Hearts of sharkness: Richard Dreyfuss 'hurt' by JAWS play

Mary Ellen Moffat may have broken Matt Hooper’s heart in JAWS, but it is The Shark Is Broken and Steven Spielberg who have broken the heart of the only surviving lead of JAWS, Richard Dreyfuss.

It’s sufficient to say, Richard Dreyfuss was not a fan of The Shark Is Broken. He wanted to prove that, but rather than getting his name into the National Geographic he decided to recount his chagrin as an exclusive to Vanity Fair.

And, unlike his Matt Hooper character before he goes down in the shark cage, he's got plenty of spit and venom.

He told the publication: “I went to see it, to see if it really was gonna hurt,” he says. “And it did.”

You'd have thought things were swell though, after Dreyfuss was snapped posing and smiling (like a son of a bitch) happily with the cast of Alex Brightman (Richard Dreyfuss), Colin Donnell (Roy Scheider) and Ian Shaw (Robert Shaw), who is the actual son of the Quint JAWS actor and co-write the play with Joseph Nixon, based in part on his dad's diaries, but is still clearly billed as a fictionalised account.

Clearly for Dreyfuss those proportions about the behind the scenes goings on during the extended shoot of JAWS in Martha's Vineyard in 1974, are not correct.

He told Vanity Fair: “It was pretty awful,” Dreyfuss says of his experience watching the play. “Ian [Shaw]—who has more than any right to write whatever he wants—never called me and said, ‘Give me some background.’ Or, ‘Give me your take on this and this.’ And they just decided to make my character a big jerk.”

“The problem is that they made my character the fool,” continues Dreyfuss. “They didn’t do that to Roy, and they didn’t do that to Robert. And that hurt because it wasn’t true.”

Misunderstandings and rivalry between the young newcomer Dreyfuss and the experienced Shaw are legion and have long been recounted, including by Dreyfuss himself.

Although the actor - the only serving crew member of the Orca - lays much of that blame at the door of director Steven Spielberg and co-screenwriter Carl Gottlieb for playing up those on set disagreements.

He told Vanity Fair: “I have to say that Carl and Steven knew better, knew that there was no feud. There was an ongoing kind of humor between us. If you only saw us on the set, then you might think that there was something—a feud that was going on—but it was never real. Never. And I hold that against Carl and Steven.”

“I have enormous respect for Steven’s talent as a director,” Dreyfuss adds. “I guess I don’t have as much for his talent as a friend.”

We are guessing that after JAWS, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Always, there isn't likely to be any plans for a fourth Dreyfuss and Spielberg collaboration.

So, is it Richard Dreyfuss trying to reframe the narrative after all these years? Has the Shaw and Dreyfuss feud been blown out of all proportion after all? Or does Dreyfuss have a 20 foot...25, chip on his shoulder?

And let's remember this is the same person who suggested a couple of years ago that the mechanical shark in JAWS should be replaced by a CGI one for modern audiences.

Let us know what you think in the comments about this latest headline grabbing outburst from Dreyfuss. Either way, the JAWS actor clearly has had enough of being lined up as a hot lunch by The Shark Is Broken, Steven Spielberg and Carl Gottlieb.

After almost 50 years, he won't take this abuse much longer.

Words by Dean Newman

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