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Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'Jaws 'Actress Lorraine Gary Admits She Had a 'Mad Crush' on Costar Robert Shaw (Exclusive)
Lorraine Gary played Ellen Brody in the 1975 thriller Jaws In a new interview with PEOPLE for the film's 50th anniversary, the actress admits she had a "mad crush" on costar Robert Shaw Gary also remembers director Steven Spielberg having nerves while helming his first big filmEllen Brody may have been married to the police chief in Jaws, but in real life, she was much more interested in Quint. "I had a mad crush on Robert Shaw," Lorraine Gary, who played Ellen, tells PEOPLE in an exclusive interview. Shaw portrayed Quint, the hardened hunter tasked with taking down the shark terrorizing Amity Island in the 1975 thriller. "Now for me, he was more than a gorgeous actor," she continues. "He was a playwright, he was an intellectual, he was a lovely, lovely human being. And yes, that was thrilling." Shaw died in 1978 at the age of 51 of a heart attack, three years after the release of Jaws. "We only had three days together in the Vineyard, and that's when I began to know him," Gary recalls, referencing Matha's Vineyard, where the film was primarily shot. "But when we came back to California and the film was still shooting at Universal, we had dinner first at a restaurant with Robert." "My son Billy opened the door and let him in, and Robert said, 'Hello, poxy!' In other words, 'You've got chicken pox.' And [Billy] at the point had no fever, no spots, nothing. But having had so many kids, he recognized the symptoms of someone who was coming down with it." She adds, "He had, like, 12 children!" Gary, 88, retired from acting in 1979 after starring in Steven Spielberg's 1941. She reprised her role as Ellen once more for the final Jaws movie in 1987, Jaws: The Revenge. Jaws was the first Spielberg movie Gary starred in. Her husband, Sid Sheinberg, the head of Universal at the time, is credited with discovering the fledgling director. Gary recalls her husband first told her Universal was producing Jaws, and her agent put her up for the role with no audition. "Steven knew my work, and he liked my work and that was it," she says. Jaws was famously shot on-location in the Atlantic Ocean and went 100 days over schedule, causing Spielberg to think his career as a filmmaker was "over." Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. "Steven's a very human guy, and of course he was nervous," Gary says. "I'm sure he was scared that he'd be pulled from this first big movie, but he was confident in his own work. What he wasn't confident in was the building of the shark, until it finally worked several times after failing and working on the ocean, which was an enormous risk and caused a lot of the delay." The mechanical shark frequently malfunctioned in the water, delaying the production process. But Gary adds that her husband was confident the risk would pay off. "It was Sid that decided to spend the extra money to bet on Steven's talent. He knew this was going to be a very big movie, and it was Sid's idea to open huge in 400 theaters, which was generally not done," she shares. "And he's the man you can blame for the summer blockbusters! I blame him for that too. I don't like most of those other movies, but I did like Jaws." For more on Jaws, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday. Read the original article on People
CNN
21 hours ago
- Entertainment
- CNN
Is ‘Jaws' what made us all fear sharks?
