Actress/stuntwoman Susan Backlinie died earlier this month at the age of 71. The name probably doesn't mean anything to you. Maybe the name of her most famous character, Chrissie Watkins, does, but, again, probably not, and this is why I love to scour the obituaries, because Backlinie/Watkins appeared in the opening scene of one of the biggest Hollywood blockbuster movies ever:
Susan Backlinie
1946-2024
Posing with a photo that
you may have seen before.
Yep, Chrissie Watkins was the ill-fated late night skinny dipper on the beaches of Amity ("Amity, as you know, means friendship.'") in Steven Speilberg's classic 1975 thriller, "Jaws". She was the title character's first victim. Tens of millions of people have seen "Jaws" but who knew the name of that actress whose death "was no boating accident!"
She only has 11 acting credits in IMDB,and I love how she was billed in some of them. She was "Charlie's Water Ballet Performer", in "The Great Muppet Caper" (1981), "Polar Bear Woman" in Speilberg's "1941" (1979), and "Pretty Blond Woman in Crowd" in 1976's "Two Minute Warning". She grew up in West Palm Beach FL, and was a cheerleader and a state swimming champion in high school. One of her early jobs was performing as a mermaid in the Weeki Wachee Springs State Park tourist attraction in Florida before moving to California. IMDB shows no acting activity for her since a 1982, but it does tell us that she was married four times.
She was never a star in the usual sense, and was probably pretty much unremembered until the news of her death arrived, but a person who played such a memorable and pivotal part in one of the greatest movies ever deserves to be remembered.
And I cannot post this with out including a clip of THIS SCENE, the one that assured Ms. Backlinie of screen immortality.
RIP Susan Backlinie.
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