Dorothy Tristan, co-writer of original JAWS 2 script has died

The JAWS 2 that was released in cinemas in 1978 was very different to what was originally planned - and had been cast and already begun filming - by John D Hancock.

Its script was by Howard Sackler - who had also done uncredited work on Steven Spielberg's JAWS - and Hancock's wife Dorothy Tristan, who has passed away at the age of 81 just a few days after her birthday.

To get a greater idea of what that original vision of JAWS 2 might have looked like then you only need to pick up the novelisation of the film by Hank Searls to see a much darker shark film.

Tristan was also an actress and even starred in films featuring all the main JAWS cast, from Klute (1971) which featured a pre Chief Brody Roy Scheider, to Robert Shaw finally getting a bigger boat in the pirate adventure Scarlet Buccaneer (1976) and Richard Dreyfuss in the comedy antics of Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986).

Tristan's other appearances include The Incredible Hulk TV series, Kojak, The Waltons, Rollercoaster and Scarecrow.

Writing on his Facebook page her husband John Hancock wrote the following heartfelt and moving remembrance:

"Dorothy Tristan, actress, model, screenwriter, painter, mother, and my wonderful wife of 48 years slipped away in her sleep today, in her home. She was 88 years old and waged a valiant battle with Alzheimer's for over 10 years.

"I was lucky. She was something. The infamously harsh critic John Simon said of her in The New York Times, "Dorothy Tristan can make her face into a dozen different faces: beautiful, pain-riddled, childlike, wizened, otherworldly, furious, ethereal, earth-motherish -- you name it -- and even unnamable. Now she is the prototypical dowdy faculty wife, now a blazing maenad unleashed on our libido, now a goddess shooting up high above any mere man in the immensity of her love and wrath." Sounds scary, but that was in her work. In life she was a gentle soul, and my sweet darling."

Dorothy Tristan with husband John D Hanckock

But what would their shared vision of JAWS 2 have looked like?

Lucky for us Michael A Smith, co-author of Jaws 2: The Making of the Hollywood sequel explained how very different the shark sequel would have been.

Much has been written about what happened to John Hancock during his short time working on the film, but not much is known about the film he had in mind. Allow me to fill you in.

After the trouble with the shark, as seen in JAWS, Amity is practically a ghost town. Summer has arrived but the streets are empty and many of the shops on Main Street are boarded up. We are introduced to three new characters; Sideburns, Quint’s son, who comes to Amity to collect his father’s reward (though, of course, it was Brody who killed the shark, I would assume he was ineligible for the reward because he was a public servant) and Boyle, a businessman who thinks the way back to prosperity is to embrace what happened. He hopes to buy Quint’s shack and turn it into a tourist attraction called “Sharkorama;” and Len Petersen, a real estate developer hoping to make a killing by buying cheap.

Of course, another shark appears, this one a female close to giving birth. It does what nature intended it to do, which is eat anything it comes across in the water, be it a seal or a person. Meanwhile, on dry land, Mike Brody and his best friend, Andy, are being bullied by Reeves Vaughn, the Mayor’s son and basically what we would call today “a D-bag!” Reeves has no respect for authority, going so far as to tear up a ticket Brody gives him for riding his bicycle where it shouldn’t be ridden. He’s also not above throwing Sean Brody in the water at every chance, referring to him as “shark bait.”

While his kids are being tormented, Chief Brody is slowly going crazy. He is haunted by what he experienced and suffers terrible dreams where he is swimming and then attacked. One “attack” comes while he is in a pool, the dream ending abruptly when Brody sees his own mangled body on the water’s surface.

The film is mostly character driven, which worked for Hancock because he came from the theater. In fact, while working on the film on Martha’s Vineyard he was also directing a Tennessee Williams play in Boston.

As Mike, Andy and a few friends go sailing, they are attacked. Brody finally convinces the town fathers of the shark and he, Boyle and Petersen head to sea in Petersen’s big twin-engine cruiser, where the confrontation with the shark takes place. Boyle and Brody are knocked overboard and Boyle is eaten. As Brody attempts to scramble back onto the boat, Petersen drops the two big engines on the approaching shark, the spinning propellers turning the beast into chum.

Though some aspects of Sackler and Dorothy Tristan’s script survive the final film (the water skier attack, the way the shark is killed) the studio felt the film was much too dark and, after Hancock was discharged hired JAWS co-script writer Carl Gottlieb to lighten things up.

Words by Dean Newman

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