We hardly see the cartilaginous villain of 'Jaws' before it tears through a skinny-dipper, a dog, a little boy and an overconfident fisherman. It takes nearly two hours to finally watch the great white shark leap out of the water to swallow the gruff veteran Quint. Until then, we only really catch its dorsal fin before victims are ripped under the waves as the water around them turns the color of ketchup. 'Jaws' is credited with inventing the summer blockbuster. It inspired decades of creature features and suspenseful flicks. It kickstarted a whole subgenre of shark-centric horror (with diminishing returns). It also inflamed our fear of sharks as man-eating monsters, said Jennifer Martin, an environmental historian who teaches at the University of California, Santa Barbara. 'I'm struggling to think of a parallel example of a film that so powerfully shaped our understanding of another creature,' she said. 'They were killing machines. They were not really creatures. They weren't playing an ecological role.' Fifty years on, 'Jaws' preys on our existing fears of the oceanic unknown. The film even briefly influenced the popularity of shark-killing tournaments after its release, Martin said. But it also enticed marine biologists and researchers to better understand the deranged shark at its center. Real white sharks are not as large as the demonic fish in 'Jaws,' nor do they hunt humans for bloodsport. But they are certainly intimidating, and they do occasionally bite the odd swimmer, sometimes fatally. 'Being bitten by a wild animal, and in particular one that lives in the ocean, was frightening for us already,' said Gregory Skomal, a marine biologist who has spent decades studying white sharks. 'That's really what I think 'Jaws' did — it put the fear in our face.' When 'Jaws' premiered to an invigorated public in June 1975, most of the research on sharks focused on preventing shark attacks, Skomal said. 'We knew it was big, it could swim fast and we knew it bit people,' he said. 'So those aspects of the film are fairly accurate, just exaggerated.' White sharks like the toothy menace of 'Jaws' already had a reputation for violence by the time the film premiered, Skomal said: There had been recorded attacks on fishermen and scuba divers in Australia and surfers in California. But sharks didn't evolve to feed on humans, Skomal said: They've existed for at least 400 million years — they predate dinosaurs by several hundred million. Sharks only encountered people in their waters in the last few thousand years, since we started exploring by sea. Though there's some disagreement, most shark researchers believe shark attacks are a case of mistaken identity: A shark may confuse a person for prey. They typically take a bite, realize their mistake and move on, Skomal said. Not so in 'Jaws.' The film's shark dispatches his victims with purpose, munching on some body parts while leaving a head or arm as a warning to any who dare swim in his waters. 'That's one of the reasons the film is so powerful,' Martin said. 'None of us want to look like food.' In the decades before 'Jaws,' white sharks weren't considered to be among the ocean's most fearsome predators. In the early 20th century, many sharks were thought of as 'garbage eaters,' Martin said: Coastal cities dumped their garbage in the ocean, and clever sharks learned to anticipate the barges' arrival. Sharks, city dwellers thought, were 'not very beautiful, not very commercially important,' Martin said. 'An animal that's in an in-between space — sort of a pest, sort of dangerous.' After some misbegotten attempts to fish sharks commercially, humans started to invade the waters where sharks hung out, and sharks graduated from pest to predator. With the popularization of maritime activities like scuba diving and surfing in the mid-20th century, people were spending more time underwater, which meant they were more likely to bump into a shark, Martin said. 'There were so many more humans in there,' said Gavin Naylor, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research at the Florida Museum of Natural History. 'It was just a matter of time before people got nobbled.' Previously, shark tales were mostly traded between fishermen who encountered them on the high seas. Now, with more people exploring 'shark-infested waters,' run-ins with sharks were getting picked up by local newspapers. A particularly scary documentary, 1971's 'Blue Water, White Death,' which featured a tense confrontation with aggressive white sharks, also helped shape our view of sharks as creatures to be feared, Skomal said — but 'Jaws' cemented it. The glee with which Amity Island's fishermen hunt would-be killer sharks wasn't totally fictional, either. Shark fishing tourneys already existed in the US prior to the success of 'Jaws,' but the film brought new publicity to the competitions and the sport of hunting 'trophy sharks,' Martin said. 'The killing of these animals became sanctioned, approved of, as a result of the film,' Martin said. Peter Benchley, who wrote the 1974 novel upon which the film was based, expressed some regret that some audiences viewed sharks as man-eating monsters because of 'Jaws,' a work of pure, pulpy fiction. ''Jaws,' the movie particularly, sparked a spurt of macho madness,' he told southwest Florida's News-Press in 2005. 