Jeannot Szwarc, Director of Jaws 2 and Night Gallery, Dies at 85
A prolific television director, Szwarc's career also included Fringe and Supernatural.
Jeannot Szwarc, the French director of Jaws 2 and 19 episodes of Rod Serling's Night Gallery, has died at the age of 85.
Actress Jane Seymour, who starred opposite Christopher Reeve in Szwarc's 1980 time travel romance film Somewhere in Time, confirmed the news in a tribute on Facebook.
"Today, we say goodbye to a true visionary," she wrote. "Jeannot Szwarc was not just a brilliant director but a kind and generous soul. He gifted us many timeless stories, including Somewhere in Time, a film that changed my life forever. May his memory be a blessing, and may his artistry live on in our hearts."
Jeffrey Kramer, who played Amity Island Deputy Leonard Hendricks in Jaws and its 1978 sequel, also paid tribute to Szwarc on Instagram, writing: "RIP my dear JEANNOT SZWARC. One of the finest most talented souls I was privileged to know!"
Jeannot Szwarc's life and career
Born in Paris on November 21, 1939, Szwarc was raised in Argentina before emigrating to the United States, where he earned a Master's Degree in political science from Harvard University (via IMDb). He entered the world of filmmaking in his native France while working for a production company specializing in commercials and documentaries.
This prepared him for an eventual career in the American television industry, with Szwarc helming episodes of Ironside, Marcus Welby, M.D., Kojak, Columbo, The Six Million Dollar Man, The Rockford Files, and Rod Serling's post-Twilight Zone anthology series, Night Gallery. In particular, he helmed 19 episodes of Night Gallery, including one of its scariest installments: "The Caterpillar."
Szwarc made the jump to feature films in 1973 with Extreme Close-Up, subsequently followed by Bug (1975) and, most notably, Jaws 2. While Steven Spielberg ultimately turned it down, the 1978 sequel saw the return of several Jaws alumni, including several key cast members — Roy Scheider (Police Chief Martin Brody), Lorraine Gary (Ellen Brody), Murray Hamilton (Mayor Larry Vaughn), Jeffrey Kramer (Deputy Hendricks) — screenwriter Carl Gottlieb, and composer John Williams.
Szwarc was actually a last-minute replacement for John D. Hancock, whose dark vision for the project gave the studio cold feet.
"Since the script was already written and the cast already selected, all we could do was tighten things up by eliminating three of the characters and changing the emphasis of the last half of the picture," Szwarc said in a 1978 interview. "What I did, because the movie was so complicated, was to try to keep it simple. I knew from the beginning that complexity would kill us, so I tried to translate everything into a very classical, basic Hitchcockian kind of suspense. I also did a lot of subjectivity from the shark's point-of-view, by putting a camera on the shark and using a lot of dolly shots, so the audience could feel what it was like to be the shark. We even built a special machine to shoot underwater."
Szwarc's movie career went on to comprise Somewhere in Time (1980), Enigma (1982), and Supergirl (1984).
He continued to direct for television until 2019, adding his name to the likes of Ally McBeal, CSI: Miami, JAG, Boston Legal, Heroes, Smallville, Supernatural, Fringe, Almost Human, Scandal, Castle, Bones, Designated Survivor, and Grey's Anatomy.
