The Kid With the Fake Shark Fin in 'Jaws' Becoming a Police Chief on Martha's Vineyard is the Best Story of the Year
Jaws is my favorite movie of all time. And that is by no means an easy choice. I could spend a month picking a personal Top 10 list. The ones I would take to a deserted island. But Jaws is my No. 1. Seeing it as a kid is my all time most memorable movie-going experience. I can never go to that theater without remembering that scorching summer, standing in a line outside the theater, which was unheard of before Steven Spielberg's greatest invention, the Summer Blockbuster. Before the movie started I was so nervous I told my brother Jim I was about to puke and he basically told me to quit whining and gut it out. (Which is why you need brothers in your life.) The whole experience - every line of dialogue, every piece of music from John Williams' soundtrack, every jump scare - imprinted on me. I also have had the experience of sitting through a private screening in the same theater where I saw it as a kid watching it with my son who was the same age as me when it first came out. (Which is why you need a friend whose side job is managing a theater in your life.)
Since then I've watched it 100 times. Been on fishing trips where the other guys on the boat took a bet as to how long I'd go without quoting the movie. (I believe it was just under 12 minutes.) Watched all the "Making Of" documentaries and DVD extras. Read Carl Gottlieb's (he wrote the screenplay and plays the newspaper reporter) book "Jaws Log." In the 90s, in the Fantasy league with my Weymouth buddies, we never once mentioned Jon Kitna's name without referring to him as "The Little Kitna Boy." And heard from a guy who was related to the fisherman who, when Richard Dreyfus says, "It's a Tiger Shark" with a pencil between his teeth, turns around around and says, "A WHAAAAAAT?" Which is one of my proudest Brushes With Greatness ever.
All of which is preamble for this, my favorite news story of the year. Of many years, actually. The actor who is credited on Jaws' IMDB page as "Boy Swimmer With Cardboard Fin," is the new real life Chief Brody:
Source - The new police chief of Oak Bluffs on Martha’s Vineyard has an earlier claim to fame: screen time in the 1975 movie “Jaws.”
Edgartown Sgt. Jonathan Searle recently won the top cop job in the community of 5,000 full-time residents, according to The Vineyard Gazette.
Searle beat out two other contenders for the position, according to the paper.
As a child, Searle and his brother Steven appeared as “the two Amity pranksters with the fake cardboard fin that initially caused the mass panic on the beach ahead of the estuary attack,” according to The Daily Jaws. ...
Searles has deep roots on the island, according to the Gazette. Not only did he grow up there, but his father George Searle served as police chief in Edgartown from 1981-1995. ...
The chief told The New York Post that despite his connection to the movie, he plans to focus on land crime.
"Land crime." Nice one.
But we know all about you, Chief. You don't like to go in the water. (That's one bad hat, Harry.) Then again, it's only an island if you look at it from the water. And I'm glad he's an actual islander. Because if you're not born there, you'll never be one. And he can focus on land crime all he wants, until a shark stakes a claim off his beaches. (The theory is "territoriality," one I happen to agree with.) Then you've got to decide whether to put up the "Closed Beach" signs (and let Polly do the printing), keep them open, in which case you're ringing the dinner bell, blame any attack on a boating accident, or hire someone to catch and kill the shark. But it'll cost a lot more than 3,000 bucks, Chief. He'll find him for three. But he'll catch him, and kill him, for 10,0000. For that you get the head, the tail, the whole damned thing. That'll bring back the tourists. Put all your businesses on a paying basis. So you won't be on welfare the whole winter.
That said, this is the universe coming full circle. A kid who almost got his head blown off pulling a prank that his brother made him do, grows up to be the head law enforcement officer of his home town. Meaning that any time he wants, he can finish his wine, go down to the docks, and cut open that shark. He can do whatever he wants. He's the Chief of Police. In Amity, no less. And Amity, as you know, means friendship. This is going to be the best 4th of July they've ever had.
So congratulations to Chief Searle and the Oak Bluffs for making the right call. Don't forget your rubbers. Let's drink to our legs. Just remember that Hooper drives the boat, Chief. Farewell and adieu.