'People were running around saying, 'Hey, let's slaughter sharks.'' Benchley later spent many years steeped in shark advocacy. Most contemporary audiences left 'Jaws' cheering for Chief Brody after he successfully exploded the monstrous shark (and overcame his fear of the open ocean, to boot!). But even scaredy cats couldn't deny that big old shark was fascinating. 'They are charismatic,' Martin said. 'They command our attention through their size, the way their bodies are shaped, their morphology, their behavior. But the big part of it is their ability to turn us into food. We don't like to be reminded of it, but we are food in an ecosystem.' Our morbid fascination with white sharks' ability to kill us drove the success of 'Jaws' and, eventually, decades of 'Shark Week,' Discovery's annual TV marathon that always features programs about fatal run-ins with sharks. (Discovery and CNN share a parent company.) 'We're drawn to things that could potentially hurt us,' Skomal said. 'And sharks have that unique history of being an animal, to this day, that can still harm us. The probability is extremely rare, but it's an animal that's shrouded in the ocean environment. We're land animals.' In the intervening years between the advent of shark fishing tournaments and our present, when dozens of nonprofits exist solely to serve shark conservation efforts, researchers have gotten to know the creatures beyond their enormous teeth. 'The negative perception of sharks at the time — which was tapped into and exacerbated by 'Jaws' — I think has definitely changed into fascination, respect, a desire to conserve, a desire to interact with and protect,' Skomal said. Now that we better understand their role in our underwater ecosystems — at the top of the food chain, they maintain balance by keeping the species below them in check — we can better appreciate white sharks (while maintaining a healthy dose of caution in waters they occupy), Martin said. Appreciation for sharks is especially important since several sharks species' populations have been on the decline, largely due to overfishing — sharks are often accidentally caught and killed. So it's perfectly wonderful to love sharks and want to protect them, said Naylor — just don't get too comfortable around them. 'Sharks are becoming the new cuddly whales,' he said. 'They're not. They are predaceous fishes that are efficient. They don't target people, but in certain conditions when water is murky, they make mistakes.' Need reminding of the potential dangers sharks can pose? Just watch 'Jaws.'
CNN
21 hours ago
- Entertainment
- CNN
Is ‘Jaws' what made us all fear sharks?
We hardly see the cartilaginous villain of 'Jaws' before it tears through a skinny-dipper, a dog, a little boy and an overconfident fisherman. It takes nearly two hours to finally watch the great white shark leap out of the water to swallow the gruff veteran Quint. Until then, we only really catch its dorsal fin before victims are ripped under the waves as the water around them turns the color of ketchup. 'Jaws' is credited with inventing the summer blockbuster. It inspired decades of creature features and suspenseful flicks. It kickstarted a whole subgenre of shark-centric horror (with diminishing returns). It also inflamed our fear of sharks as man-eating monsters, said Jennifer Martin, an environmental historian who teaches at the University of California, Santa Barbara. 'I'm struggling to think of a parallel example of a film that so powerfully shaped our understanding of another creature,' she said. 'They were killing machines. They were not really creatures. They weren't playing an ecological role.' Fifty years on, 'Jaws' preys on our existing fears of the oceanic unknown. The film even briefly influenced the popularity of shark-killing tournaments after its release, Martin said. But it also enticed marine biologists and researchers to better understand the deranged shark at its center. Real white sharks are not as large as the demonic fish in 'Jaws,' nor do they hunt humans for bloodsport. But they are certainly intimidating, and they do occasionally bite the odd swimmer, sometimes fatally. 'Being bitten by a wild animal, and in particular one that lives in the ocean, was frightening for us already,' said Gregory Skomal, a marine biologist who has spent decades studying white sharks. 'That's really what I think 'Jaws' did — it put the fear in our face.' When 'Jaws' premiered to an invigorated public in June 1975, most of the research on sharks focused on preventing shark attacks, Skomal said. 'We knew it was big, it could swim fast and we knew it bit people,' he said. 'So those aspects of the film are fairly accurate, just exaggerated.' White sharks like the toothy menace of 'Jaws' already had a reputation for violence by the time the film premiered, Skomal said: There had been recorded attacks on fishermen and scuba divers in Australia and surfers in California. But sharks didn't evolve to feed on humans, Skomal said: They've existed for at least 400 million years — they predate dinosaurs by several hundred million. Sharks only encountered people in their waters in the last few thousand years, since we started exploring by sea. Though there's some disagreement, most shark researchers believe shark attacks are a case of mistaken identity: A shark may confuse a person for prey. They typically take a bite, realize their mistake and move on, Skomal said. Not so in 'Jaws.' The film's shark dispatches his victims with purpose, munching on some body parts while leaving a head or arm as a warning to any who dare swim in his waters. 