When the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures opens in Hollywood next year, one of the biggest guest stars will be a 1200-pound shark famed for his role in Jaws.
The fiberglass giant has been hung above the top of the museum’s main escalators, with his menacing mouth wide open. Known as Bruce, after Steven Spielberg’s lawyer, the shark was known as difficult to work with on set, but apparently cooperated with the latest move.
But there’s a hidden secret: This isn’t really Bruce from the movie, it’s a body double made for display after the movie became an unexpectedly huge hit in 1975; the three that were used in the film were junked when filming was finished. A fourth copy was made from the original molds and displayed at Universal Studios, Hollywood for fifteen years.
Bruce’s Hollywood career ended in the early 90s, and he was sold to a Sun Valley junkyard. In 2016, the son of the original junkyard owner donated the shark to the museum. Since then, he’s been getting the full Hollywood beauty treatment from top professionals and stylists to restore the original appearance.
