Here’s What Happened to the Cast (and Shark) of ‘Jaws’ Before, During and After Making the Classic Film

Roy Scheider (Chief Martin Brody)

Bringing Amity Police Chief Martin Brody — the New Yorker who hates the water but has moved to an island (“It’s only an island from the ocean,” the character observes at one point) is actor Roy Scheider, who made his name in some hard-hitting New York crime dramas like The French Connection (1971) and The Seven-Ups (1973). The last thing he wanted when Jaws came along was to play another cop.

“I knew French Connection was one of the best cop films ever made, because we really broke our backs to make it authentic,” he told the New York Daily News in 1975. “We didn’t pull any punches in the scenes where we slapped people around. It was practically a documentary. But the bad thing was, it was so good, I got inundated with cop scripts after that. It was the same role over and over, and every cop movie was a cheap imitation.”

As he explained in a previously unpublished interview with the Huffington Post, he had received a phone call from Steven Spielberg, who had the idea of putting a city type of character into an ocean community. Having seen The French Connection, he thought Scheider would be the right kind of guy to play Brody. “A fish out of water, if you’ll excuse the expression,” the actor laughed. “He’s a guy who doesn’t understand the community, is afraid of water, the least likely hero, and that makes him an everyman.”

Fearful that character would be lost to the spectacle of the shark, he notes that something quite fortuitous happened: the mechanical shark refused to work, leaving the cast with weeks to shoot, polish, improvise, discuss, enrich and develop the various non-shark scenes. “What happened,” he said, “was Shaw, Dreyfuss and Scheider turned into a little rep company. And all of those scenes, instead of just pushing the plot along, became golden in developing the characters. So when the crisis came, you really cared about those three guys. And as wonderful as Benchley’s book was, those characters were not that likable in the novel.”

He was born Roy Richard Scheider on November 10, 1932 in Orange, New Jersey. An athlete growing up, he was very involved in baseball and boxing, though upon high school graduation he decided to switch to acting, studying drama at Rutger’s University and Franklin and Marshal College. In 1955, he appeared on an episode of The United States Steel Hour, followed in 1962 with the soap opera The Edge of Night, scoring a more regular role as Jonas Falk on the soap Love of Life between 1965 and 1966.

Early film roles include The Curse of the Living Corpse (1964), Stiletto (1969), Loving (1970), Puzzle of a Downfall Child (1970), costarring with Jane Fonda in Klute (1971), the previously mentioned The French Connection as well as The French Conspiracy (1971), The Outside Man (1972), The Seven-Ups (1973) and Sheila Levine is Dead and Living in New York. Jaws followed in 1975.

At the time of the film’s release, he gave an interview to the Los Angeles Times where he commented, “I never looked at Jaws as a horror film, a King Kong. From the beginning, I called it a survival movie; a terrific narrative of three guys in a boat facing a monstrous fish. Let’s face it, how many films have there been lately where the protagonist gets the opportunity to triumph? The downbeat ending is definitely in vogue, but life is full of triumphant moments, of exhilaration and victory. Jaws is like the movies I saw when I was a kid; movies where a man faced some danger — political repression, an earthquake or some other catastrophe — and survived that danger. Those movies made a lasting impression on kids.”

As to the actual filming, he admitted to the Daily News, “It was hell, man. It started out to be a 78-day shooting schedule, budget at $3.5 million. It went to six months and $6 million before we finished. None of the scenes were filmed in sequence. We were driven crazy by the logistics — bad weather, building permits, posting bonds, battling tourists — and we were given only a week to shoot on any one location.”

“If there’s a hero out of this whole ordeal, it’s Steven Spielberg,” he added. “It’s amazing that he’s only 26 [he’s now 73], but he never lost his cool. The worst thing that can happen on a film is when the director loses his dream, that wonderful fantasy in his mind of what he wants the picture to be. Spielberg never lost that. He had to make compromises, but even when things got tense, when the cast and crew started looking at each other and wondering, ‘What are we doing here?’ and ‘How did we all get into this nightmare?’ Spielberg was a rock.”