'That's one of the reasons the film is so powerful,' Martin said. 'None of us want to look like food.' In the decades before 'Jaws,' white sharks weren't considered to be among the ocean's most fearsome predators. In the early 20th century, many sharks were thought of as 'garbage eaters,' Martin said: Coastal cities dumped their garbage in the ocean, and clever sharks learned to anticipate the barges' arrival. Sharks, city dwellers thought, were 'not very beautiful, not very commercially important,' Martin said. 'An animal that's in an in-between space — sort of a pest, sort of dangerous.' After some misbegotten attempts to fish sharks commercially, humans started to invade the waters where sharks hung out, and sharks graduated from pest to predator. With the popularization of maritime activities like scuba diving and surfing in the mid-20th century, people were spending more time underwater, which meant they were more likely to bump into a shark, Martin said. 'There were so many more humans in there,' said Gavin Naylor, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research at the Florida Museum of Natural History. 'It was just a matter of time before people got nobbled.' Previously, shark tales were mostly traded between fishermen who encountered them on the high seas. Now, with more people exploring 'shark-infested waters,' run-ins with sharks were getting picked up by local newspapers. A particularly scary documentary, 1971's 'Blue Water, White Death,' which featured a tense confrontation with aggressive white sharks, also helped shape our view of sharks as creatures to be feared, Skomal said — but 'Jaws' cemented it. The glee with which Amity Island's fishermen hunt would-be killer sharks wasn't totally fictional, either. Shark fishing tourneys already existed in the US prior to the success of 'Jaws,' but the film brought new publicity to the competitions and the sport of hunting 'trophy sharks,' Martin said. 'The killing of these animals became sanctioned, approved of, as a result of the film,' Martin said. Peter Benchley, who wrote the 1974 novel upon which the film was based, expressed some regret that some audiences viewed sharks as man-eating monsters because of 'Jaws,' a work of pure, pulpy fiction. ''Jaws,' the movie particularly, sparked a spurt of macho madness,' he told southwest Florida's News-Press in 2005. 'People were running around saying, 'Hey, let's slaughter sharks.'' Benchley later spent many years steeped in shark advocacy. Most contemporary audiences left 'Jaws' cheering for Chief Brody after he successfully exploded the monstrous shark (and overcame his fear of the open ocean, to boot!). But even scaredy cats couldn't deny that big old shark was fascinating. 'They are charismatic,' Martin said. 'They command our attention through their size, the way their bodies are shaped, their morphology, their behavior. But the big part of it is their ability to turn us into food. We don't like to be reminded of it, but we are food in an ecosystem.' Our morbid fascination with white sharks' ability to kill us drove the success of 'Jaws' and, eventually, decades of 'Shark Week,' Discovery's annual TV marathon that always features programs about fatal run-ins with sharks. (Discovery and CNN share a parent company.) 'We're drawn to things that could potentially hurt us,' Skomal said. 'And sharks have that unique history of being an animal, to this day, that can still harm us. The probability is extremely rare, but it's an animal that's shrouded in the ocean environment. We're land animals.' In the intervening years between the advent of shark fishing tournaments and our present, when dozens of nonprofits exist solely to serve shark conservation efforts, researchers have gotten to know the creatures beyond their enormous teeth. 'The negative perception of sharks at the time — which was tapped into and exacerbated by 'Jaws' — I think has definitely changed into fascination, respect, a desire to conserve, a desire to interact with and protect,' Skomal said. Now that we better understand their role in our underwater ecosystems — at the top of the food chain, they maintain balance by keeping the species below them in check — we can better appreciate white sharks (while maintaining a healthy dose of caution in waters they occupy), Martin said. Appreciation for sharks is especially important since several sharks species' populations have been on the decline, largely due to overfishing — sharks are often accidentally caught and killed. So it's perfectly wonderful to love sharks and want to protect them, said Naylor — just don't get too comfortable around them. 'Sharks are becoming the new cuddly whales,' he said. 'They're not. They are predaceous fishes that are efficient. They don't target people, but in certain conditions when water is murky, they make mistakes.' Need reminding of the potential dangers sharks can pose? Just watch 'Jaws.'
