Okay, I know Alex Kintner isn’t a real person. But his character died on this date, June 29, in the summer blockbuster Jaws. For years, photos have circulated online that show a darker death of the character. This is believed to be the work of Verna Fields, the film editor who won an Oscar for her work.
It’s no secret that the movie production was a nightmare. Cast and crew members called it Flaws as the mechanical shark, nicknamed Bruce after Steven Spielberg’s lawyer at the time, malfunctioned. A testing of the shark sunk to the bottom of Nantucket Sound off Martha’s Vineyard. Several sharks were made but with the sides exposed for electrical and mechanical wiring, leading promotional stills to be criticized.
Peter Benchley, who wrote the novel on which the movie is based, was barred from the set after criticizing the changes. His novel of the same name was heavily criticized for having the most despicable human characters. Spielberg said halfway reading it he began to root for the shark. Carl Gottlieb was credited as a co-writer and John Milius and Howard Sackler did uncredited rewrites.
Richard Dreyfus and Robert Shaw reportedly didn’t get along which spread into their online roles. Shaw was notoriously drunk during the filming of the U.S.S. Indianapolis scene that most footage was unusable and the scene was filmed the next day with a sober Shaw feeling regretful.
The filming lasted so long that the town council scene was actually filmed in the Fall season closer to winter which is evident from the bare trees in the background outside. This was as they discuss the $3,000 bounty Mrs. Kintner puts up for the killing of the shark that killed her son. Lee Fiero, who played the role, was a local drama teacher on Martha’s Vineyard who said filming the scene at the beach where she looks for Alex was very emotional. She began to think of what would happen if one of her four children was missing and her panic and frantic look was real.
Also real was the slap she gave Roy Scheider who played Amity Police Chief Martin Brody. She objected to the profanity that had been written for her to say. But the slap took 17 takes to get it the way Spielberg wanted it. She would later say people would ask her to slap them. Fiero died of Covid at the age of 91 in 2020.
But before she died, she did have a heart-warming reunion with Jeffrey Voorhees who played Alex. Kintner went to work behind the scenes as an adult on the daytime drama series Santa Barbara from 1983 until 1993 when it went off the air. He then returned to Martha’s Vineyard working as a manager at The Warf Restaurant and Pub. One day, Fiero walked in and noticed a menu item “Alex Kintner Sandwich.” She told the staff she played the mother in Jaws.
To her surprise, Kintner was working in the back and came out to see her. It was the first time in decades the two had seen each other. The restaurant is still open but I’m not sure if Fiero ever had the sandwich before she passed.
Zane Says 