Speaking of a nightmare, there was one moment that stuck out in Scheider’s mind: “There’s the time the shark literally leaps out of the water and crashes into the stern of the boat and splits the boat in half. There was no time to work out all the special effects stunts. You just pray a lot and you don’t know what the hell is going to happen. Well, what happened was that the damn shark did split the boat in half. I was up to my shoulders in water and I got out of there like a torpedo. The fear just drove me right out of that cabin like I had been shot.”

After Jaws, his films include Marathon Man (1976), Sorcerer (1977), Jaws 2 (1978), All That Jazz (1979), Blue Thunder (1983), the sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey, 2010 (1984), The Russia House (1990), Romeo is Bleeding (1993), Executive Target (1997), The Punisher (2004) and Iron Cross (2010). On television, he starred in numerous TV movies, led the cast of the sci-fi series seaQuest DSV (1993 to 1995) and appeared in six episodes of Third Watch.

Scheider was married to film editor Cynthia Bebout from 1962 to 1986, and Brenda Siemer from 1989 until his death, which happened on February 10, 2008, of multiple myeloma at the age of 75. He left behind three children, one from his first marriage and two from the second.

Prior to Roy Scheider being cast as Brody, producers Richard Zanuck and David Brown offered to pursue Paul Newman for the role, but Spielberg turned them down not wanting a big star. They next approached Godfather actor Robert Duvall, but he was only interested in playing Quint.  After that, Charlton Heston — of The Ten Commandments and Planet of the Apes — let it be known he was interested in the part, but Spielberg just didn’t feel he would be a good fit for this little town. The studio agreed.

Richard Dreyfuss (Matt Hooper)

When he was first offered the role of marine biologist Matt Hooper, and based on everything he’d heard about the Richard Benchley novel, Richard Dreyfuss simply wasn’t interested. “As an actor,” he relayed to Rolling Stone in 1975, “the character didn’t do a thing for me. The character, as it existed, was just there to give out shark information. ‘The technoramis macranis is capable of a 26,000 ton per square inch pressure … dum dum, here comes the shark, da dum, dum dum…’ Boring, boring, boring. But then I had no money, everybody said there was going to be an actor’s strike, everyone I trust as an advisor said, ‘Do it,’ so we constructed a character over three days and finally I said OK. I gave in, I surrendered. I was a prostitute.” Hardly, as it turned out.

Richard Stephen Dreyfuss was born October 29, 1947, in Brooklyn, New York. The family would move to Europe for a time, but then back to America and Los Angeles. As a youth he began to act at the Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills Art Center as well as the Westside Jewish Community Center. He attended California State University, Northridge (then known as San Fernando Valley State College). Identifying himself as a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War, he spent two years working in alternate service at a Los Angeles hospital.

Early roles included a number of TV guest appearances, ranging from Peyton Place to Bewitched and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir; and the feature films Valley of the Dolls and The Graduate (both 1967, and both uncredited roles), The Young Runaways (1968), Hello Down There (1969) and his big break in George Lucas’ coming-of-age comedy drama, American Graffiti (1973). He played Baby Face Nelson in Dillinger (1973) and found himself critically acclaimed for his starring role in The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1974), which was followed by The Second Coming of Suzanne (1974), Inserts (1975) and Jaws.

In speaking to CBS News, Dreyfuss looked back at the making of Jaws and remembered a conversation with Spielberg: “He said, ‘I wanna make a bullet.’ He wanted to make a movie about a thing with tremendous velocity and momentum. There were oodles apparently in subplots in the book. He didn’t want to do any of that, so I didn’t read it. He told me the story and it was exciting. He said, ‘You wanna do it?’ and I went,  ‘No.’ He said, ‘Why?’ And I said, ‘Because I’d rather watch this movie than shoot it.’ I’m an idiot! I mean, there’s really no other explanation. I’m pretty stupid when it comes to certain things, and I didn’t know enough about the movie-making process. So when it was over, I actually went on some talk show in New York and I said, ‘Oh, it’s gonna be a failure.’ I said all these things and then went back and apologized for saying them.”

