Where Are They Now? The Cast Of JAWS
Jaws had a great cast - we all know this. But where are they now?
Roy Scheider as Chief Brody. Well, as I’m sure most of you will be aware, Roy’s no longer with us, sadly passing away in 2008, aged 75. Imagining anyone else playing Brody is virtually impossible and his casting in the role was a master stroke. After Jaws in 1975 he nearly appeared in ‘The Deer Hunter’ but oddly turned it down. There was a standout role opposite Dustin Hoffman in ‘The Marathon Man’ in 1976 and ‘The Sorcerer’ in 1977 before eventually returning to Martha’s Vineyard to do battle with Brucetta the Shark in Jaws 2 in 1978. he starred in the fictionalised life of Bob Fosse in ‘All that Jazz’ in 1979 and continued to work steadily through the 80s with films like ‘Blue Thunder’ in ‘83 and 2010 in 1984. He was in ‘The Russia House’ with Sean Connery in 1990 and Naked Lunch in 1991. The 1990 and 2000s continued with one last visit to Amity Island but in 2006, when he narrated and was associate producer on the documentary ‘The Shark is Still Working’ concerning the huge legacy of Jaws. His final movie - ‘Iron Cross’ was released in 2009.
Richard Dreyfuss as Matt Hooper. Dreyfuss has had a long and varied movie career since 1975, most notably for Spielberg again in ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ in 1978. In 1982 he blacked out while driving and was arrested. After a stint in rehab he made a comeback with hits ‘Down and Out in Beverly Hills’ in 1986 and ‘Stakeout’ one year later. One of his most notable but smallest roles was in the Rob Reiner movie ‘Stand By Me’ where he played the adult version of the Will Wheaton character. His career continued in 1989 with ‘Always’ (for Spielberg again) and an Oscar nomination and Golden Globe for ‘Mr Holland’s Opus’ in 1995. In 2008 he played US Vice President Dick Cheney in Oliver Stone’s movie ‘W’ about President George W Bush. Once into the 2000s, the roles got smaller but whenever you see Dreyfuss in a movie, there’s still that devilish twinkle in his eye and his charm still fills the screen. Of course he did play Hooper one last time in the not wholly brilliant Piranha 3D. He suffers the indignity of being sucked into a whirlpool of the killer fish while singing Show Me the Way to Go Home. But probably my favourite recent appearance was on the ‘Great British Bake Off’. Claiming to have simply fancied a trip to England to help a worthy cause, he signed up. He’d never even cooked before.
Lorraine Gary as Ellen Brody. Once Jaws was over, Lorraine starred as ‘Hysterical Lady’ in 1976’s ‘Car Wash’ and revisited Ellen Brody again in 1978’s ‘Jaws 2’. The year after, she appeared in Spielberg’s slightly wobbly but still intermittently enjoyable, 1941. Finally, in 1987 she gamely came back to the Brody fold one last time in ‘Jaws: The Revenge’. Outside of her acting career, Lorraine became a member of the Women’s Rights Advisory Committee, producing and directing fourteen educational films. She is also on a board member of Ms. Magazine and Girls Learn International. In 1995 she receive the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Humanitarian Award.
Jaws star Lorraine Gary with late husband Sid Sheinberg
Robert Shaw as Quint. A giant of stage and screen, once Jaws was over, Shaw continued to act in big pictures quite consistently. ‘The End of the Game’ came first in 1975 followed closely by ‘Diamonds’. The following year he was cast opposite his old 007 nemesis, Sean Connery, in ‘Robin and Marian’ where Shaw took on another role he seemed born to play - The Sheriff of Nottingham. No other actor gave the role of the quite so much menace and gusto since Basil Rathbone in ‘The Adventures of Robin Hood’. He continued the old fashioned adventuring theme in the same year with ‘The Swashbuckler’. 1977 arrived and Shaw starred in another Peter Benchley adaptation, ‘The Deep’. After this he was a Mossad agent in Black Sunday. In 1978 he lead an all-star cast (one of which being a young, post Star Wars but pre-Raiders of the Lost Ark, megastar in waiting, Harrison Ford) in ‘Force 10 From Navarone’, after which Shaw commented he was …”seriously thinking this might be my last film…” Later that year in August, at the age of just 51, Shaw passed away from a heart attack while driving in Ireland. His final movie, Avalanche Express, was released in 1979.
