From Junkyard To Museum: The Journey Of A 'Jaws' Shark

Hide caption Workers "sling" the last remaining shark cast from the original Jaws mold and lift it, by crane, to a nearby crate. After spending more than 25 years at a Los Angeles junkyard, "Bruce" is headed for a museum. Previous Next Todd Wawrychuk/Courtesy of AMPAS

Hide caption The Academy Museum has accepted into its collection the sole surviving full-scale model of the 1975 Jaws shark, donated by Nathan Adlen. Previous Next Michael Palma/Courtesy of AMPAS

Hide caption Actor Robert Shaw, who played the shark hunter Quint in Jaws, takes a break from lunch. Or rather, from being lunch. Previous Next Courtesy of Jim Beller

Hide caption The original Jaws (1975) starred not one but three mechanical sharks, collectively nicknamed Bruce — after director Steven Spielberg's lawyer. Here, one of the Bruces takes a break on location in Martha's Vineyard. This shark rested on a platform when not in use, to protect it from the salt water. Previous Next Courtesy of Edith Blake

Hide caption In a photo taken during filming, actor Ted Grossman is about to meet his end in the Amity Island estuary. Previous Next Courtesy of Edith Blake

Hide caption One of the original Bruces, staying dry above just some of the equipment needed to bring it to life. Previous Next Courtesy of Jim Beller

Hide caption Bruce and crew. Previous Next Courtesy of Jim Beller

Hide caption Joe Alves, the production designer on Jaws, poses with the endoskeleton of one of the original Bruces. Alves's life-size drawing of the shark can be seen on the wall behind. Previous Next Courtesy of Joe Alves

Hide caption NPR reporter Cory Turner meets the fourth Bruce in 2010 and finally gets to "touch the shark." Previous Next Cory Turner/NPR

Hide caption Production designer Alves (left) and Roy Arbogast, who helped build the original Bruces, pose with the fourth Bruce at Aadlen Brothers Auto Wrecking. Previous Next Cory Turner/NPR 1 of 10 i View slideshow

Call it a happy ending to a fish-out-of-water story.

Today, a one-of-a-kind, fiberglass shark cast from the same mold as the iconic, mechanical sharks used in the 1975 classic movie, Jaws, is leaving home.

After more than 25 years keeping watch over Aadlen Brothers Auto Wrecking, a junkyard in Sun Valley, Calif., the shark known as Bruce is headed to a museum.

This matters to me. Because the shark and I have a past.

Like many people, I used to be afraid to go in the ocean because of Jaws.

Unlike most people, I began a journey to cure myself of that fear — by trying to find and touch one of the movie's fake sharks.

As I chronicled in this story from 2010, that proved difficult.

For filming, three sharks were made and hauled to Martha's Vineyard. But, in the salt water, they broke so often that the movie ran over schedule and over budget.

"We were in deep trouble," says production designer Joe Alves, who helped create the sharks. "The studio was reluctant in the first place to make the movie. When we came back, they just dumped the sharks in the back lot, and they just rotted away."

The movie opened in the summer of 1975 and broke box office records. At some point that year, the studio, Universal, used Alves' original mold to make one more shark, which hung by its tail for studio visitors until around 1990.

By then, both the shark and the franchise were showing their age (nice try, Michael Caine), so the studio scrapped Bruce, along with a pile of old stunt cars, and sold them to Sam Adlen, an enterprising junkyard owner.

Adlen had the flair of a showman. He wanted to make his junkyard, well, more than just a junkyard. Memorable.

Not only did Adlen mount the shark in a prime spot overlooking the yard; beneath it he kept chickens, a cow and, at one point, a bull (all real, by the way). To get a leg up in phone book searches (back when good placement meant good business), Adlen even added an extra "a" to the company's name.

Were it not for Sam Adlen, the fourth Jaws shark would have no doubt rotted away, just like the others.

"You know, it's just amazing what good shape he's in for having been outside for so many years," says Sam's son, Nathan Adlen, who inherited the junkyard and the shark when his father died.

Not long ago, Nathan sold the yard and just about everything in it. But not the shark — though he'd gotten plenty of offers.

Instead, Adlen donated Bruce to a new movie museum in Los Angeles being built by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences — the folks behind the Oscars.

Sonja Wong manages new items that come into the museum. What did she say when she was told they were getting the shark?

"Well, I think it was more the face that I made," she says. "You know, it's a challenge because it's so large. It's kind of an awkward shape too."

How large and how awkward?

Wong says it's 25 feet long, 12.5 feet wide, and 8 feet high.

How do you move an awkward, one-of-a-kind artifact that's at least 40 years old?

A sling, of course. Wong says workers plan to cut the two, metal poles holding Bruce up and use the sling — and a crane — to lift him into a special crate on the back of a very big truck.

The shark will spend the next few years in cushy, climate-controlled storage while the academy figures out (a) how to conserve it and (b) how to display it. As for where — exactly — Bruce is being kept, Wong won't say. The location is ...

"Secure, undisclosed — but thankfully not my house."

Turns out, sharks have made her afraid of the water, too.

"I'm sure I'll go back in again," Wong says rather sheepishly. "It's just, I know the logic behind it isn't very good but ..."

I tell her, she should try touching the shark.

It worked for me. And I have the beach vacation photos to prove it.