Today is the 47th anniversary of Jaws. If you shot this scene today, Quint would have to be talking about the Gulf War. https://t.co/uBwShVb2e8
— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) June 20, 2022
Robert Shaw turned 18 as World War 2 ended and served in the Royal Air Force. If he were still alive, he would be 95 this year. We are now as far in time from 1975 as 1975 was from 1928.
Bonus:
Shaw only lived to be 51, but he left some memorable performances behind him in a rather short life:
Robert Shaw (“Quint”) was a great actor, and previously achieved virtual screen immortality in “From Russia With Love” as the deadly Russian double-agent as Donald “Red” Grant.
It was a shame that he ended his life so early by sinking into alcoholism and self-destruction. A great artistic loss.
One of the characteristics of a great actor is to make himself almost bigger than the screen. But Shaw somehow did that, even though he was “only” 5‘11“ tall, —yet in the epic struggle with Sean Connery in the passenger compartment on the train “From Russia With Love,” he seems for all the world to be a giant 6’4” (similarly in “Jaws”), even appearing to be larger than Sean Connery, an ex-body builder champ and Scottish football star from Edinburgh who was 6‘2“ and about 220 pounds.
At any rate, a great actor, and like Richard Burton, a great untimely loss to alcoholism.
Steve, he was also a writer. It was he, working with screenwriter Carl Gottlieb (who plays the newspaper editor in the movie), who hammered out the Indianapolis speech. Shaw didn’t want to do the movie initially, his wife talked him into it. But Shaw was never happy with the character, who seemed to have no real motivation beyond ‘make money’, which didn’t fly as far as he was concerned. He pressed Spielberg for something more, and came up with the USS Indianapolis idea. Of course that necessitated a change in Quint’s character. For instance, he needed to look older (in the book he’s younger than a WWII vet would be in 1975). Also, having unpacked the reason for his Ahab like obsession with sharks, they felt he needed to go out in more of a blaze of glory. That’s why they changed his fate to the much more famous demise seen in the film. In the book, his legs get tied up in the ropes from the barrels and he gets dragged underwater – hence the focus on those in the movie.
Interesting, thank you, Dave G.