Vanya, Vanity, and Betrayal on the Bay ~ memoir by Jeff Bond and S. M. Strand

So Spielberg’s “having a moment.” Again. Maybe it’s futile, but I still have hopes that my as yet unsigned memoir will find a home. The American public deserves to know the truth about their “favorite director.”

With this intention, I present here an excerpt from Memoirs of a Mechanical Shark—The Jaws of Ambition.

* * *

When Spielberg approached me, a mechanical shark, about a role in his upcoming movie, I was deep into my process at the Falmouth Community Playhouse. It was 1973. Experimental theater was having a moment, and I’d convinced friends to develop a collaborative interpretation of Uncle Vanya. No director. Just six actors, the breath, and the raw spiritual torque that is Chekhov. We were finalizing blocking—rigging ropes to get me around the stage—when Steven walked up to where I was dangling in my harness, and said, “You are Quint.”

I knew who Quint was. Any actor worth his salt knew Steve was casting his new arthouse film about a seabeast who terrorizes a Long Island beach town. But I was confused. I was a mechanical shark. Did he really want me to play the grizzled shark hunter in his eclectic take on the Peter Benchley novel? Steve reminded me that he wasn’t making some popcorn movie about a monster. He was using the plot as commentary on who the monster really is.

“It’s us. America and our self-cannibalizing soul.”

A brilliant take. Chekhovian even.

Still, I hesitated. Vanya was hitting something primal. We were starting to understand the theme of “wasted lives.” But then Steve showed me Quint’s monologue: The sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis. Sailors despairing, sharks circling. My God! What writing. What a role. What Oscar bait.

I made a fateful decision. One that would define—and eventually devour—my career. Derrida and the Dreamscape of Vanya could wait. I was all in. I was Quint.

* * *

I dove into my craft, matching the obsessiveness of the shark hunter himself. I visited Veterans’ homes. Not to ask questions—to listen. I watched thirty hours of Jacques Cousteau. In French. Paid out of pocket for an Estonian harpoon gun trainer.

Richard Dreyfuss (Oceanographer “Matt Hooper”) and I got beers at Scrod ‘n Such, bonding over our characters’ prickly dynamic. “They’re mirrors of each other,” Richard said. “Jungian.” I felt the truth of it.

Then came filming my first big scene. The whole town abuzz about the killer shark, debates about closing the beach. And then, SCREEEECH! Quint scratches a chalkboard, silencing the cacophony and claiming his mission. Shark vs. mechanical shark. The toothy heart of Steve’s meta-theme.

Only problem: I have no fingernails. Just smooth fake flippers. Instead of a torturous scratching sound, all I made was a dull “squirp.” Instead of suspenseful silence, there were embarrassed giggles.

I looked at Steve. His face was a blank but I could read his thoughts: Why did I cast a three-ton mechanical shark with a pulley instead of a human with fingernails? Why did I think I needed to put my “take” on this simple story?

Because we weren’t making a simple story, Steven! We were making art!

He whispered to his casting director. We were sent home for the day.

I didn’t sleep that night. I had to redeem myself. Make this work. I re-read my worn copy of An Actor Prepares cover to cover. I jogged in place as I said Quint’s line ”I’ll catch this bird for you” out loud a thousand times, until it became an empty vessel for me, the artist, to fill.

Next morning, I was ready to make that chalkboard screech like a homicidal cormorant—when I saw him at craft services.

The Mozart to my Salieri.

Robert Shaw. Old nemesis from Falmouth. He’d snatched Kenickie from me when we staged Grease. And turned in the most one-dimensional interpretation of Ibsen as Ejlert Løvborg in Hedda Gabler.

Now he was eating olive loaf with grotesquely grown-out fingernails, like he’d been plotting this latest thievery for months.

It was over. Quint would be played by a backstabbing hack who thought an untraceable accent was a character choice.

I lobbied for the role of Mrs. Kitner. Grieving mother in a little black hat with a veil. Small but powerful role. Bonus: I’d get to spit at Roy Scheider. I’d never warmed up to that guy.

Steve counter-offered. “How about—the shark?”

The shark? So crushingly literal! This project was pivoting. Badly.

Vanya was three weeks into its run. My friends were annoyed I’d bailed, and had given my part to Mel from Mel’s Meats. A butcher to butcher Chekhov.

So I took the shark role. No lines, no depth. Get cranked out of the water, open wide, look dumb. Repeat. Scheider mockingly threw chum at me between takes. The crew kept locking me in storage “by accident.”

Eventually, I got to swallow Robert Shaw. He tasted like gin and Efferdent. So, that.

I was not invited to the premier. “Logistical constraints.”

You already know how this ends. The movie is a sensation, the term “summer blockbuster” enters our collective consciousness, and we’re doomed to never get through a July or August without some bloviated take on Superman or Jurassic Friggin’ Park.

Deep down Steve has always been commercial. Duel was an anomaly. (I deigned to see The Fablemans and let me tell you: I was underwhelmed.)

I moved to LA. Played “Background Shark #3” in Orca. That was my last offer.

Carrie Fisher once told me, ”An actress’s shelf life is criminally short.” Yeah, I say, but try being a mechanical shark. Still, I have my memories. My Halston suit. My restraining order on Morgan Fairchild.

And now, like Carrie, I’m turning my experience into art. Real art. Unlike Jaws. I may have blown it as Quint, but Spielberg blew his shot at being America’s Bergman. And that’s so much worse.

* * *

I’m available for any Jaws 51st Anniversary events. DM for rates.

Jeff Bond serves as Senior Editor at Epiphany Magazine in New York. His stories have been published or are forthcoming in EPOCH, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, The Carolina Quarterly, and more. He splits his time between New York City and rural Connecticut.

 

 

 

S. M. Strand is an educator and writer living in New England. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, The Offing’s Wit Tea, and other humor publications.