100 AMAZING FACTS ABOUT JAWS AND THE SHARK IS BROKEN
To celebrate The Shark Is Broken performing 100 shows in the West End, here's 100 facts about the show and the film that inspired it, Jaws.
1. The Shark Is Broken takes place on Martha's Vineyard in 1974.
2. Martha's Vineyard doubled as the fictional Amity Island.
3. Jaws was originally planned to be released for Christmas 1974 in the US.
4. Jaws was released in the US on 20 June 1975.
5. It’s estimated that an astonishing 67 million Americans saw it upon release.
6. It took just 38 days for Jaws to swim past the magic $100 million barrier, the first film ever to do so.
7. It knocked The Exorcist off the top spot as the most successful film of all time.
8. Jaws would only keep the title for two years until the release of Star Wars in 1977.
9. Richard Dreyfuss didn't originally think that Jaws would be a success.
10. Jaws didn't swim onto UK cinema screens until Boxing Day 1975.
11. The show isn't a play version of the film Jaws.
12. It is about the behind the scenes making of Jaws, directed by Steven Spielberg.
13. The Shark Is Broken has an official trailer (watch it below).
14. The making of Jaws was made famous by the behind the scenes book, The Jaws Log, written by Carl Gottlieb.
15. Gottlieb played Harry Meadows in the film and was also a co-screenwriter of the film.
16. He shared credit with the author of the Jaws book, Peter Benchley.
17. Jaws author, Peter Benchley, had a cameo in the film as a news reporter on the beach.
18. Jaws author Peter Benchley went to become a shark conservationist - full story here
19. Gottlieb would also go onto work on the scripts for both Jaws 2 and Jaws 3D.
20. Producers David Brown & Richard Zanuck paid Jaws novelist Peter Benchley $175,000 for the movie rights to his book - before it had been published!
21. The Shark Is Broken is co-written by Ian Shaw and Joseph Nixon.
22. The title of the play takes it name from the fact that the mechanical shark model didn't work very well in salt water.
23. The malfunctioning shark helped the shooting schedule of the film balloon from 55 to 159 days.
24. The Shark was fondly nicknamed Bruce, after Steven Spielberg's lawyer, Bruce Ramer pictured below.
25. Spielberg, frustrated by the shark's frequent malfunctions, had another name for it: "the great white turd." (Thankfully Ian and Joseph didn't go for that title)
26. The crew became so frustrated with the constant set backs making the movie, they referred to the film as FLAWS.
27. The director of Star Wars, George Lucas, got his head stuck in Bruce the shark - full story here
28. Initially the producers, Richard Zanuck and David Brown, thought(!) that they might be able to hire a man to train a Great White to perform a few simple tricks and do the rest with miniatures.
29. Australian husband and wife diving team, Ron and Valerie Taylor filmed the real great white shark footage when Hooper's cage is attacked.
30. If Ian Shaw looks familiar, he should, he is the son of Jaws legend Robert Shaw, who played Quint.
31. The play is partly based on Robert Shaw's diaries.
32. Robert Shaw's rental House was shot at on his first night on Martha's Vineyard - full story here.
33. Ian Shaw would also find a link to his dad and Jaws through a docudrama, Hiroshma. He was playing the pilot who delivered 'the bomb' that the crew of the USS Indianapolis had just delivered, prior to it sinking and its crew being attacked by sharks: full story here
34. Actors Sterling Hayden and Lee Marvin were first choices to play Quint in the film.
35. The actors aren't playing the characters of Brody, Quint and Hooper, they are playing the actors who are dressed as the characters.
36. The Shark Is Broken made its West End debut on 9 October 2021.
37. The day before, 8 October, marked 40 years since Jaws made its debut on UK television on ITV.
38. Some 23.25 million viewers, one of the largest British TV audiences ever for a film screening, tuned into ITV that night in 1981, to watch Hooper, Quint and Brody battle against the giant shark.
39. Celebrities who have seen The Shark Is Broken include MacKenzie Crook, Matt Lucas, Caroline Quentin, Sanjeev Bhaskar and Jessica Hynes - full story here
40. The Shark Is Broken has its final performance on 13 February 2022.
41. That date is also the birth date of Mrs Kintner actress, Lee Fierro, who slapped Chief Brody.
42. Fierro famously slapped Roy Scheider 17 times for the scene where she confronts him after the funeral of her son, Alex Kintner.
43. Lee Fierro passed away on April 2020 from Covid complications, she was 91 - full story here
44. The Shark Is Broken's venue, The Ambassadors Theatre, is hard to miss with a giant shark's head proving to be quite the photo opportunity.
45. The Ambassadors Theatre has seating for an audience of 500 people.
46. The director of The Shark Is Broken is Guy Masterson.
47. Guy Masterson first saw Jaws upon its release, when he was 14.
48. His favourite moment from Jaws is when Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) is chumming on the back of the Orca and the shark rises up to greet him, which leads to the iconic "You're gonna need a bigger boat." line.
49. Masterson, who is also an accomplished actor, is the nephew of the late great Richard Burton.
50. Burton starred alongside Clint Eastwood and Mary Ure, the mum of Ian Shaw, in the classic war adventure Where Eagles Dare (1968).
51. The Shark Is Broken was named as one of the theatre highlights of 2021 by the Evening Standard.
52. Before heading to the West End, The Shark Is Broken wowed crowds at The Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
53. It was performed at Assembly George Square Studios, Edinburgh from 2 to 25 August 2019.
54. And before it headed to Edinburgh The Shark Is Broken had two performances at the Rialto Theatre In Brighton.
55. The Daily Jaws were there from the beginning, meaning we were some of the first in the world to experience The Shark Is Broken.