Death of Robert Shaw in a L.A. paper
Murray Hamilton as Mayor Larry Vaughn. Hamilton was the ideal man for the role of “…the mayor of shark city”, perfectly playing the real-estate agent turned politician who obviously prizes money over public safety. After the mania had died down, Hamilton continued to make movies like ‘The Drowning Pool’ with Paul Newman but happily donned one of his oh-so-1970s sports jackets for Jaws 2 in 1978. 1979 saw him appear not in Amity, but in ‘The Amityville Horror’ and he was also another Jaws cast alumni to make an appearance in ‘1941’ that same year. In 1981 he appeared in ‘BJ and the Bear’ on TV, a series that had sprung up via the popularity of big rig trucking and CB radio in 1970s and 80s. Hamilton continued to work through the 80s on television mostly, but finished his career in the chaotic British film ‘Whoops Apocalypse’ amongst a huge cast that included Rick Mayall, Peter Cook, Herbert Lom and Loretta Switt and was based on a TV series of the same name. He died in 1986, aged 63.
Jeffery Kramer as Lenny Hendricks. Kramer has continued to act - mostly in television - appearing in big shows such as ‘Baretta’, ‘Soap’, ‘M*A*S*H’, ‘Laverne & Shirley’, ‘The Incredible Hulk’, ‘Happy Days’ and ‘Ally McBeal’. He also went into producing and worked on shows ‘Chicago Hope’ and ‘Ally McBeal’.
Chris Rebello as Michael Brody. Rebello was a native of the area and once ‘Jaws’ was done he stayed in Martha’s Vineyard where he eventually became the coach of Vineyard High School football team. Remembering his time on Jaws, he said he wasn’t too sure about the world of movies but loved getting paid $138 a day which “seemed like a million” at the time. Rubello sadly died from a heart attack at the age of just 37 in 2000.
Chris Rebello played Michael Brody in Jaws (1975)
Jeffrey Voorhees as Alex Kintner. Voorhees was another local and once Jaws was wrapped continued to live in the area, eventually opening a restaurant - the Wharf Pub. One day a woman came into the restaurant and saw they were serving an ‘Alex Kintner Sandwich’ on the menu. She was a little taken aback as she remembered the movie well - and also because she was Lee Fierro, who played Mrs Kintner.
Jeffrey Voorhees played Alex Kintner in Jaws (1975)
Lee Fierro as Mrs Kintner. Fierro lived in Martha’s Vineyard from 1974 until 2017 and after Jaws set up the Island Theatre Workshop where she mentored hundreds of aspiring actors. She also received a ‘Woman of the Year’ award for her work. Fierro died in April 2020 from complications with Covid 19. She was 91.
Lee Fierro passed away in 2020 played Mrs Kintner in Jaws (1975)
Craig Kingsbury as Ben Gardner. The larger than life man who played the most famous severed head in movie history and who also fed Robert Shaw endless tales of dubious lineage while filming. After Jaws, Craig was a farmer, fisherman, aquatic biologist, ox cart man, butcher, farrier, logger, husband, father and storyteller. He died at the age of 89 in 2002.
Susan Backlinie as Chrissie Watkins. One of the most memorable characters in Jaws and she barely survives the first real. Backlinie started as a stunt performer and after 1975 appeared in a few small roles including ‘1941’ and ‘The Great Muppet Caper’ and a single episode of Lee Majors TV stuntman show ‘The Fall Guy’ before becoming a computer accountant in California.
Jaws actress Susan Backlinie (Chrissie) with Ross from The Daily Jaws
Carl Gottlieb as Meadows. Gottlieb started out as a comedy writer but was the second in command when it came to battering the Jaws script into shape, working tirelessly with Spielberg throughout the shoot. Author of the daddy of all movie books - The Jaws Log - Gottlieb went on to appear in ‘Cannonball’ in 1976 (remade a couple of years later as ‘The Cannonball Run’), ‘The Jerk’ in 1979, ‘The Sting II’ in 1983 and ‘Johnny Dangerously’ in 1984. He also appeared in the Alicia Silverstone movie ‘Clueless’ in 1995. As a director, Gottlieb made ‘Caveman’ in 1981 starring Ringo Starr and Barbara Bach.
Words by Tim Armitage
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