Chrissie and Chewy: How the first victim in Jaws and Chewbacca from Star Wars are linked

Laugh it up fuzzball, it turns out that Han Solo's hairy co-pilot in Star Wars and Susan Backlinie, who played the first shark attack victim in Jaws are linked.

We don't mean that the Chrissie Watkins actress and the Wookie are related - although they do both have lovely hair - but Backlinie owned the bear that Star Wars sound designer, Ben Burtt, used to record the noises that would form the familiar sounds of Chewbacca in the George Lucas series of films.

It was also something the late Peter Mayhew, the original Chewbacca actor, confirmed in a tweet.

A whaaaat? That's right, a bear. Backlinie was not only a stunt woman (her last screen credit was in The Fall Guy) and she was also an animal trainer, which is where the bear comes in.

We’ve all got used to beauty and the beast on the iconic Jaws poster by Roger Kastel – although that wasn’t Backlinie modelling – but not of this kind, although that does explain why you can sometimes spot a Chewbacca photo signed by the first victim of the shark in Jaws.

A summer Wookie goes swimming, he tires…

Backlinie isn't the only link between Jaws and Star Wars, there is also of course John Williams and George Lucas, the director and writer of Star Wars, got his head stuck in the Bruce great white shark model.

He perhaps had the last laugh though as the adventures of Luke Skywalker took the highest grossing film of all time crown from Jaws. Steven Spielberg celebrated the passing of the box office baton in the pages of Variety.

Words by Dean Newman

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