Susan Backlinie was an actress and stunt performer best known for playing Chrissie Watkins, the first person attacked by a shark in the 1975 blockbuster film, “Jaws.”
- Died: May 11, 2024 (Who else died on May 11?)
- Details of death: Died at her home in Ventura, California at the age of 77.
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Susan Backlinie’s legacy
Backlinie’s signature role was a collision of two worlds in which she worked: acting and stunts. When director Steven Spielberg was seeking an actress for the legendary opening scene of “Jaws,” he turned not to a standard casting call but to the stunts department. He wanted someone who knew how to swim and could handle the aggressive shaking and pulling he had in mind as he envisioned the movie’s initial shark attack.
Backlinie, who had swum for years in Florida’s Weeki Wachee Springs State Park mermaid show, lobbied for the role as someone who could both do the stunt and appear on camera. Her first scenes were simple as she partied on the beach, but it took three days of grueling work to film the scene in which her ill-fated skinny-dipping turned into a shark attack. She was put in an underwater harness, with crews pulling at her from both sides. The resulting footage was chillingly realistic, and Backlinie went down in history as a horror movie icon.
A few years later, Backlinie worked with Spielberg again in his World War II comedy, “1941.” In a nod to “Jaws,” Backlinie again ran into the ocean naked, but as ominous music sounded, it was a submarine she encountered instead of a shark. She also appeared in such movies and TV shows as “The Great Muppet Caper” and “The Fall Guy.”
Backlinie on filming her “Jaws” scene
“They put a pair of cutoff jeans on me and hooked cables up to the side. At night, I’d stop and think, ‘You know, that’s exactly what calls sharks to you: flailing, stopping, flailing.’ I kind of felt like shark bait.” — from a 2023 interview for Remind magazine
Tributes to Susan Backlinie
Full obituary: The Hollywood Reporter
