Swimming
Fritzi Cohen’s big fish story is no exaggeration.
Portland’s Fritzi Cohen didn’t
have to be asked twice to
join the cast of Jaws…she
f it’s summerthree
in New England,
you’ve
was asked
times.
got to be thinking Jaws. Especially if it’s
I
the summer of 2012, when Universal
Studios is behind a monster clambake
on Martha’s Vineyard from August
9-12 called “JAWSFEST: The Tribute.”
Sponsored by MV Promotions Networks,
the event will celebrate Universal’s 100th
anniversary as well as the cast and crew of
this frighteningly successful film.
While the late Roy Scheider, Robert
Shaw, and Jaws author Peter Benchley
will sadly miss the BBQ, the event will
still be thronged by well-wishers and fans
hoping for glimpses of original cast members Richard Dreyfuss (Hooper), Susan
Backlinie (Chrissie, the most famous nightswimming shark attack victim ever), Lee
Fierro (Mrs. Kintner), and possibly Maine’s
Fritzi Cohen (under the stage name of Fritzi
Jane Courtney), who made the most of her
part as a selectwoman in the fictional town
of Amity. She reprised her role as Mrs. Taft
1 1 6 p o r t l a n d m o n t h ly m a g a z i n e
c l a ssi c s
With the Sharks
from staff & wire reports
Jaws art: universal; Black & White production images: massachussetts film office
Roy Scheider, far left, Murray Hamilton, and Fritzi Cohen grab audience attention during the emergency town council scene in Jaws.
I’d just been working on Lenny
at Charles Playhouse in Boston
when I got the call to audition.
I was exhausted. I asked
what’s it about. “A big fish.”
Who’s directing it? “Some kid.”
in both Jaws 2 (1978) and Jaws: The
Revenge (1987).
Faced with tourism revenues in free fall because of great
white shark attacks, Cohen
is memorable in juicy scenes
where the audience sees her
staring into the public-relations
equivalent of the abyss.
“When I auditioned for Spiel­
berg for a role in Jaws, he was
24,” Cohen remembers, “just at the beginning
of his incredible career. He saw every actor personally and couldn’t have been friendlier.
“I was about to read from a script handed to me, when he waved it aside and said,
‘Let’s do an improvisation instead. You’re an
Islander and this guy (another actor with me)
isn’t. He wants to rent the Katharine Hepburn
suite in your hotel. Who does he think he is?
Okay, you know the attitude. Go!’
“And so we did, and both of us got the
parts simply on Steve’s gut feeling that we
could do it. Our month’s work on Martha’s
Vineyard was no glamorous picnic. It was
freezing on the beach in May. In the water, it
was supposed to be July!”
During shooting, Cohen impulsively told
the young director, “‘I have a feeling you are
going to have a dynamite career.’ To which he
replied, ‘From your mouth to God’s ear!’ The
rest, as they say, is history.” Spielberg also told
Cohen, “You sound just like my Aunt Sophie.”
When Bruce the shark begins devouring
the locals at Oak Bluffs Ocean Park, today’s
viewers can clearly see Cohen at work and
channeling a Maine sensibility when she tells
Chief and Mrs. Brody, “You’re not born here,
you’re not an Islander. That’s it.”
As shooting continued, a New England
cliquishness ran through the entire cast.
“There was a little gazebo on the beach,”
Cohen says, “where Richard Dreyfuss, three
crew members, and I’d meet to play poker.
Peter Benchley walked by, and Richard
asked him to pick up a pack of cigarettes.
I said to Peter later, ‘He didn’t even say
Summerguide
2012 117
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PeoplesChoice Credit Union needing
a major renovation. PM Construction
seamlessly preformed all the interior
and exterior renovations without disrupting
the credit union’s normal business hours.
When you need a construction
manager to plan, budget, and
perform a major renovation call
Laura Blanchette at 207.282.7697
THEY’RE GOING TO NEED A BIGGER BOAT–Cohen, Lorraine Gary,
and Phil Murray support Scheider between takes on Martha’s
Vineyard, along with Jaws author Peter Benchley (right) .
please.’ But Peter said, ‘I’m not about to
teach him courtesy at this point in his life.’”
Of course, Jaws isn’t the only big fish
Co­hen’s caught. Among her co-stars across
the years is Joan Crawford. No wonder she
didn’t blink at the prospect of working with
a shark.
“I wasn’t a bit surprised by Tina Crawford’s novel, Mommie Dearest, about her
mother, Joan,” Cohen says. “I knew Tina
years ago when we were both working at
the Kennebunkport Playhouse, and I
worked briefly with Joan at Poland Spring
in ‘Same Picture, Different Frame,’ an episode of the television series Route 66.
“At the time Ms. Crawford was married
to the Pepsi Cola magnate and she was Lady
Bountiful, dispensing Pepsi to the peons on
the set. I played a librarian in a scene with
Patrick O’Neal.
“The scenario is that he sees me and
remembers Crawford in the same setting
years before. There’s a dissolve and I become
Joan in his mind. I’d had my hair done, lots
of makeup, the works. The word came down
that Ms. Crawford needed no competition–’I
want the excitement taken out of her makeup’–so my makeup was removed and my
hair was pulled back off the face and dowdy.
Only then was the star pacified, without ever
saying one word of any
kind to me. Oh well, the
residuals keep coming!” n
>>For more, visit portlandmonthly.
com/portmag/2012/05/jaws-extras.
1 1 8 p o r t l a n d m o n t h ly m a g a z i n e
courtesy fritzy cohen
crawford notch
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