The men who inspired Robert Shaw's legendary performance as Quint in Jaws

Quint, the half-crazed, beer-swigging navy veteran turned shark fisherman in Jaws, is prominent in Peter Benchley’s novel (1974) but became truly iconic in Steven Spielberg’s movie adaptation (1975). The screen version of Quint was a fusion of the script, Robert Shaw’s skills as an actor and some real-life characters who just happened to be linked to the book and movie.

Frank Mundus

The character of Quint in the book were partly inspired by Montauk sport fisherman Frank Mundus. Mundus and Benchley had gone on shark hunting expeditions out of Montauk prior to the 1974 novel. Later in life, Mundus retired from shark fishing and became a shark conservationist, passing away in 2008 aged 82.

However, the writing of Quint and the casting of him proved two very different problems. Originally Spielberg had envisioned Sterling Hayden and Lee Marvin in the role but both declined. 9 days before principle photography was due to start on Jaws, Quint (nor Hooper) had been cast. With time running out, producers David Brown and Richard Zanuck suggested Robert Shaw (a classically trained British actor they had worked with two years earlier on The Sting).

Robert Shaw as Doyle Lonnegan in The Sting (1973)

Thankfully Shaw agreed to take the part (tax issues may have been a deciding factor) and so was cast as Quint. But this left the filmmakers with the challenge of transforming the English-born actor into a “blaspheming Yankee fisherman.”

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Craig Kingsbury

To help Shaw with his transformation, director Steven Spielberg paired Shaw with Craig Kingsbury, a “Prohibition-era rumrunner, prizefighter, blacksmith, fisherman, farmer, landscaper, artist, environmentalist, shellfish warden and, eventually, Tisbury selectman,” who regarded the Hollywood set as “perverts, drunks and batty as hell.”

Craig was born in South Orange, New Jersey on October 10, 1912. He moved to Martha's Vineyard, where he was cast in 1974 to play another shark hunter, Ben Gardner.

According to locals who knew him, he had a pair of cows that would often get loose and walk into the street. They obeyed no one other than Kingsbury, and the police would frequently call him to come collect them.

The two got on famously, and were often seen walking together down Main street in Edgartown like two drunken sailors “laughing like hell.”Some of Mr. Kingsbury’s more unusual turns of phrase were incorporated verbatim by screenwriter Carl Gottlieb (“It looks like a kiddy’s scissor class has cut it up for a paper doll.”)

In some interviews, Robert Shaw had speculated that islanders were inbred. Much to the comical love of the locals, who had dared Kingsbury during his coaching of Shaw to say it.

On August 30, 2002, Craig Kingsbury passed away at Windemere Nursing and Rehabilitation in Oak Bluffs on Martha's Vineyard. The actor was 89 when he passed.

Lynn Murphy

Another local that had an enormous influence on the way Robert Shaw portrayed the character Quint was marine mechanic Lynn Murphy. Like Kingsbury, Murphy was a fixture of the Menemsha waterfront from just after World War II.

Murphy, whose reputation for mechanical skill is matched only by his well-known temper, spent more time on the film than any other Islander. Lynn was pat of the production for so long that he learned how to get Bruce the animatronic shark to behave on camera.

Legend has it that Robert Shaw was having difficulty one day with how to deliver one of his lines. As he was speaking to Spielberg about this, Lynn was in the background hollering at one of the crew members, totally losing it. Steven stopped Robert and said ‘You hear that? That’s how I want you to sound. From now on Lynn is Quint.

Lynn passed away on 12th January, 2017 aged 88.

Words by Ross Williams

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