{"id":10789,"date":"2024-05-13T23:24:08","date_gmt":"2024-05-13T23:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ourtimenew.com\/?p=10789"},"modified":"2024-05-13T23:24:08","modified_gmt":"2024-05-13T23:24:08","slug":"susan-backlinie-first-victim-in-jaws-film-dead-at-77","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ourtimenew.com\/?p=10789","title":{"rendered":"Susan Backlinie, first victim in \u2018Jaws\u2019 film, dead at 77"},"content":{"rendered":"

Susan Backlinie, famously known as the first victim in the 1975 film, \u201cJaws,\u201d has died, Fox News Digital can confirm.<\/p>\n

Her husband of 30 years, Harvey Swindall, says her passing was \u201cvery unexpected.\u201d<\/p>\n

She died at their California home on Saturday morning from a heart attack. She was 77.<\/p>\n

\u201c[She] was the most amazing person I\u2019ve ever met in my life. And I\u2019ve never loved anybody like her,\u201d Swindall said.<\/p>\n

Backlinie earned the role of Chrissie in Steven Spielberg\u2019s film not only for her enviable looks, but also because she was a nationally ranked swimmer who had worked as a mermaid and animal trainer after graduating from high school in 1964.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t want an actor to do it. I wanted a stuntperson because I needed somebody who was great in the water, who knew water ballet and knew how to endure what I imagined was going to be a whole lot of violent shaking,\u201d Spielberg recounted in Laurent Bouzereau\u2019s book, \u201cSpielberg: The First Ten Years,\u201d per The Hollywood Reporter. \u201cSo, I went to stunts to find her, and Susan was up to the challenge.\u201d
\n\"\"
\nIn an interview with The Palm Beach Post in 2017, Backlinie spoke about Spielberg\u2019s vision for what has now become an iconic scene. \u201cThe first thing [Spielberg] said to me was, \u2018When your scene is done, I want everyone under the seats with the popcorn and bubblegum,\u2019\u201d she shared. \u201cSo I think we did that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Susan Backlinie, famously known as the first victim in the 1975 film, \u201cJaws,\u201d has died, Fox News Digital can confirm. Her husband of 30 years, Harvey Swindall,… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10790,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourtimenew.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourtimenew.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourtimenew.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourtimenew.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourtimenew.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10789"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ourtimenew.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10789\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10791,"href":"https:\/\/ourtimenew.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10789\/revisions\/10791"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourtimenew.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourtimenew.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourtimenew.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourtimenew.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}