SECOND BITE
It took a few moments before Jeannot Szwarc realised he was throttling the star of his movie. The 39-year-old French-Polish director of Jaws 2 had agreed to an emergency meeting with Roy Scheider, producer David Brown and Universal Studios production executive Verna Fields (who had edited the first Jaws). It was intended to clear the air between Szwarc and Scheider. Just over two months into a testing, mostly water-based shoot at a remote location on the Florida Panhandle, tension between the two was at breaking point.
Scheider, who’d reluctantly returned to the role of Amity Island police chief Martin Brody as a contractual obligation, contended that Szwarc’s attention was unduly absorbed by the shark — a second great white now stalking Amity’s waters. Szwarc, an emergency hire after Jaws 2’s first director was fired, emphasised that he needed to focus on the mechanical shark, which remained just as cumbersome and prone to malfunction as it had on the first film. Eventually Szwarc snapped. “Look, I gotta get this picture done,” he spat, “and I don’t wanna spend all my time worrying about your ego.”
That was when Scheider swung at him.
“I don’t know what happened,” Szwarc recalls, laughing, almost 42 years later, “but suddenly he’s on the floor on his back and I have my hands around his neck. David and Verna are yelling, ‘Jeannot, stop it! You’re gonna ruin your career!’”
Szwarc’s career survived the assault. But shooting would test him,
