Jeannot Szwarc death: Jaws 2 director dies, aged 85
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Szwarc was also a prolific television director. The director of Jaws 2 and Santa Claus: The Movie, Jeannot Szwarc, has reportedly died, aged 85. Fellow director Robert Meyer Burnett said in tribute: “RIP film and television director Jeannot Szwarc, best known for Somewhere in Time, the William Castle production Bug, Jaws 2, Supergirl, the 1986 TV movie version of Murders in the Rue Morgue (starring George C. Scott) and 19 episodes of Night Gallery.”.
Born on 21 November 1939, in Paris, France, Szwarc was actually raised in Argentina before moving to the United States where he studied political science at Harvard University, earning a master’s degree. Despite this, his love of cinema and television led him to work in the entertainment industry, starting out as a director on TV series such as Ironside, Columbo, Kojak, The New Perry Mason, Night Gallery and The Six Million Dollar Man in the late 1960s and 1970s.
Szwarc directed his first film, Bug, in 1975 before making Jaws 2 in 1978. The sequel to the Steven Spielberg classic was not as well received as the original but was still a huge hit at the box office, earning more than $200m. He would then go on to direct Supergirl and Santa Claus: The Movie as well as the Christopher Reeve fantasy romance Somewhere in Time, which received an Oscar nomination for Costume Design and has since earned a cult following.
