JAWS counts as one of my favorite movies. And like so many of the movies I saw when I was—to go by most “normal” people’s opinions, I’m sure—too young to be watching such fare (I was five or six, something like that, when I first saw JAWS, I think), it made a big impression. It actually helped shape me into the individual I would become. JAWS the shark left teeth marks in my psyche, for sure. I wonder if Jonathan Searle feels the same.
As a wee tyke, Searle appeared as an extra in the movie. Now he’s been elected Chief of Police for the town of Oak Bluffs in Massachusetts, located on Martha’s Vineyard, which in the movie served as the location for Amity Island. Searle and his brother were the two little boys who had the fake fin and caused a panic among the swimmers. Searle was the one who, when they got caught, pointed at the other and blamed him for coming up with the idea. That scene was filmed off the coast at Oak Bluffs. Lovely how that worked out.
I think it would’ve been cooler to be the kid who gets eaten in the film, though.