It’s hard to believe that Jaws, one of Hollywood’s most iconic films, is officially 50 years old this year and yet, one of its littlest victims is still cashing in.
Jeffrey Voorhees, who played Alex Kintner in Steven Spielberg’s 1975 classic, was just 12 when his screen time ended in a famously grisly shark attack. Poor Alex didn’t last long on the raft, but for Jeffrey, that moment of cinematic doom turned out to be surprisingly lucrative.
“I was a 12-year-old kid who was in the movie for, like, a minute,” Jeffrey joked. “But there are some real Jaws fanatics out there.”
Today, 62-year-old Jeffrey travels the world for fan signings, sells personalised memorabilia, and even hosts guided tours of Martha’s Vineyard, where the movie was shot.
And yes, people will pay extra if he’s part of the tour. “One guy in England just bought 125 photos,” he told The Guardian. “They fly me all over the world and pay me in cash at these things, around £10,000 a time.”
The royalties don’t stop there. Every time Jaws airs on TV worldwide, Jeffrey gets a cheque. “My brother lives in Portugal, and I’ll get texts from him going, ‘Good news, you just died on TV over here. You’ll get another cheque,’” he laughed.
And thanks to platforms like Cameo, Jeffrey can even send personalised messages, sometimes with a darkly funny twist. One family asked him to record a video after a loved one died watching him meet his doom on screen.
Jeffrey’s response? “Hey, your father and I had a little something in common. He died watching me die… Just want to say, have a Jawesome funeral.”
He admits he once tried to hide his Jaws past, but now he embraces it and the cash that comes with it. “At first, I used to hide from the fact I’d been in Jaws, and then I realised I could make some good money and make people happy,” he said.
Of course, Jeffrey’s tiny role is just one part of a blockbuster legacy. The original film spawned three sequels, a theme park ride, video games, and countless pieces of merchandise and
The Brody family remains central to the story, but the great white shark, and its terrifying reputation, remains the real star.
Spielberg himself has admitted that filming Jaws was no picnic. “It was made under the worst of conditions. People versus the eternal sea. The sea won the battle, but where we won was with audiences in every country,” he told Vanity Fair.
Meanwhile, author Peter Benchley, whose 1974 novel inspired the film, expressed regret over sparking a worldwide shark panic. Even so, 50 years later, it’s clear that for Jeffrey Voorhees, dying on screen was a career move that’s still paying off decades on.
Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story documentary is airing on National Geographic.