56. Brighton was also where Robert Shaw filmed The Birthday Party (1968) with William Friedkin as director.
57. Friedkin would go onto direct future Jaws star Roy Scheider in The French Connection: Roy Scheider In The French Connection
58. The original cast in Brighton and Edinburgh were Ian Shaw (Robert Shaw), Liam Murray Scott (Richard Dreyfuss) and Duncan Henderson (Roy Scheider).
59. Most of the cast transferred to the West End, with Demetri Goritsas stepping into Roy Scheider's shoes.
60. Goritsas has acted in over 80 films and television episodes including the Emmy and Golden Globe winning TV series The Alienist, Black Mirror "Nosedive" and Episodes, as well as the Academy and BAFTA winning films Darkest Hour and Rush.
61. Duncan Henderson was still there on stage, in spirit, as he was behind the amazing set design of the Orca and the brilliant costumes.
62. Ian Shaw was almost moved to tears when he first saw the set of the Orca on stage.
63. Henderson estimated the size of the Orca set by comparing the original interior of the Orca to the length of Robert Shaw's forearm, which allowed him to work out its scale.
64. He then designed it in 3D on a CAD system, to ensure that the design was as close as it could be to the original.
65. The Orca in the film was a converted Nova Scotia fishing boat called the ‘Warlock’.
66. To make the Orca look like it had exposed to the elements, the SFX team of Jaws painted seagull poop all over it.
67. The original screen-used Orca is no more, it was left to rot on the Universal Studios backlot in Hollywood.
68. The Shark Is Broken marks Liam Murray Scott's West End debut.
69. Any West End show must have its own show brochure, we look through it here:
70. Ian Shaw actually visited the set of Jaws when he was little, even getting to see the shark up close and personal - see image below.
71. Demetri Goritsas has been directed by Steven Spielberg, he acted in his World War 2 epic, Saving Private Ryan, starring Tom Hanks.
72. Goritsas had never seen Jaws all the way through, until the night before he auditioned for The Shark Is Broken.
73. Ian Shaw shares his birthday with Jaws director Steven Spielberg, both were born on December 18th, but on different years.
74. Ian Shaw was kind enough to introduce the Jaws WeMake, a global fan made remake of Jaws made on lockdown.
75. Ian Shaw once auditioned for Richard Dreyfuss, when the Matt Hooper-actor was directing Hamlet at the Bristol Old Vic.
76. The play may be called The Shark Is Broken, but no shark appears in the play.
77. And with no shark, that means no Jaws theme by John Williams.
78. Although, even in the film, the shark only amounts to four minutes screen time.
79. Sadly, there is no Pipit in The Shark Is Broken either.
80. There are some familiar icons from Jaws on the Orca set, including a barrel and bottle of Old Spice.
81. The shooting star that appears in The Shark Is Broken isn't real.
82. When composer John Williams first played Steven Spielberg the simple E-F-E-F Jaws motif on the piano, Spielberg thought that he was kidding him. He wasn’t. It continues to be famous in swimming pools worldwide.
83. The Jaws score was recorded in March 1975 with a 73 piece orchestra.
84. Jaws was nominated for four Oscars. It won three in the categories of best music, sound and editing. It didn't win for Best picture.
85. John Williams was conducting at the Oscars that night, so had to leave the orchestra pit to collect his Academy Award.
86. Williams first studied piano at the age of six. By the time he was in grade school, this son of a CBS radio orchestra percussionist had learned to play bassoon, cello, clarinet, trombone, and trumpet.
87. After three years military service Williams became a movie studio musician and can be heard as a pianist on Some Like It Hot (1959) and To Kill a Mockingbird (1962).
88. Jaws’ editor Verna Fields was affectionately called ‘Mother Cutter’ by the cast and crew as she cut the movie and cooked them great food.
89. Hard to believe, but Robert Shaw wasn't even nominated for an Oscar in his role of Quint.
90. Lorraine Gary (Ellen Brody) was the first actor cast in the movie.
91. She was married to Sid Sheinberg, the then head of Universal Studios.
92. Steven Spielberg makes an uncredited appearance as the voice of the Amity Point Coastguard.
93. The faint roaring sound that is heard after the shark is blown up was also used by Spielberg in Duel, when that film’s villainous truck falls off a cliff.
94. In 2001, Jaws was named as culturally significant by the library of congress and selected for preservation on the national film registry.
95. And did you know that watching Jaws can help you burn calories? Full story here
96. Another Spielberg classic, Jurassic Park, gets a mention of sorts in The Shark Is Broken, but did you know that Jaws appears in the dinosaur film? It's hidden on Nedry's computer desktop. He can't have been all bad if he liked Jaws.
97. The Jaws poster was designed by Roger Kastel, he would go on to design the Gone With The Wind-style poster for The Empire Strikes Back.
98. Although the film Jaws is about a great white shark, the shark featured on the poster is a mako shark: https://thedailyjaws.com/blog/2021/9/20/the-shark-on-the-jaws-poster-isnt-a-great-white
99. A must for Jaws fans, a highlight of The Shark Is Broken is Ian Shaw performing the USS Indianapolis monologue.
100. That monologue had several authors in the film, here's how it became the classic we all know and love today.
Compiled by Dean Newman
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