“I only read the first chapter of the book,” he added to Rolling Stone, “but what I liked about it was the casual view of us as food that the shark has. No passion, no hatred. This is just fresh food. There’s a line I say in the film: ‘This is the perfect engine. All it does is sleep and feed and make little sharks, and that’s it.’”

Following Jaws, in 1977 Dreyfuss had the one-two punch of Spielberg’s sci-fi epic Close Encounters of the Third and the Neil Simon romantic comedy The Goodbye Girl, for which he would win the Academy Award for Best Actor. Highlights from there include The Big Fix (1978), Down and Out in Beverly Hills and Stand by Me (both 1986), Stakeout (1987), What About Bob (1991) and the highly acclaimed Mr. Holland’s Opus (1995), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award. After this, starred in over 30 other films, most recently Astronaut (2019) with two more on the way, Killing Winston Jones and Spinning Gold. On television he’s starred in miniseries (Tin Man, Coma, Madoff, Shots Fired) and TV movies (Lansky, Fail Safe, The Day Reagan Was Shot, Coast to Coast).

Other names thrown around for the part of Matt Hooper include Timothy Bottoms (The Last Picture Show, The Paper Chase), Jeff Bridges (The Last American Hero, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot) and Jon Voight (Deliverance, Conrack).

Robert Shaw (Quint)

Not to get ahead of ourselves, but probably one of the most intense scenes for the Quint character in Jaws is the climactic moment between him and the shark. The actor playing him, Robert Shaw, certainly felt that way. “I didn’t get hurt on Jaws,” he related to the Star-Gazette of Elmira, New York in 1975, “but scared as hell. In the last scene I had to go under the water when the shark took me. The jaws had to clamp tight enough to take me under, so I had to wear a steel vest with a leather covering. Then the hydraulic mechanism would take me under the water. But would it reverse and bring me back? It did.”

Born Robert Archibald Shaw on August 9, 1927 in Westhoughton, Lancashire, England, he graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1948 and got his start on stage, performing in regional theatre throughout England. His debut on London’s West End came in 1952 when he was part of Caro Williams, and from there he made his name in British television, starring in the series The Buccaneers and, then, some film appearances. He truly became a star in the role of the murderous Red Grant in the second James Bond film, From Russia with Love (1963), which saw him in a pitched battle with Sean Connery’s 007 aboard the Orient Express.

What people these days may not realize is how accomplished Shaw was, and not just an actor on stage, screen and TV. He wrote his first novel, The Hiding Place, in 1960 and his second, The Sun Doctor, in 1961. He wrote the 1967 play The Man in the Glass Booth, which was successfully launched on stage in London and on Broadway. It was eventually adapted to the big screen, but Shaw did not approve of the screenplay and had his name removed from the project. Additional novels include The Flag (1965) and A Card from Morocco (1969), and, among his film credits, The Sting (1973), The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974), Robin and Marian (1976), Swashbuckler (1976), The Deep (1977), Force 10 from Naverone (1978) and his last film, Avalanche Express (1979).

Shaw was married three times: Jennifer Bourke from 1952 to 1963, Mary Une from 1963 to 1975, and Virginia Jansen from 1976 until his death from a heart attack on August 28, 1978 at the age of 51. He left behind 10 children.

For the role of Quint, the producers were actively courting Sterling Hayden (The Godfather, The Long Goodbye), but he turned them down. Then there was Lee Marvin (Emperor of the North Pole, Shout at the Devil) and Charles Bronson (Death Wish, Hard Times), both of which said no as well. According to a report from Rona Barrett at the time, Bronson, whose star was ascending at the time in a major way, didn’t want to play second fiddle to a shark. Oops.

