Jaws at the Oscars
Jaws swam into the 1976 Oscars race with four nominations, not a bad record for this voting vicinity, but that didn't include anything for Steven Spielberg as director or Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw or Richard Dreyfuss in any acting categories.
Today, that seems almost unthinkable, so how did Jaws fare at the Academy Awards that year?
Film Editing
Winner
Jaws
Verna Fields
It may have been Spielberg calling the shots but cutting them was Verna Fields, her contribution to Jaws is immeasurable and is part of why it is just so damned (re)watchable each and every single time.
She edited the movie on location - where she was affectionately known as ‘Mother Cutter’ - as the footage slowly crept in, not only editing around the underperforming shark but also continuity problems of an ever changing sea and sky, not that you’d notice.
She was also instrumental to adding the ‘head in the boat’ scene that was shot in her very own swimming pool and added long after filming had wrapped. And that scene gave the extra jump that Jaws needed, even after all those viewings it is still hard to judge exactly when it will pop out.
Fields never worked with Spielberg again, but she did introduce the Jaws director to George Lucas, so without her we might not have had Indiana Jones either. As well as taking home an Oscar, Fields was rewarded by Universal with the role of Studio Executive. It was a role that kept her from directing Jaws 2 (imagine the potential) and was one she would continue until her death in 1982.
Fields also edited Spielberg's The Sugarland Express and Lucas' American Graffiti, the latter which of course featured Richard Dreyfuss.
Music (original score)
Winner
Jaws
John Williams
Jaws saw Williams take home his second Oscar, he’d won the year before for best adapted score for Fiddler on the Roof (1971) but this would be his first for original score. Williams (so far) has gone onto win three further Oscars, giving a total of five. The other films are Star Wars (1977) , E.T. - The Extra Terrestrial (1982) and Schindler’s List (1993). The Rise of Skywalker saw him nominated for an Oscar for the 52nd time, that's the most ever for any living person. In fact, he is only beaten by Walt Disney who received 59 nominations.
When Williams won his Oscar for Jaws at the 1976 Academy Awards he didn’t have far to walk to collect his award as he was conducting the show from the orchestra pit.
Although Spielberg would not return to Amity Island an essential component to the success of Jaws was its score and Williams returned as the ‘voice’ of the shark in 1978’s Jaws 2 with a richer, deeper layered score that is just as epic as the original. If you haven’t heard it on its own, you don’t know what you are missing.
Sound
Winner
Jaws
Robert L. Hoyt, Roger Heman, Earl Madery, John Carter
What makes this Oscar win more magical is that one of the two people announcing the category was none other than Chief Brody himself, Roy Scheider.
Hoyt would return to work his sound magic on Jaws 2; Heman's dad also won an Oscar for Sound; like John Williams, Madery would work on Hitchcock's final film Family Plot and Carter, having worked on over 100 films, retired in 1980. He passed away two years later.
Best Picture
Winner
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
Saul Zaentz and Michael Douglas, Producers
Nominees
Barry Lyndon
Stanley Kubrick, Producer
Dog Day Afternoon
Martin Bregman and Martin Elfand, Producers
Jaws
Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown, Producers
Nashville
Robert Altman, Producer
Alas, Best Picture was not to be for Jaws.
Zanuck would go onto to be nominated for The Verdict and would win for Driving Miss Daisy in 1990. The following year he was awarded the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award. He died in 2012.
David Brown would receive three further Best Picture nominations as Producer, these were for The Verdict, A Few Good Men and Chocolat. He would however receive the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 1991. He passed away in 2010, aged 93.
What happened next...
Jaws
Who doesn't love a triple Acadamy Award winner?
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ museum is going to need a bigger building as it has announced that the fourth and final surviving shark taken from the original mold is set to be the largest item on display in its new museum in LA...25 feet, just not three tons of him - he's only made out of fibreglass after all.
Even after over 40 years Bruce is still one of Hollywood's - quite literally - biggest stars.
When the museum opens on December 14 - as was announced by Tom Hanks during the show - you can be sure that history will repeat itself and the queues will once more be wrapping themselves around the streets to come face to face with the mighty Jaws.
Even after 45 years Bruce is still one of Hollywood's - quite literally - biggest stars.
Steven Spielberg
As the nominations for the 1976 Academy Awards were being announced, a confident Spielberg welcomed in a live TV crew to capture his reaction at being nominated, let's just say it didn't quite go to plan.
Even when he chose more adult subjects, such as The Color Purple (12 nominations, no awards) or Empire of the Sun, the Oscar eluded Spielberg.
It wasn't until Schindler's List at the 1994 awards that he would take home the converted golden statue for both Best Film and Best Director, he'd win Best Director for Saving Private Ryan at the 1999 awards. In total he has been nominated for 17 Academy Awards, he was also awarded an Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 1987.
Richard Dreyfuss
The Matt Hooper actor would become the youngest actor - aged 30 - to win the Best Actor Oscar, he won for his role in the Neil Simon comedy, The Goodbye Girl in 1978. Fittingly, he kept the youngest actor to ever win badge until a Brody won, Adrien Brody for The Pianist. He was just 29.
Dreyfuss would be nominated again in 1995 for Mr Holland's Opus.
Roy Scheider
Scheider was nominated for Best Actor at the 1980 Academy Awards for All That Jazz, he had previously been nominated for The French Connection.
Robert Shaw
Shaw was at the 1976 Oscars, he should have been nominated. Many think he should have won. He certainly had an Oscar winning performance in him - he had previously been nominated for a Best Supporting Actor award in A Man For All Seasons in 1967.
Sadly we never got to see him nominated again, he passed away three years after the release of Jaws in 1978. He's still sadly missed.
Joe Alves
The production designer of Jaws received an Oscar nomination for Spielberg's next film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Louis Gossett Jr
After winning a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for An Officer and a Gentleman, Gossett Jr would sign up for the role of Calvin Bouchard in Jaws 3D, which was directed by the previously mentioned Alves.
Michael Caine
Due to re shoots for Jaws the Revenge, Caine was unable to attend the Academy Awards in 1987 to collect his Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Hannah and Her Sisters.
By Dean Newman
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