Robert Shaw called Richard Dreyfuss "Fat and Sloppy" on the "Jaws" set
Steven Spielberg said that the actors' quarrel had actually benefited the film.
Thank you to his masterful direction, to great actor performances and his Hitchcockian suspense, Jaws ,, Steven Spielberg 1975 film About a giant shark terrorizing a coastal community, has become a Hit Smash, defining the summer blockbuster and becoming the first film to gross more than $ 100 million . The tension was not only on the screen, at least according to Spielberg. In addition to the difficulty of filming on water with defective mechanical predators, the director recalled acrimony between the actors Richard Dreyfuss , who played the oceanographer Matt Hooper, and Robert Shaw , who played the experienced liver hunter Quint. He even nicknamed it "The Great Shaw-Dreyfuss Feud" in the 2010 documentary Jaws: Inner history (as Reported by BBC News ). Read the rest for the details of their antagonism influenced by alcohol, including the exchange of some severe insults.
Read this then: Tom Hanks's quarrel with this star is "painful", says a friend said .
Dreyfuss said Shaw "terrified".
In a 2010 interview with Wenn, cited in Daily Express , Dreyfuss admitted to having been intimidated by Shaw from the start, saying that the older actor could be both "a gentleman" and "a terrible tyrant". He also said that he had tried to break the ice by compliming the British actor on his representation of Claudius Hamlet . Otherwise, "I would have spent all summer long," Eek ". He terrified me," said Dreyfuss.
He may have the right to fear the actor who played Quint, their co-star Roy Scheider said. In the images used in Jaws: Inner history , the late actor recalled: "[Shaw] really thought that Dreyfuss needed a slap, [that he was a young punk without stage experience." He continued , "Shaw would say:" Look at, Dreyfuss. You eat and drink and you are big and you are sloppy. At your age, it's criminal. Why you couldn't even make 10 good pumps. ""
"Robert would mainly humiliate Richard to take his chance," said Spielberg in the film. "For example, Robert would say" I will give you a hundred dollars if you climb to the top of the mast and jump into the water. ""
He called Shaw for his alcohol consumption.
Behind Shaw's light and dark behavior was a problem of apparently notorious alcohol consumption, which led to one of the most tendomers of the shooting.
"He was going down the gangplank," said Dreyfuss in the documentary. "He had a glass of bourbon in hand and said," Help me, do you want, Richard? "I said," Do you want me to help you? " »»
Dreyfuss continued by saying that he had taken the glass and threw him into the water in a moment that Spielberg called "the shot heard around the world". Shaw demanded revenge by taking the fire hose and pointing it on the face of his co-star in the next scene.
Shaw's son wrote a piece on the infamous confrontation.
Although Robert Shaw died only three years after the release of the film HIF, his son Ian Shaw followed his steps on stage. In 2021 interview with The independent , the youngest Shaw remembers having been surprised to be welcomed with arms less than Overtis by Dreyfuss when he auditioned for a version of Hamlet He headed in 1994. The experience sparked the idea of writing a play on animosity between Dreyfuss and his father during the filming of Jaws. The result The shark is broken , in which Ian played Robert, was presented as a first positive criticism at the 2019 Edinburgh Fringe Fabry Festival and has been in the West End of London and Toronto. The part presents the two ungrateful people of Dreyfuss Claudius Compliment and its drink jet. AE0FCC31AE342FD3A1346EBB1F342FCB
But Dreyfuss calls the quarrel a great white lie.
Despite the fact that on the set, he felt like Shaw "was possessed by an evil troll, who would then [him] his victim" Jaws: Inner history , Dreyfuss also denied that there was a quarrel between them.
"It is clearly not true, and where it started, I do not know, perhaps a combination of [screenwriter] Carl Gottlieb And Steven but believe me, Robert Shaw would not face 2019 Sunday email interview . In this same article, he recalled his Hamlet Comment as a moment of connection for them. "I said:" Your Claudius was the largest Claudius of all time, it justified the whole room "", recalls Dreyfuss. "And he said," Go here and have a drink. "We have linked ourselves like crazy."
As for the Gangplank moment? "I lost my sense of humor for an afternoon, it is not a quarrel - it was very simple and it had my number", the The opus of Mr. Holland According to Star.
Feud or not, Spielberg estimated that antagonism has contributed to bringing the tension between the characters of the actors. "It has become ugly," said the director Jaws: Inner history . "But it was also Quint and Hooper living this relationship."
