British · 1856–1950
George Bernard Shaw wrote plays to change minds. The Irish dramatist used the theater as a platform for socialist ideas, feminist arguments, and attacks on bourgeois hypocrisy—always with enough wit to fill seats. "Pygmalion," "Saint Joan," and "Man and Superman" combined intellectual provocation with memorable characters. Shaw won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1925 and an Academy Award for the "Pygmalion" screenplay in 1938, the only person to win both. He declined the Nobel Prize money, accepting only the honor.