Susan Backlinie | |
|---|---|
 Backlinie in 2023 | |
| Born | Susan Jane Backlinie September 1, 1946 Miami, Florida, U.S |
| Occupations |
|
| Years active | 1973–1982 |
| Notable work | Christine "Chrissie" Watkins in Jaws (1975) |
| Spouses |
Harvey Swindall (m. 1995) |
Susan Jane Backlinie (born September 1, 1946) is an American former actress and stuntwoman. [1] She is best-known for her role as Chrissie Watkins, the first shark victim in Steven Spielberg's blockbuster Jaws (1975). [2]
Along with being a stuntwoman specializing in swimming work, she was an animal trainer. [2] She currently works as a computer accountant in her home of Ventura, California.
Backlinie's appearance in Jaws took three days to shoot, with Backlinie strapped into a harness while the crew struggled to get the desired effects. [3] Contrary to rumor, Backlinie's startled reaction and screams of anguish were not due to her being injured by the harness that yanked her back and forth in the water. However, she was attached to a line that was anchored to the ocean floor beneath her, and she was intentionally not warned when she would be first pulled underwater; this helped provoke a more genuine expression of surprise from her initially – but the remainder of her performance was her own as an actress. [4] When Jaws co-star Richard Dreyfuss saw a daily of her performance of being attacked by the shark, he told her it absolutely terrified him. [5]
Backlinie also appears in Spielberg's film 1941 parodying her role in Jaws : [2] instead of being attacked by a shark during a midnight swim, she's "picked up" by the periscope of a Japanese submarine. [6] The scene has been described as the best joke in what is otherwise widely considered one of Spielberg's least successful films. [7]
Backlinie also appeared in the 1977 film Day of the Animals , regarded by some as a Jaws clone about nature gone bad. [8]
She appeared in her own pictorial ("The Lady and the Lion") in the January 1973 issue of Penthouse . This was more than a year before she submitted a nude photo of herself to the Jaws production executive who brought her to Spielberg's attention for the role of Chrissie. She also appeared nude in the February 1977 issue of Mayfair ("Susan Backlinie - The nude from Jaws", vol. 12, issue 2, pages 40–43).
| Film | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Film | Role | Notes |
| 1975 | Jaws | Chrissie Watkins | |
| The Grizzly and the Treasure | Eve | ||
| 1976 | A Stranger in My Forest | Susan | also Trainer |
| Two-Minute Warning | Pretty blonde woman in crowd | Uncredited | |
| 1977 | Day of the Animals | Mandy Young | |
| 1979 | The Villain | n/a | Stunt performer |
| 1941 | Polar Bear Woman | ||
| 1981 | Image of the Beast | n/a | Stunt performer |
| The Great Muppet Caper | Charkie's Water Ballet Performer | ||
| 1984 | Terror in the Aisles | Chrissie Watkins | Archival footage |
| Television | |||
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
| 1976 | The Quest | Girl in Brawl | 1 episode |
| 1978 | Quark | Guard #1 | 2 episodes |
| 1982 | Catalina C-Lab | Diver With Bends | TV film |
| The Fall Guy | Tammy | 1 episode | |
Jaws is a 1975 American thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg, based on the 1974 novel by Peter Benchley. It stars Roy Scheider as police chief Martin Brody, who, with the help of a marine biologist and a professional shark hunter, hunts a man-eating great white shark that attacks beachgoers at a summer resort town. Murray Hamilton plays the mayor, and Lorraine Gary portrays Brody's wife. The screenplay is credited to Benchley, who wrote the first drafts, and actor-writer Carl Gottlieb, who rewrote the script during principal photography.
Jaws 2 is a 1978 American thriller film directed by Jeannot Szwarc and co-written by Carl Gottlieb. It is the sequel to Steven Spielberg's Jaws (1975), and the second installment in the Jaws franchise. The film stars Roy Scheider as Police Chief Martin Brody, with Lorraine Gary and Murray Hamilton reprising their respective roles as Martin's wife Ellen Brody and mayor Larry Vaughn. It also stars Joseph Mascolo, Jeffrey Kramer, Collin Wilcox, Ann Dusenberry, Mark Gruner, Susan French, Barry Coe, Donna Wilkes, Gary Springer, and Keith Gordon in his first feature film role. The plot concerns Chief Brody suspecting another great white shark is terrorizing the fictional seaside resort of Amity Island, following a series of incidents and disappearances, and his suspicions are eventually proven true.
Jaws: The Revenge is a 1987 American horror film produced and directed by Joseph Sargent. The fourth and final film in the Jaws franchise, it stars Lorraine Gary, who came out of retirement to reprise her role from the first two films, along with new cast members Lance Guest, Mario Van Peebles, Karen Young and Michael Caine.
Margaret Avery is an American actress and singer. She began her career appearing on stage and later had starring roles in films including Cool Breeze (1972), Which Way Is Up? (1977), Scott Joplin (1977), and The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh (1979).
Deep Blue Sea is a 1999 American science fiction horror film directed by Renny Harlin and starring Saffron Burrows, Thomas Jane, Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Rapaport, and LL Cool J. It is the first film of the film series by the same name. Set in an isolated underwater facility, the film follows a team of scientists and their research on mako sharks to help fight Alzheimer's disease. The situation plunges into chaos when multiple genetically engineered sharks go on a rampage and flood the facility.
