Junkyard Jaws — The Daily Jaws

Academy show final remaining Bruce the way to go home

Time and tide (saltwater gets in your black lifeless eyes) hasn't been kind to Bruce. Let's face it he was never much of a looker - well couldn't look in the right direction - had a dodgy mouth and wasn't great at, um, floating.

But we loved him, as did movie going audiences and so did the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, who doesn't love a triple Oscar winner?

They've been building a museum - it must be the week for it with George Lucas starting on his very own - I'm sure we'll have the groundbreaking of The Daily Jaws one before too long.

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...25 feet, just not three tons of him - he's only made out of fibreglass after all.

He's not a screen-used shark, they've all perished - and we don't mean they were in a nasty accident with an oxygen tank and a rifle bullet - but was used for promotional purposes at Universal Studios Hollywood.

So where's he been residing since he 'retired' from the lot in 1990? Well, in true Jaws fashion he's been in the yahd not too fah from the cah. Or to be more precise the yard of Aadlen Brothers Auto Wrecking, a firm in Sun Valley, California.

It's closing this month and owner Nathan Adlen is giving the historic prop to the Academy Museum, which is set to open later this year.

Kerry Brougher, director of the Academy Museum said "Jaws was the original summer blockbuster — a movie that marked a turning point in culture and society — and Bruce is the only surviving version of its unforgettable central prop."

The shark model will join other Jaws items, including an underwater apparatus and fin used in both Jaws and Jaws 2. No word on if they'll be affording the same honour to Shelby Overman's maggot infested corpse from Jaws 3D or Hoagie's plane from Jaws the Revenge just yet.

Jaws Production Designer Joe Alves with Junkyard Jaws

When the museum opens 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 over 40 years Bruce is still one of Hollywood's - quite literally - biggest stars.

By Dean Newman

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