Susan Backlinie, first victim in Jaws, dies

MCA/Universal Home VideoSusan Backlinie in Jaws

NOS Nieuws•gisteren, 09:11

American stuntwoman Susan Backlinie has died at the age of 77, half a century after her bloody death on the silver screen set the tone for the film Jaws.

As a 27-year-old, Backlinie played Chrissie, the first victim of the movie shark. In the first minutes of the film, she is surprised by the unseen sea monster while swimming naked.

Chrissie is first pulled under water and then dragged back and forth:

Director Spielberg had chosen newcomer Backlinie because the stuntwoman had gained a lot of swimming experience as a mermaid in an amusement park. “I needed someone who could handle whatever I had planned.”

Spielberg achieved the jerking movements of her death throes by tying her to an underwater pulley system operated by a handful of men on the beach, who unexpectedly pulled her in one direction or the other. Her strangled cries were recorded upside down in the dub while water was poured into her mouth.

The days of recording were exhausting, but Backlinie looked back on it proudly. “The first thing Spielberg said to me was, ‘When your scene is done, I want the audience to sit under the theater seats with popcorn and bubble gum.’ I think we succeeded.”

“What I often hear from people is: ‘Because of you I no longer dare to go into the sea,'” she said in an interview several years ago. “Some said they didn’t even dare take a bath anymore.”

Parody

Her memorable death did not translate into a Hollywood career. Backlinie only appeared in a few film roles, in which she often came into contact with animals. That’s how she became horribly killed by a grizzly and she had to go into it Day of the Animals against a whole bunch of wild animals.

Spielberg himself asked her back for his comedy in 1979 1941where she her Jawsrole parodied with a submarine’s periscope instead of a shark. She also focused on training animals for films. For example, she owned the bear that growled for Chewbacca Star Wars delivered.

Backlinie died unexpectedly on Saturday of a heart attack at home in California.

Dave Allocca/Starpix/ShutterstockBacklinie in 2013