After 25 years, 'Jaws' lives in hearts and checkbooks of Vineyarders
By Associated Press, 04//00
OAK BLUFFS, Mass. -- Will Pfulger had one line in the movie "Jaws": "I got a paddle."
For that, Pfulger estimates he's earned $30,000 in the 25 years since "Jaws" hit theaters and scared would-be beachgoers out of their sandals.
That may seem like exceptionally good pay for the work, but even more money is headed for Pfulger and others who took part in the summer blockbuster.
Universal Studios will celebrate the 25th anniversary of "Jaws" with a July 11 DVD release, accompanied by renewed theater runs and a marketing push to cable and satellite channels.
That means a bump in residual checks for Pfulger and other Martha's Vineyard actors who are still getting paid for what was the first and only movie they ever acted in.
Chris Rebello, 36, is an Edgartown property superintendent who played 11-year-old Michael Brody, son of the Amity police chief character played by Roy Schieder. He got $138 per day during filming, but the pay since then has been substantial enough to literally put a roof over his head.
"It's safe to say that shark paid for my house," he told The Boston Globe.
Rebello and Pfulger took part in the film as a lark. Pfulger said the contract he signed was standard, though he didn't really understand it. No matter. The enduring popularity of the film has turned it into a cash cow for those with speaking parts.
"All I know is, many of us still have to file California state income tax every April, but that's a problem I can deal with," Pfluger said.
Director Steven Spielberg's search for authenticity drew in some Vineyard residents who normally would never have been involved in a movie. Grizzled fisherman and farmer Greg Kingsbury was brought in to teach the British actor Robert Shaw how to talk like a local in his role as Captain Quint.
Kingsbury was later rewarded with a speaking part as fisherman Ben Gardner. In the film, Gardner meets his end between Jaws' jaws, and his head is spit back into his boat.
"For all this talk about making things authentic, how the hell is a shark supposed to eat someone and spit his head back into the inside of his boat?" asked Kingsbury, now 88.
Despite the movie's impact on the Vineyard, few signs of it remain. The Amity Cafe, opened by a family friend of "Jaws" author Peter Benchley, is one reminder. In Menemsha, the lot on which Captain Quint's shack stood has sold for millions of dollars. Quint's fishing boat has nearly rotted away. Steel platforms used for special effects are rusting on the shoreline.
But the residual checks keep rolling in, though Kingsbury says the memories are what he really treasures.
"I never thought then, I don't think now, too much about the money," he said. "I just remember it as a time when I got to go on all these capers with a bunch of A-1 people."
