Susan Backlinie (born Susan Jane Swindall on September 1, 1946) is a former actress and stuntwoman best known for playing Chrissie Watkins, the first victim in Steven Spielberg's 1975 blockbuster Jaws. Susan also appeared in Spielberg's film 1941 parodying her role in Jaws. Instead of being attacked by a shark during a midnight swim, she's "picked up" by a Japanese submarine. Backlinie also appeared in the film The Day of the Animals, regarded by some as a Jaws clone about nature gone bad.

Along with being a stuntwoman specializing in swimming work, she was also an animal trainer. She currently works as a computer accountant in her birthplace of Ventura, California.

When Jaws co-star Richard Dreyfuss saw a daily of her performance of being attacked by the shark, he told her it absolutely terrified him.

[edit] Filmography

• Jaws (1975)
• The Grizzly and the Treasure (1975)
• Grizzly (1976)
• Two-Minute Warning (1976)
• Day of the Animals (1977)
• Quark (1978)
• 1941 (1979)
• Image of the Beast (1980)
• The Great Muppet Caper (1981)
• Terror in the Aisles (1984)
• A Stranger in My Forest (1988)

[edit] Other

She appeared in her own pictorial ("The Lady and the Lion") in the January 1973 issue of Penthouse magazine.

[edit] External links

• Susan Backlinie at the Internet Movie Database
• Susan Backlinie at Allmovie

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