R.I.P. Susan Backlinie: ‘Jaws’ Actress Dead At 77

Jaws actress and stuntwoman Susan Backlinie, best known for her iconic performance in the Steven Spielberg classic, has passed away. She was 77.

Her agent confirmed the news to TMZ. A cause of death was not revealed, but the outlet reported she passed away Saturday (May 11) at her home in California.

Backlinie’s acting career lasted through the ’70s and ’80s, launched in part by her role as Christine “Chrissie” Watkins in Jaws. In the opening scene of the movie, her character goes skinny dipping by herself, where she first encounters the great white shark and dies a violent death.

The terrifying scene shows her character thrashing in the water as she tries to fight off the shark. But her terror is genuine. Variety reports she was attached to a harness for the scene that would jerk her underwater without warning to elicit a genuine reaction.

Fans on social media have praised the actress for delivering one of “the greatest, most terrifying and iconic death scene in movie history.”

According to an interview with The Palm Beach Post, Backlinie was a nationally ranked swimmer who had performed as a mermaid when she landed the role.

She explained the mechanics of the Jaws stunt and the lengths they had to go to get that terrifying effect. “The first thing (Spielberg) said to me was, ‘When your scene is done, I want everyone under the seats with the popcorn and bubblegum,” Backlinie recalled to the outlet in 2017. “So I think we did that.”

Rest in peace to Susan Backlinie, whose Chrissie Watkins in “Jaws” experienced the most memorable tug on the leg in movie history. pic.twitter.com/VBxfXRwUq8

— Richard Roeper (@RichardERoeper) May 12, 2024

Spielberg also helped her re-record her screams for the scene in-studio later on. “He sat me in a chair with a bassinet in my lap, and he poured water down my throat,” she said. “Richard Dreyfuss told someone, ‘You know she was getting waterboarded.’”

Her acting career continued through the ’70s, during which she starred in Days of the Animals, The Great Muppet Caper, and Spielberg’s 1979 film 1941. The film parodied her iconic Jaws death, except she played a skinny dipper who encounters a Japanese submarine.

She also worked as a stunt woman and an animal trainer in Hollywood. She performed stunts in the 1979 film The Villain and Image of the Beast in 1981.

Her final acting credit was in a 1982 episode of The Fall Guy, a series about a Hollywood stuntman who moonlights as a bounty hunter.

Backlinie is survived by her husband Harvey Swindall, who told TMZ she was the “most amazing person” he’d ever met.