What do you think of this fact?
The most famous shark in movie history has a name, and it’s not exactly terrifying. The crew of Jaws called it Bruce.
A shark named after a lawyer
According to NPR and Spectrum News 1, the mechanical shark got its nickname from Steven Spielberg’s lawyer, Bruce Ramer. Not a monster, not a sea god, just the man who handled the director’s contracts.
And Bruce wasn’t one shark but three. Art director Joe Alves designed three mechanical great whites for the 1975 film, and they had to work in salt water off Martha’s Vineyard. According to NPR, the sharks broke down so often that the shoot ran over schedule and over budget. Making a shark movie is hard when your shark keeps clocking out.
From junkyard to museum
After filming, the three original sharks were destroyed or abandoned. But once Jaws became a huge box office hit, a fourth shark was cast from the same mold. According to Spectrum News 1, it hung at Universal Studios Hollywood for 15 years as a photo spot, then spent 25 years in a junkyard in Sun Valley, California. In 2016, it was donated to the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles.
Special effects artist Greg Nicotero and his team restored the shark, which is about 25 feet (7.6 meters) long. Spectrum says the work took seven months, NPR says six. Today Bruce hangs in the museum, visible from Fairfax Avenue, and you don’t even need a ticket to look up at him.
Bonus fact: According to Spectrum News 1, the museum’s Bruce weighs 1,208 pounds, about 548 kilograms, and has 116 teeth.
The last surviving Jaws shark carries a lawyer’s name and a junkyard past.