USA Today
a day ago
- Entertainment
- USA Today
How 'Jaws' fans can celebrate 50th anniversary at Universal Studios Hollywood, Florida
How 'Jaws' fans can celebrate 50th anniversary at Universal Studios Hollywood, Florida Show Caption Hide Caption Top 3 scary moments in 'Jaws' 'Jaws' turns 50 this summer and USA TODAY film critic Brian Truitt celebrates with his favorite bloody moments. Universal Studios Hollywood features a "Jaws" encounter on the Studio Tour, along with photo opportunities and themed dining at Amity Island Cafe. Universal Studios Florida no longer has the Jaws ride, but offers photo opportunities with "Jaws"-themed props and limited-time snacks. Both parks celebrate the film's 50th anniversary with special events and entertainment, including a "Jaws"-themed parade and nighttime show. It's been 50 years since 'Jaws' first terrorized a generation of moviegoers. Nowadays, fans are more likely to squeal with delight than fear over the beloved Universal franchise, which still has an entire Amity Village at Universal Studios Japan. But fans don't have to go that far to celebrate the film's golden anniversary this summer. Here's what to do at Universal Studios Hollywood and Universal Orlando Resort. Do they still have Jaws at Universal Studios Hollywood? Yes. There's still a Jaws encounter on the World-Famous Studio Tour. (Tip: Sit to the right of the tram for the best view.) The tour is available all year long, but guests may notice a 'Jaws' addition to the Hollywood sign replica this summer. As part of Universal Studios Hollywood's Mega Movie Summer through Aug. 10, guests can also snap photos with the park's hanging shark, which has been brought back for an anniversary photo opp, along with a new meet-and-greet with Captain Quint and Chief Brody. Guests can find these outside the WaterWorld attraction. The California park has also temporarily transformed its quick-service Hollywood & Dine restaurant into Amity Island Cafe. Its 'Jaws'-inspired menu includes a lobster roll, a vegan crab cake sandwich and an oversized donut that looks like a lifesaver. From 'Jaws' to 'The Meg': Ranking the 10 best shark movies of all time Is Jaws still at Universal Studios Florida? Universal Orlando Resort's Jaws ride retired in 2012. However, its hanging shark is still displayed year-round. In honor of the film's 50th anniversary, Universal Studios Florida has also brought out two additional photo opps tied to the former attraction: one is its original billboard; the other looks like one of the boats from the ride, being chased by a shark. Guests will find these in the park's San Francisco area through July 6, along with limited-time "Jaws"-themed snacks. Each night until Aug. 24, guests can catch CineSational: A Symphonic Spectacular, on the park's waterfront before closing. The nighttime show features dancing fountains, projections, and music from some of Universal's most iconic films, including 'Jaws.' Pending weather, each day through Nov. 13, guests can also catch the Universal Mega Movie Parade, which features live characters, floats and Easter eggs from various Universal films, including 'Jaws.' Dates are subject to change. Guests should check Universal Orlando's free app for the latest updates.
