Here is a rather candid remembrance of Robert Shaw from Jeffrey Vorhees, who played “the doomed Alex Kintner” (a.k.a. boy on the raft) in “Jaws”:

“Everyone filming it here was really nice, except for one guy, the old drunk, Robert Shaw. He ignored the island kids. They would have baseball games and cookouts for all the extras and kids on the island—-all the actors would show up, except for Shaw. He wanted nothing to do  with “The Island People,” as he called us. As a little kid, I would go over and talk to him, “Hi! How are you today?” He would just glare and say, “Just go away.” He was always drunk, just a mess….”   From “Just When You Thought it Was Safe: A Jaws Companion.”

Hopefully a small donation I made to ban gill nets made the ocean a little safer for sharks. Here’s the deal:

Each year, California drift gillnets kill more than 3,500 thresher, mako, and blue sharks as they fish for swordfish. The bycatch rate of sharks – as well as ocean sunfish, marine mammals and sea turtles – in California’s drift gillnets is the highest of any fishery along the US Pacific Coast.