July 18, 2025 • 9 mins
Nothing like a swim in the ocean on a hot summer day. But the movie Jaws, out 50 years ago this summer, took away some of our innocence. It still makes us all a little nervous about what’s beneath us as we paddle around. The inspiration for Jaws came from some horrifying shark attacks, including several along the Jersey Shore in July of 1916 that left 4 dead, as well as the shark attacks on as many as 150 sailors from the torpedoed USS Indianapolis in World War Two.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This summer is the fiftieth anniversary of the movie Jaws.
No matter how long ago you saw it, you gotta
admit it made you a little scared to jump into
the ocean. For some people, a lot scared. Marine biologists
say sharks really aren't interested in eating us, but tell
that to the people maimed or killed by them in
some really horrifying attacks, including the one in nineteen sixteen
(00:22):
that inspired Jaws. I'm Patty Steele. Before you get back
in the water, you're gonna need a bigger boat. That's
next on the backstory. We're back with the backstory. It
was fifty years ago that the movie Jaws debuted. Its
director Steven Spielberg was just twenty nine years old, and
(00:44):
he said he was scared to death. The flick was
going to destroy his career before it had even gotten started.
The mechanical shark constantly malfunctioned once it was in salt water.
Those problems delayed filming, put them over budget, and actually
changed the storyline. It relied more on suspense than seeing
the actual shark, and maybe that's what made the movie
(01:05):
so incredible. At the end of the day, Jaws turned
Spielberg into a household name, But what real life incidents
inspired the movie storyline. Peter Benchley, the author of the
hit novel Jaws, actually did research about several massive sharks
that were captured off the coast of Long Island in
the nineteen sixties. But when Spielberg began to make the
(01:28):
movie Jaws, he and the screenwriter wanted something more horrifying
to base it on. So let's head to the Jersey Shore.
It's nineteen sixteen. Just like in the movie, Folks are
arriving at local beach towns just a few days before
the fourth of July. There's a massive heat wave going on,
as well as an outbreak of the much dreaded polio.
(01:50):
The beach was the perfect place to escape all of that.
In those days, folks didn't give much thought to a
shark attacks. It wasn't really a thing, and it's still isn't, honestly.
Plus they didn't have movies, TV or even radio to
exploit that fear when something does happen. But what happened
on the Jersey Shore was a whole new thing. So
(02:12):
the attacks begin on July first in Beechhaven, New Jersey.
Twenty three year old Charles Van Zant is waiting in
shallow water. When the shark approaches, It attacks, and he
tries to fight it off as beach goers are watching horrified.
A lifeguard finally manages to drag him from the water,
but his thigh is ripped to shreds and he dies
(02:34):
on the manager's desk at his nearby hotel. Despite the attack,
the towns that rely on summer visitors assure everybody that
this is an unheard of event and there's no reason
to be alarmed. On top of that, despite reports from
sea captains about numerous shark sightings, the beaches stay open.
Now It's just five days later up the coastline in
(02:56):
Spring Lake, New Jersey, twenty seven year old Charles bruder Bell,
captain at another resort hotel, is taking a swim about
one hundred and thirty yards from shore. Suddenly there's a commotion.
A shark has bitten his stomach and severed his legs.
The ocean turns red around him. A woman calls to lifeguards,
(03:16):
thinking she sees a red canoe that had capsized. The
guards get to Brooder and haul him into their boat,
but before they even get to shore, he's dead. The
New York Times says several people on the beach fainted
at the sight of Bruder's mutilated body. Now we head
thirty miles north of Spring Lake to a spot near Keyport,
(03:37):
New Jersey. Folks there heard about the first two attacks
but feel pretty safe swimming in the Mattawan Creek and
inlet from the ocean. A local sea captain there tells
officials that he's spotted a shark in the creek, but
they say it's really unlikely and they don't pay any
attention to him. It's the twelfth of July and eleven
year old Lester Stillwell is playing in the creek with
(03:59):
his dog and some They spot what they think is
a big black log in the water, but then they
see a dorsal fin, that triangular finn that horrifies us
to this day. Lester tries to get out of the water,
but the shark latches on, pulling him under. His friends
run to get help, and among those that come running
(04:20):
is twenty four year old Watson Fisher. He and some
others dive into the creek, thinking Lester has suffered a seizure.
