walk! Not bloody likely." Act III) remains one of Shaw's most popular plays today. It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him.The reformer England needs today is an energetic phonetic enthusiast: that is why I have made such a one the hero of a popular play."-from the Preface "The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it. George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), Nobel prize-winning Irish playwright wrote dozens of popular plays including Pygmalion (1912)
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