Jaws And The Goonies Connection
Ok, so you are going to be part of some of the biggest films ever made. But there's one catch... you don't get to speak. You will get eaten by a shark, you will get thrown out windows and you will scare a group of kids by playing a corpse in a fridge. Sound like a interesting career? Well that's the working life of a stuntman by the name of Ted Grossman.
In his early years it was all about sport. Ted Played Basketball, Volleyball, College Football and was lucky enough to tour Australia, New Zealand and France as part of the All-American rugby team.
After college Ted started working as a police officer whilst also picking up stunt man roles stunt doubling Clark Gable and Alan Ladd. The police force became his fallback option.
Steven Spielberg gave Ted a chance to speak in one movie but then made him pay the ultimate price directly afterwards being devoured by Bruce the shark in Jaws.
Ted's character, credited as the "Estuary Victum", is the man in the red dingy that shouts sailing instructions to Brody's boys. After he is taken down by the shark it cuts to a shot of his severed leg falling to the bottom of the ocean.
"It's aaaahh Stiiiifffff!!!"
The Goonies was arguably Teds most prolific role which gave him the most screen time over multiple scenes. The film saw Ted as the dead FBI agent in the freezer. Chunk, looking for ice cream, stumbles across the corpse, actually it's the other way around. Ted stumbles on Chunk. It's a very dark concept for a kids movie, a dead guy with a blank face who has been shot in between the eyes but it worked and it is to this day, one of the funniest scenes in the movie.
Today Ted appears to be retired (although this cannot be confirmed) but his contribution to the film industry through his personal stunts and stunt co-ordination has been exceptional. With stunt work spanning over five decades and almost fifty movies, Ted Grossman will go down in history as one of the greats!
By Evan Giles aka @gooniesdaily
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