Love at first bite for Jaws movie fanatic

Jul 31 2008 by Mike Chapple, Liverpool Daily Post

Love at first bite for Jaws movie fanatic

IT WAS love at first bite for Eddie McCormack.

For 33 years the civil servant from Tuebrook has indulged in an obsession that began after he first saw the blockbuster film Jaws when it opened at the ABC Cinema on Lime Street on Boxing Day 1975.

Since then 43-year-old Eddie has seen the film hundreds of times and devoted much of his spare time and money in tracking down rare pieces of memorabilia from the Steven Spielberg film about a great white shark bringing terror to the residents of Amity Island – and cinema audiences – three decades ago.

Now visitors to the Microzine in Bold Street will be able to share in his experience when all the items he has collected related to the film will be put on display to the public from tomorrow.

“That fateful day changed my life and still inspires me today,” explained Eddie, who confessed that he still watches the movie several times on DVD every month.

“It was released about five months before in the States and I remember that I kept pestering my late Dad Terry to take me to see it on the very first day it opened here. I was only 12 and it was very scary. It had me transfixed. It came along at a certain time of my life when such films make an impression and tend to stay with you as you grow older. Other generations of kids will have had a thing about Star Wars – but Jaws was mine.”

Eddie attends movie fairs and scours the internet to continue to build up his collection. He even attended the first ever official Jaws festival in 2005 on the island of Martha’s Vineyard Massachusetts, USA.

There he was interviewed for a documentary narrated by the recently deceased actor Roy Scheider who played police chief Martin Brody in the film.

“Spielberg features in the documentary too and I know he’s seen it himself – I just hope he understood my Scouse accent,” said Eddie, who also picked up one of his most valuable piece of memorabilia.

“A couple who I’ve got to know there have still got props from the film including one of the fibre glass models of the fishing boat Orca which was sunk on screen during the shark’s attack. They just cut a chunk off it and gave it to me.”

The object of his devotion, however, has affected him.

“I’m not a very good swimmer and I’m not too keen on sharks either.”

mikechapple@dailypost.co.uk