They find Lester's body, but as they head to shore,
Watson is attacked by the shark. He loses his grip
on the eleven year old, but does get back to shore,
where he's taken to the hospital horribly injured. Watson dies
(04:40):
two hours later. Meantime, Lester's body is found two days later,
one hundred and fifty feet away from where he went under,
then a half mile away, and just thirty minutes after
the attacks that killed Lester and Watson, there's yet another
attack in Mattawan Creek. This time fourteen year old Joseph
Dunn is in the water when he feels a tug
(05:01):
on his leg. The shark pulls him under, but he
fights back and screams. His older brother and some friends
are nearby, and they race to his rescue. After a
literal tug of war with the shark. The flesh had
been torn from Joseph's leg, but they have freed him
from those jaws. They get him to the hospital, where
he spends the next two months recovering. Joseph later says
(05:25):
he could feel his leg going down the shark's throat
and believed he was going to be swallowed whole by it.
In the aftermath, the press descended on the Jersey Shore
creating a nationwide shark panic unlike anything they'd seen before.
Michael Capuzo, an author who studied the attack, said the
panic was unrivaled in American history. Newspapers across the country
(05:48):
carried the story on the front page. Tourism for much
of the Jersey Shore fell by as much as seventy
five percent. Many towns installed metal netting in the water
to keep sharks away from swim Not long afterward, a
silent film actor swimming near Coney Island up in Brooklyn,
swore she narrowly escaped being attacked by what she called
(06:09):
the Jersey man eater. It became all the rage to
form groups hunting for sharks. Armed shark hunters in boats
patrolled the areas off New Jersey and New York beaches.
Hundreds of sharks were captured along the East coast in
what's described as the largest scale animal hunt in history.
A number of fishermen claimed they had caught the Jersey
(06:30):
man eater. Then a lion tamer from the Barnum and
Bailey Circus caught a young great white shark near the
Mattawan Creek. Scientists studied the contents of the animal's stomach
and identified it as human flesh. There were no other
attacks that summer. After the Jersey Shore attacks, scientists changed
their thinking about how and why sharks sometimes go after humans,
(06:55):
and sharks became a common sight in political cartoons that
were mostly pointed at had politicians. Just a few decades later,
there was another shark horror story when the USS Indianapolis
was torpedoed by a Japanese sub during World War II
in July of nineteen forty five. The ship had just
dropped off most of the components being used to build
(07:18):
the atomic bomb that would be dropped on Hiroshima. After
leaving port and heading back to sea, the ship was
hit by the torpedo. They sent out to stress signals,
but they weren't processed properly, and the men on board
that survived the attack wound up spending five nights in
the ocean in water filled with burning oil. Some even
drank seawater to try to stay alive, but the sharks
(07:41):
were swarming around them. It's unclear how many men were
attacked and eaten by sharks. It may have been as
many as one hundred and fifty, but it's called the
deadliest shark attack in history of the eleven hundred ninety
five men on board the Indianapolis. Eight hundred and seventy
nine lost their lives, just three hundred and sixteen survived.
(08:03):
It only added to the fear people had of these animals.
Those stories were the inspiration for Jaws. While beaches eventually
became attractive to vacationers again, something had changed forever. The
innocence everybody felt about a day at the beach had
been replaced by a little trepidation in the back of
(08:24):
our minds about not being able to see what's beneath
you as you swim on a beautiful day. Hope you're
enjoying The Backstory with Patty Steele. Please leave a review
and follow or subscribe for free to get new episodes
delivered automatically, and feel free to DM me if you
have a story you'd like me to cover. On Facebook,
(08:44):
It's Patty Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm
Patty Steele. The Backstories a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks,
the Elvis Durand Group and st Deal Trap Productions. Our
producer is Doug Fraser. Our writer Jake Kushner. We have
(09:05):
new episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Feel free to reach
out to me with comments and even story suggestions on
Instagram at real Patty Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele.