Jaws 3-D is a 1983 American horror film directed by Joe Alves and starring Dennis Quaid, Bess Armstrong, Lea Thompson and Louis Gossett Jr. It is the second sequel to Steven Spielberg's Jaws and the third installment in the Jaws franchise. The film follows the Brody children from the previous films to SeaWorld, a Florida marine park with underwater tunnels and lagoons. As the park prepares for opening, a young great white shark infiltrates the park from the sea, seemingly attacking and killing the park's employees. Once the shark is captured, it becomes apparent that a second, much larger shark also entered the park and was the real culprit.
1941 is a 1979 American war comedy film directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale. The film stars an ensemble cast including Dan Aykroyd, Ned Beatty, John Belushi, John Candy, Christopher Lee, Tim Matheson, Toshiro Mifune, Robert Stack, Nancy Allen, and Mickey Rourke in his film debut. The story involves a panic in the Los Angeles area after the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.
Margaret Jean Holden is an American actress, stuntwoman, martial artist, author and director.
Grizzly is a 1976 American horror thriller film directed by William Girdler, about a park ranger's attempts to halt the wild rampage of an 18 ft (5.5 m) tall, 2,000 lb (910 kg) Man-eating grizzly bear that terrorizes a National Forest, having developed a taste for human flesh. However, a drunken hunting party complicates matters. It stars Christopher George, Andrew Prine and Richard Jaeckel. Widely considered a Jaws rip-off, Grizzly used many of the same plot devices as its shark predecessor, which had been a huge box office success during the previous year. The giant grizzly bear in the film was portrayed by a Kodiak bear named Teddy, who was 11 ft (3.4 m) tall.
Verna Fields was an American film editor, film and television sound editor, educator, and entertainment industry executive. In the first phase of her career, from 1954 through to about 1970, Fields mostly worked on smaller projects that gained little recognition. She was the sound editor for several television shows in the 1950s. She worked on independent films including The Savage Eye (1959), on government-supported documentaries of the 1960s, and on some minor studio films such as Peter Bogdanovich's first film, Targets (1968). For several years in the late 1960s, she was a film instructor at the University of Southern California. Her one major studio film, El Cid (1961), led to her only industry recognition in this phase of her career, which was the 1962 Golden Reel award for sound editing.
Dick Richards is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. Known as a storyteller and an "actor’s director", Richards worked with Robert Mitchum, Gene Hackman, Martin Sheen, Blythe Danner, Catherine Deneuve, Alan Arkin, Wilford Brimley, and many others.
The Jaws soundtrack is the music composed and conducted by John Williams for Steven Spielberg's 1975 film Jaws. The soundtrack is particularly notable for the 2-note ostinato which represents the shark, a theme so simple that Spielberg initially thought it was a joke by the composer.
Jaws is a novel by American writer Peter Benchley, published in 1974. It tells the story of a large great white shark that preys upon a small Long Island resort town and the three men who attempt to kill it. The novel grew out of Benchley's interest in shark attacks after he learned about the exploits of Montauk, New York shark fisherman Frank Mundus in 1964. Doubleday commissioned him to write the novel in 1971, a period when Benchley worked as a freelance journalist.
The Shark is Still Working is an American documentary film on the impact and legacy of the 1975 Steven Spielberg blockbuster film Jaws. It features interviews with a range of cast and crew from the film. It is narrated by Roy Scheider and dedicated to Peter Benchley.
Day of the Animals is a 1977 American natural horror film directed by William Girdler, based on a story by producer Edward L. Montoro. The film reunited Girdler and Montoro with stars Christopher George and Richard Jaeckel from the previous year's Grizzly. It co-stars Lynda Day George and Leslie Nielsen.
Tentacles is a 1977 horror-thriller film directed by Ovidio G. Assonitis and starring John Huston, Shelley Winters, Bo Hopkins, Cesare Danova, Delia Boccardo and Henry Fonda.
Jaws is an American natural horror film series that started with a 1975 film that expanded into three sequels, a theme park ride, and other tie-in merchandise, based on a 1974 novel. The main subject of the saga is a great white shark and its attacks on people in specific areas of the United States and The Bahamas. The Brody family is featured in all of the films as the primary antithesis to the shark. The original film was based on a novel written by Peter Benchley, which itself was inspired by the Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916. Benchley adapted his novel, along with help from Carl Gottlieb and Howard Sackler, into the 1975 film Jaws, which was directed by Steven Spielberg. Although Gottlieb went on to pen two of the three sequels, neither Benchley nor Spielberg returned to the film series in any capacity.
Sharknado 2: The Second One is a 2014 American made-for-television science fiction action comedy horror disaster film and a sequel to the 2013 television film Sharknado and the second installment in the Sharknado film series. It was directed by Anthony C. Ferrante, with Ian Ziering and Tara Reid reprising their roles from the first film. The film premiered on July 30, 2014, and was the highest-premiering film on the Syfy Channel.
Galeophobia is the medical term for a fear of sharks. The name galeophobia derives from the Greek language with galeos meaning shark and phobia meaning fear. This phobia is diagnosed using DSM-5 criteria and is characterized by a patient showing marked fear or anxiety about sharks that leads to severe impairment of their quality of life. Although it is not known exactly how many people have been diagnosed with galeophobia, a study conducted in 2015 revealed that just over half (51%) of Americans are absolutely terrified of sharks.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
