Which ‘Jaws’ Star Got Accidentally Drunk While Filming This Iconic Scene?
Actress Susan Backlinie, who passed away in 2024 at the age of 77, wasn’t one of the biggest names associated with Jaws — but she did have one of the film’s most important roles, as Chrissie Watkins, the unlucky late night swimmer who meets an ugly end in the film’s opening scene.
But according to an interview that Backlinie gave ReMIND in 2023, spending long hours in the water shooting that scene had an unlikely side effect: getting accidentally drunk.
“After I did my first scene, the nurse on set came up to give me a shot of liquor,” Backlinie recalled, remembering that the shot was intended to “warm me up, because I was freezing” after shooting for hours in the Atlantic Ocean.
However, the shot of liquor did more than just help Backlinie shake off that cold feeling she picked up in the sea: “So, I was home an hour later, in the tub, just… singing. I told her nu-uh the next day. I don’t think so.”
Though Backlinie wasn’t scared of sharks, she did wonder if she was accidentally enticing them as they shot her famous attack scene: “They put a pair of cutoff jeans on me and hooked cables up to the side. At night I’d stop and think, ‘You know, that’s exactly what calls sharks to you: flailing, stopping, flailing.’ I kind of felt like shark bait.”
Read the rest of the interview below:
Remind