Lorraine Gary (Ellen Brody)

Born August 16, 1937 in Forest Hills, New York, Lorraine got her first inkling of stardom when she was 16 and won a Best Actress award competition at the Pasadena Playhouse. Despite the fact she was offered a scholarship there, she chose instead to become a political science major at Columbia University. In addition to appearing in a number of TV movies, she guest-starred on a variety of shows, beginning with a 1967 episode of Dragnet and ending with a 1974 episode of The Rookies. Besides reprising the role of Ellen Brody in Jaws 2 (1978) and Jaws: The Revenge (1987), she also appeared in Car Wash (1976), I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (1977), Zero to Sixty (1978), Just You and Me, Kid (1979) and Steven Spielberg’s 1941 (1979). She married Sid Sheinberg, the former head of Universal, in 1956 and was with him until his death in 2019. They have two children, Bill and John.

Murray Hamilton (Mayor Larry Vaughn)

The man who insisted on keeping Amity Beach open despite the shark attacks! Or at least the guy who played him, character actor Murray Hamilton. Born March 24, 1923, in Washington, North Carolina, he thought he would be going to fight in World War II, but bad hearing prevented that. Instead, he moved to New York and tried to make a career for himself on stage. And he did, appearing on Broadway in Mister Roberts and Critic’s Choice. His credits are far too numerous to list here, but his first credited role is in 1944’s Reckless Age and his last 1986’s Whoops Apocalypse. He reprised his Jaws role of Mayor Vaughn in Jaws 2 (the character obviously having learned nothing from the first film). He married Terri DeMarco in 1953 and was with her until his death from lung cancer on September, 1986, at the age of 63. They had one child.

Susan Backlinie (Chrissie Watkins)

Her scene in Jaws — where she’s the shark’s first victim pretty much right after the credits roll — is an extremely strong one that draws you instantly into the unfolding drama. It’s a great two minutes! The woman playing Chrissie Watkins is Susan Backlinie, actually a stunt woman and animal trainer. She was born September 1, 1946, in Miami, Florida. Besides Jaws, she appeared in The Grizzly and the Treasure (1975), Day of the Animals (1977), 1941 (1979) and The Great Muppet Caper (1981). She married Harvey Swindall in 1995.

Bruce (The Shark)

As crazy as the idea seems, producers Zanuck and Brown actually thought they could use real sharks for the filming of Jaws, though Spielberg immediately recognized the impracticality of that idea. At the time he joked with the media, “Sure, yeah, they’d train a great white, put it in front of the camera with me in a cage. They tried to convince me that this was the way to go. Instead, I was yelling, ‘Disney! We’ve gotta get the guy who did the squid in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Whoever he was who did the Disney film, I want him.’ I didn’t know who he was at the time. It turned out to be Bob Mattey and we hired him to build us a shark.”

A number of sharks (given the name Bruce, after Spielberg’s lawyer Bruce Raynor) were constructed and designed, says Wikipedia, as follows: “A ‘sea-sled’ shark, a full-body prop with its belly missing that was towed with a 300-foot line, and two ‘platform shark,’ one that moved from camera-left-to-right (with its hidden left side exposing an array of pneumatic hoses), and an opposite model with its right flank uncovered.” Production was seriously impacted by the robot sharks either malfunctioning, or actually sinking. This did, of course, result in, as noted above, a more Hitchcockian approach of suggesting the shark rather than showing it until much later in the film.

Jaws and Bruce (or at least a close relative) inspired a pair of theme park rides at Universal Studios Florida (the attraction closed in 2012) and Japan. There is also an animatronic version that’s part of the Studio Tour at Universal Studios Hollywood, which began in 1976. If you were to check out TV shows produced by Universal in the 1970s and 1980s, you would see Bruce popping up all over the place.

Please scroll down for a quick look at the Jaws film series.

‘Jaws’ (1975)

‘Jaws 2’ Teaser Poster (1978)

‘Jaws 2’ (1978)

‘Jaws 3-D’ (1983)

‘Jaws: The Revenge’ (1987)

‘Jaws 3, People 0’ (Unmade)

Long before the Sharnado films, producers Richard Zanuck and David Brown considered the idea of a spoof of Jaws in 1979 by hiring National Lampoon writers John Hughes (Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) and Todd Carroll to write. Odds are it would have been a disaster (then again, worse than Jaws 3-D or Jaws: The Revenge? Not likely).