On the afternoon of 1 November 1950 in Washington, DC, there was an unsuccessful attempt by two Puerto Rican nationalists to assassinate United States President Harry S. Truman. While American newspaper editors were frenziedly planning how to report the event in their next-morning editions, news came in around midnight (Eastern US time) that Bernard Shaw had died at his home in Ayot St Lawrence just before 5:00 a.m. (British time) on 2 November. Even for Shaw, an attempt to assassinate the President was tough competition for news coverage, but Shaw held his own, getting front-page attention in the New York Times, the Herald Tribune, and many other major American newspapers, as well as extensive obituaries (a full-page, eight-column spread in the Times). Praise for Shaw's achievements both as ‘one of the modern age's greatest dramatists’ and ‘its most caustic critic’ (the Times) was extensive in the North American press and broadcast media.

On Broadway, by order of the New York Guild of Theatre Owners, theatre marquee lights were dimmed for one minute as a tribute to Shaw's theatrical pre-eminence. His plays had been a regular presence on Broadway since Richard Mansfield's production of Arms and the Man at the Herald Square Theatre on 17 September 1894, the first Shaw play to be produced in North America. From then until his death fifty-six years later at least one Shaw play was produced on Broadway in all but eleven years. Many years saw multiple productions of Shaw plays. In both 1905 and 1915, for example, six different Shaw plays were staged. Apart from numerous revivals, ten Shaw plays had world premières in New York and other American cities. Canada did not fare so well, but during Shaw's lifetime touring companies from England and America, together with a vibrant community theatre culture throughout Canada, kept Shaw very much in the public eye.

Shaw remained a regular presence on North American stages during the 1950s. On Broadway the decade saw sixteen Shaw productions, as well as My Fair Lady in 1956. Thereafter, in New York and elsewhere, the situation began to change.