Thanks for listening to the backstory with Patty Steele, the
pieces of history you didn't know you needed to know.
This summer is the fiftieth anniversary of the movie Jaws.
No matter how long ago you saw it, you gotta
admit it made you a little scared to jump into
the ocean. For some people, a lot scared. Marine biologists
say sharks really aren't interested in eating us, but tell
that to the people maimed or killed by them in
some really horrifying attacks, including the one in nineteen sixteen
(00:22):
that inspired Jaws. I'm Patty Steele. Before you get back
in the water, you're gonna need a bigger boat. That's
next on the backstory. We're back with the backstory. It
was fifty years ago that the movie Jaws debuted. Its
director Steven Spielberg was just twenty nine years old, and
(00:44):
he said he was scared to death. The flick was
going to destroy his career before it had even gotten started.
The mechanical shark constantly malfunctioned once it was in salt water.
Those problems delayed filming, put them over budget, and actually
changed the storyline. It relied more on suspense than seeing
the actual shark, and maybe that's what made the movie
(01:05):
so incredible. At the end of the day, Jaws turned
Spielberg into a household name, But what real life incidents
inspired the movie storyline. Peter Benchley, the author of the
hit novel Jaws, actually did research about several massive sharks
that were captured off the coast of Long Island in
the nineteen sixties. But when Spielberg began to make the
(01:28):
movie Jaws, he and the screenwriter wanted something more horrifying
to base it on. So let's head to the Jersey Shore.
It's nineteen sixteen. Just like in the movie, Folks are
arriving at local beach towns just a few days before
the fourth of July. There's a massive heat wave going on,
as well as an outbreak of the much dreaded polio.
(01:50):
The beach was the perfect place to escape all of that.
In those days, folks didn't give much thought to a
shark attacks. It wasn't really a thing, and it's still isn't, honestly.
Plus they didn't have movies, TV or even radio to
exploit that fear when something does happen. But what happened
on the Jersey Shore was a whole new thing. So
(02:12):
the attacks begin on July first in Beechhaven, New Jersey.
Twenty three year old Charles Van Zant is waiting in
shallow water. When the shark approaches, It attacks, and he
tries to fight it off as beach goers are watching horrified.
A lifeguard finally manages to drag him from the water,
but his thigh is ripped to shreds and he dies
(02:34):
on the manager's desk at his nearby hotel. Despite the attack,
the towns that rely on summer visitors assure everybody that
this is an unheard of event and there's no reason
to be alarmed. On top of that, despite reports from
sea captains about numerous shark sightings, the beaches stay open.
Now It's just five days later up the coastline in
(02:56):
Spring Lake, New Jersey, twenty seven year old Charles bruder Bell,
captain at another resort hotel, is taking a swim about
one hundred and thirty yards from shore. Suddenly there's a commotion.
A shark has bitten his stomach and severed his legs.
The ocean turns red around him. A woman calls to lifeguards,
(03:16):
thinking she sees a red canoe that had capsized. The
guards get to Brooder and haul him into their boat,
but before they even get to shore, he's dead. The
New York Times says several people on the beach fainted
at the sight of Bruder's mutilated body. Now we head
thirty miles north of Spring Lake to a spot near Keyport,
(03:37):
New Jersey. Folks there heard about the first two attacks
but feel pretty safe swimming in the Mattawan Creek and
inlet from the ocean. A local sea captain there tells
officials that he's spotted a shark in the creek, but
they say it's really unlikely and they don't pay any
attention to him. It's the twelfth of July and eleven
year old Lester Stillwell is playing in the creek with
(03:59):
his dog and some They spot what they think is
a big black log in the water, but then they
see a dorsal fin, that triangular finn that horrifies us
to this day. Lester tries to get out of the water,
but the shark latches on, pulling him under. His friends
run to get help, and among those that come running
(04:20):
is twenty four year old Watson Fisher. He and some
others dive into the creek, thinking Lester has suffered a seizure.
