Jaws: What happened to the main cast of the first blockbuster?

17 December 2025, 14:00

Dun dun, dun dun, dun dun...

The holidays are a great time to get to the cinema and catch a major tentpole movie, but they're also perfect for nestling in on the sofa and watching a classic blockbuster from the old days, too.

And there are few better than the film widely acknowledge to be the first ever summer blockbuster. Jaws.

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Steven Spielberg's 1975 thriller had a somewhat troubled production, going massively over budget and past schedule, but one we heard those immortal dun-duns, it was clear that it was all worth it.

And the cast – decent names but not disbelief-challenging level superstars – were every bit as crucial to making the perfect movie as John Williams' score, Spielberg's Hitchcockian direction and that animatronic shark.

The likes of Robert Redford, Paul Newman and Steve McQueen were briefly entertained for the leads. Robert Duvall and Charlton Heston were in the frame at one point. Jon Voight and Jeff Bridges, too.

Quint and Hooper didn't get cast until a week and a half before shooting. And looking back over half a century later, it's impossible to imagine Jaws with anyone else in the lead roles. Here's a who's who, and a look at what they did next.

1. Roy Scheider as Chief Martin Brody

   

   Roy Scheider wasn't an unknown when he led Jaws, having impressed in movies like Klute and The French Connection earlier in the decade after transitioning from his previous careers as an amateur boxer and service in the US army.

   After Jaws, Scheider had key roles in classics like Marathon Man, Sorcerer, Blue Thunder and 2001: A Space Odyssey as well as popping up in Jaws 2.

   On TV he played Captain Nathan Bridger on NBC's seaQuest DSV, and later credits included Naked Lunch and The Punisher. He died of cancer in 2008 at the age of 75.

2. Robert Shaw as Quint

   

   Brit Robert Shaw started his acting career on the stage, with acclaimed runs in the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre and at the Old Vic. He picked up an Oscar nod for A Man For All Seasons in the mid-1960s and was in The Sting and From Russia With Love before Jaws came knocking.

   After Jaws there were only a few more roles - in movies like Diamonds, Black Sunday and The Deep - before Shaw's untimely death after a heart attack in 1978. He was only 51. His last films were the posthumously released Force 10 from Navarone and Avalanche Express.

3. Richard Dreyfuss as Matt Hooper

   

   Richard Dreyfuss was riding the New Hollywood wave into Jaws. He was much in demand after American Graffiti and The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz when the shark came calling.

   Afterwards he kicked things up a great with Close Encounters of the Third Kind and The Goodbye Girl, and continued with roles in The Competition, Stand by Me, Down and Out in Beverly Hills and Stakeout.

   Key later roles included Mr Holland's Opus, The American President and W. , while TV roles included s The Education of Max Bickford and Madoff. And he's still acting today.

4. Lorraine Gary as Ellen Brody

   

   A member of the Actors Studio, Lorraine Gray was best known for her TV roles in the late 1960s. There were spots in Night Gallery and Dragnet before a recurring role in Ironside.

   Her movie breakthrough was Jaws, and there was a flurry of roles after, with special mention for Car Wash and 1941 (as well as Jaws 2), before she retired in 1979. There was a final brief comeback to acting in 1987 as Ellen in Jaws: The Revenge.

   She is a member of the Human Rights Watch Women's Rights Advisory Committee and recipient of the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Humanitarian Award.

5. Murray Hamilton as Mayor Larry Vaughn

   

   Murray Hamilton started acting in the mid-1940s with a flurry of TV and movie roles over the next couple of decades, and it's worth mentioning his performances as Mr Robinson in The Graduate and Brooke Carpenter in The Way We Were.

   After Jaws the character parts just kept on coming, along with a concurrent stage career. Like most of the original cast he returned in Jaws 2, and also appeared in The Amityville Horror, 1941, Murder, She Wrote, The Golden Girls and Whoops Apocalypse.

   Hamilton died of lung cancer in 1986 at the age of 63.

6. Jeffrey Kramer as Deputy Leonard Hendricks

   

   After popping up in TV series Barney Miller, Jeffrey Kramer played Deputy Hendricks in Jaws. It helped kick-start a packed career, including (of course) Jaws 2 as well Hollywood Boulevard and Halloween II, as well as later parts in movies like Clue and The 'Burbs.

   Across his career, Kramer had TV roles in shows like MASH, Laverne & Shirley, The Incredible Hulk, Happy Days and Ally McBeal. He was a producer on the last of those, as well as several other shows in the '90s and '00s before his retirement in 2007.

7. Susan Backlinie as Chrissie Watkins

   

   Susan Backlinie's role in Jaws was short but utterly memorable. She played the first victim, Chrissie Watkins, pulled to and fro by the shark. She obviously didn't return for Jaws 2.

   Backlinie was a model, actress and most crucially a stuntwoman, which helped her win the role. "If you use me, you could get close-ups during the stunt itself," she told Spielberg. "If you use an actress, she’ll have to hide her face."

   There were other animal related roles in The Grizzly and the Treasure, Day of the Animals and 1941, and TV roles in The Quest, The Return of the Incredible Hulk, Quark and The Fall Guy. Susan died of a heart attack aged 77 in 2024.

8. Lee Fierro as Mrs. Kintner

   

   A member of the Hedgerow Repertory Theatre, Lee Fierro focused more as an educator than a stage actor, but still managed to win the role of Mrs Kintner in Jaws, delivering a memorable slap to Roy Scheider's s Chief Martin Brody.

   She didn't choose to leverage that into a movie career, but did return for fourth and final movie in the franchise, the much-maligned Jaws: The Revenge (Michael Caine: "I have never seen it, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific!").

   Fierro popped up in The Mistover Tale in 2016, and died in April 2020 aged 91 after contracting COVID-19.

9. Peter Benchley as Interviewer

   

   It wasn't a major role, but we'll have to mention Peter Benchley popping up as the Interviewer, because it was Benchley who wrote the original Jaws novel and co-wrote the screenplay with Carl Gottlieb.

   His other works included The Deep, The Island, Beast, and White Shark, while he also became an advocate for marine conservation.

   Benchley popped up in the occasional movie, including 1994 critical hit Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle He died of pulmonary fibrosis at the age of 65 in 2006

10. Carl Gottlieb as Meadows

    

    After roles in Maryjane and MASH, Carl Gottlieb played Harry Meadows in Jaws. He went on to have parts in Cannonball, The Jerk, The Sting II and later in his career Clueless.

    But as we just noted, his contribution to Jaws was much more than playing Harry. He co-wrote the film with Peter Benchley (and also co-wrote Jaws 2 and Jaws 3-D), as well as The Jerk. He also wrote and directed 1981's Caveman.