With summer blockbuster season approaching, we're thinking of the original summer blockbuster 'Jaws', and one of the most iconic characters from the film (apart from the shark) has become a public servant.
Jonathan Searle, who plays the boy that instigates a panic on the beach in Steven Spielberg's 1975 classic by using a cardboard fin to scare beachgoers, has been elected as the Police Chief in Oak Bluffs, the town where the blockbuster was filmed.
The Massachusetts town is home to just over 5,000 people, and the once-Hollywood star will assume duty as the chief of police in the town, in a fun role reversal from his havoc-causing days.
Per the Vineyard Gazette, Searle is a native of Martha’s Vineyard and has served in the police department of Edgartown since 1986.
Searle said "I’m clearly elated, humbled and honoured to have been offered the position."
"It’s something I’ve been working toward my whole career."
Searle is 56 years old now, and was just a child when he had a bit part in Steven Spielberg's hit, which is credited as the first modern summer blockbuster.
He appeared in the film with his brother, and he points at his brother claiming that the prank was his idea.
The film launched Spielberg into the stratosphere, but Searle opted not to pursue a career on the silver screen, choosing a life in law enforcement.
Searle was in the headlines in 2008 after being called upon to investigate a series of shark sightings in Martha's Vineyard.
At the time, a man sparked panic after telling beachgoers he had noticed “two huge great white sharks swimming” in the waters off Martha’s Vineyard.
The sightings were later determined to be a hoax.
How life imitates art!
