The Shark is Broken: The story of the infamous feud on the set of Jaws

The venomous, alcohol-fuelled hostility between leading actors Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss has been crafted into a play that gets you in its grip and won’t let go, writes James Rampton

Robert Shaw, Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss in Steven Spielberg’s masterpiece movie (Universal Pictures)

The most ferocious thing on the set of Jaws was not the great white shark; it was the animosity between two of the film’s stars, Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss.

The actors’ compelling off-screen acrimony translated into compelling on-screen acrimony between the two rival shark hunters, Quint (Shaw) and Hooper (Dreyfuss).

Their antipathy was only exacerbated by the long and frustrating hiatuses on the Martha’s Vineyard set during the summer of 1974 as the actors waited for the three frequently broken mechanical sharks – all nicknamed “Bruce” after the director Steven Spielberg’s lawyer – to be fixed.