Digital Trends
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Digital Trends
We'll never see a movie like Jaws ever again. Here's why
Jaws premiered in theaters on June 20, 1975, and the film industry was never the same. Essentially a slasher movie set on the high seas, many filmmakers wouldn't dare to shoot such a movie, knowing the challenges that came with it. However, a young, up-and-coming director named Steven Spielberg boldly helmed this adaptation of Peter Benchley's novel, presenting a suspenseful but heartfelt motion picture unlike anything seen before. Although Jaws faced numerous challenges from script to screen, Spielberg and his team overcame the odds and delivered the world's first summer blockbuster. After fifty years, three sequels, and several imitators, no one has come close to replicating the extraordinary magic and success of Spielberg's oceanic horror adventure. Although stories like Alien and Stranger Things have thrived from drawing influence from Jaws, audiences may never experience another blockbuster quite like Spielberg's breakout hit. Recommended Videos Jaws could've sunk in theaters Jaws has become infamous for its troubled production. The mechanical sharks designed to portray the movie's poster beast broke down in the water while the crew filmed at sea. These technical difficulties caused Jaws to go way over budget. Filming lasted 159 days, much longer than initially planned. In fact, Spielberg told EW that the production was so stressful that it left him with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), forcing him to repeatedly revisit Quint's boat on the Universal Studios lot to process his trauma. Though the broken shark nearly sank Jaws, Spielberg decided to change tactics and present the shark attacks from the beast's point of view. This is a shining example of a filmmaker accomplishing so much more with a whole lot less, as it turned Jaws from a hokey monster movie to a Hitchcockian thriller. With John Williams' score playing in the background of the scenes, this approach ultimately made for some of the most heart-pounding moments in all of cinema. It became a massive success Jaws broke new ground with its widespread release and heavy marketing campaign, with the film reportedly debuting in over 400 theaters simultaneously. After the film generated so much hype, Jaws made around $477.9 million in theaters worldwide against its $7 million budget, usurping The Exorcist as the highest-grossing horror movie at the time. The success of Jaws inspired other studios to release more big-budget, high-concept summer blockbusters like it. Jaws also received considerable praise during awards season. The film won the Academy Awards for Best Original Score, Best Film Editing, and Best Sound. The film received a Best Picture nomination, a rarity among horror films. Though Spielberg had released his first critically acclaimed feature, The Sugarland Express, a year before Jaws, the latter's success jump-started the young filmmaker's career. This paved the way for Spielberg to direct many other cinema classics, including Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Jurassic Park, and Schindler's List. Jaws transcended and reinvented horror Jaws doesn't rely on cheap scares to terrify its audience. By keeping the shark off-screen for most of the film and using props to signify its presence, Spielberg creatively evoked the terror in the unseen, ratcheting up the suspense until the beast finally reared its head. With such gruesome depictions of the shark feeding on its prey, Jaws made an entire generation of people too scared to swim in the water. While there are plenty of terrifying, visceral moments in this film, Jaws also makes room for lighthearted humor and tender drama, which have become a mainstay of Spielberg's films. Scenes such as Brody's son copying him at their house and the Show Me the Way to Go Home sing-along are prime examples of the film's heart and humanity. There's also plenty of thrilling action out on the water, with Brody facing the shark one-on-one in an explosive and unforgettable battle of humanity against nature. The boat was filled with iconic acting Jaws established many talented actors as household names today. Roy Scheider sold the terror to audiences as Chief Brody, particularly with his delivery of his now-iconic improvised phrase, 'You're gonna need a bigger boat.' Richard Dreyfuss stole the show as the snarky, charming shark expert, Matt Hooper. However, Robert Shaw made every one of his scenes as Quint just as memorable. His drunken, five-minute monologue about surviving the sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis made for the most chilling part of the entire film. Jaws is a once-in-a-lifetime film Overall, there are few filmmakers who would want to face the elements that caused so many delays and difficulties on the set of Jaws. Even if one succeeds in making a shark-centric horror film, Jaws set a very high bar to reach in terms of horror and heart with its storytelling. Though the film's groundbreaking release model may be replicated by countless blockbusters today, that's precisely why no other film will achieve the kind of innovative success as Jaws. Jaws is available to stream on Peacock.