They find Lester's body, but as they head to shore,
Watson is attacked by the shark. He loses his grip
on the eleven year old, but does get back to shore,
where he's taken to the hospital horribly injured. Watson dies
(04:40):
two hours later. Meantime, Lester's body is found two days later,
one hundred and fifty feet away from where he went under,
then a half mile away, and just thirty minutes after
the attacks that killed Lester and Watson, there's yet another
attack in Mattawan Creek. This time fourteen year old Joseph
Dunn is in the water when he feels a tug
(05:01):
on his leg. The shark pulls him under, but he
fights back and screams. His older brother and some friends
are nearby, and they race to his rescue. After a
literal tug of war with the shark. The flesh had
been torn from Joseph's leg, but they have freed him
from those jaws. They get him to the hospital, where
he spends the next two months recovering. Joseph later says
(05:25):
he could feel his leg going down the shark's throat
and believed he was going to be swallowed whole by it.
In the aftermath, the press descended on the Jersey Shore
creating a nationwide shark panic unlike anything they'd seen before.
Michael Capuzo, an author who studied the attack, said the
panic was unrivaled in American history. Newspapers across the country
(05:48):
carried the story on the front page. Tourism for much
of the Jersey Shore fell by as much as seventy
five percent. Many towns installed metal netting in the water
to keep sharks away from swim Not long afterward, a
silent film actor swimming near Coney Island up in Brooklyn,
swore she narrowly escaped being attacked by what she called
(06:09):
the Jersey man eater. It became all the rage to
form groups hunting for sharks. Armed shark hunters in boats
patrolled the areas off New Jersey and New York beaches.
Hundreds of sharks were captured along the East coast in
what's described as the largest scale animal hunt in history.
A number of fishermen claimed they had caught the Jersey
(06:30):
man eater. Then a lion tamer from the Barnum and
Bailey Circus caught a young great white shark near the
Mattawan Creek. Scientists studied the contents of the animal's stomach
and identified it as human flesh. There were no other
attacks that summer. After the Jersey Shore attacks, scientists changed
their thinking about how and why sharks sometimes go after humans,
(06:55):
and sharks became a common sight in political cartoons that
were mostly pointed at had politicians. Just a few decades later,
there was another shark horror story when the USS Indianapolis
was torpedoed by a Japanese sub during World War II
in July of nineteen forty five. The ship had just
dropped off most of the components being used to build
(07:18):
the atomic bomb that would be dropped on Hiroshima. After
leaving port and heading back to sea, the ship was
hit by the torpedo. They sent out to stress signals,
but they weren't processed properly, and the men on board
that survived the attack wound up spending five nights in
the ocean in water filled with burning oil. Some even
drank seawater to try to stay alive, but the sharks
(07:41):
were swarming around them. It's unclear how many men were
attacked and eaten by sharks. It may have been as
many as one hundred and fifty, but it's called the
deadliest shark attack in history of the eleven hundred ninety
five men on board the Indianapolis. Eight hundred and seventy
nine lost their lives, just three hundred and sixteen survived.
(08:03):
It only added to the fear people had of these animals.
Those stories were the inspiration for Jaws. While beaches eventually
became attractive to vacationers again, something had changed forever. The
innocence everybody felt about a day at the beach had
been replaced by a little trepidation in the back of
(08:24):
our minds about not being able to see what's beneath
you as you swim on a beautiful day. Hope you're
enjoying The Backstory with Patty Steele. Please leave a review
and follow or subscribe for free to get new episodes
delivered automatically, and feel free to DM me if you
have a story you'd like me to cover. On Facebook,
(08:44):
It's Patty Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm
Patty Steele. The Backstories a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks,
the Elvis Durand Group and st Deal Trap Productions. Our
producer is Doug Fraser. Our writer Jake Kushner. We have
(09:05):
new episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Feel free to reach
out to me with comments and even story suggestions on
Instagram at real Patty Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele.
Thanks for listening to the backstory with Patty Steele, the
pieces of history you didn't know you needed to know.
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