The Farmer and the Shark, a new documentary, highlights Craig Kingsbury’s role in Jaws, along with other Islanders who helped turn the almost failed picture into a piece of movie history.
When filmmaker John Campopiano set out to document the making of Jaws, he knew he wanted to focus on the Islanders who made the film possible.
After almost a decade of twists and turns, Mr. Campopiano and his team decided to highlight Craig Kingsbury, a larger than life Vineyard figure who was influential to the blockbuster both on and off camera.
Craig Kingsbury was an Island legend and was influential on the Jaws set.
Craig Kingsbury was an Island legend and was influential on the Jaws set.
The Farmer and the Shark, the new documentary, will premiere at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum on August 19 and highlight Mr. Kingsbury’s role in the film, along with other Islanders who helped turn the almost failed picture into a piece of movie history.
“Jaws has been so well documented, but I think one of the things that maybe hasn’t been documented as well is how the locals really stepped up in almost every facet of the production,” Mr. Campopiano said.
Mr. Kingsbury is known for his role as the doomed fisherman Ben Gardner in the 1975 picture, directed by Steven Spielberg, but had an even bigger presence behind the lens, serving as the inspiration for Quint, the crusty shark hunter played by Robert Shaw.
“I think [people will get] an appreciation of Craig Kingsbury and what it was like to be somebody like that on the Vineyard, and why the Vineyard spawned so many people who were like that at that time,” said Rick DiGregorio, a producer for The Farmer and the Shark.
A roguish youth and man of varied careers, Mr. Kingsbury was born in New Jersey and grew up coming to the Vineyard in the summer to visit relatives. He would end up settling on the Island as an adult, and accumulated stories through his different lives of a fisherman, farmer, landscaper, rumrunner, prizefighter, shellfish warden and Tisbury selectman.
Mr. Kingsbury first got connected to Jaws when Mr. Spielberg needed someone to teach Mr. Shaw, a refined Englishman and accomplished actor, the swamp Yankee ways of the Vineyard. Mr. Spielberg was immediately taken with Mr. Kingsbury’s colorful personality, and Mr. Kingsbury was hired to turn Mr. Shaw into a wharf rat.
The teaching role was then parlayed into screen time, when Mr. Kingsbury took on the role of Ben Gardner. In the movie, Ben was a townie who seeks out the shark that has been wreaking havoc on Amity Island in hopes of garnering a cash bounty.
Mr. Kingsbury’s character famously dies in his quest, but his presence lives on when a rubber reproduction of his head provides a jump-scare for the audience when it pops out of a sunken boat. The prop used in the film now sits at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum as part of the Jaws 50th anniversary collection.
Robert Shaw got his crusty demeanor from Craig Kingsbury.
Robert Shaw got his crusty demeanor from Craig Kingsbury.
Beyond Jaws, Mr. Kingsbury was a well-known Island character. He was reportedly struck by lightning several times, and was famous for rarely, if ever, wearing shoes. He farmed and fished and once was pulled over for driving an ox cart drunk through the streets of Vineyard Haven. He went on to explain to the officer that while he had been drinking, the oxen were completely sober.
The ox cart arrest is one of the many stories that The Farmer and The Shark recounts about Mr. Kingsbury. The documentary pairs archival footage, both video and audio, from Mr. Kingsbury’s life and the filming of the Jaws with interviews from Island locals and members of the film crew. Footage comes from home videos and reels that the Kingsbury family kept, as well as oral history and video done by Linsey Lee for the Martha’s Vineyard Museum.
“Craig is long gone, but he’s omnipresent throughout the documentary, and that is in huge thanks and gratitude to two institutions,” Mr. Campopiano said. “One of them [is] the Kingsbury family. They’ve been open and gracious about the family archive. So that’s been invaluable. And everybody at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum have made the oral histories with Craig available to us.”
Mr. Kingsbury was originally reluctant to take part in Jaws, according to Kristen Kingsbury Henshaw, one of Mr. Kingsbury’s daughters, who appears in The Farmer and the Shark. It was only when his friend Hershel West, an Island fisherman who also took part in Jaws, told him that he was getting paid $70 a day did Mr. Kingsbury warm to the idea.
“[Dad] dropped the phone on the floor and took off on his old truck down the driveway, so my mother came out of the kitchen and there was a phone hanging on the floor,” Ms. Henshaw recalled. “She picked it up, and it was Herschel, and he says, Where’s Craig? She said, I don’t know. He just took off on his truck.”
Before her father died in 2002, Ms. Henshaw took it upon herself to ensure that he wouldn’t be forgotten, recording his tales — some of which make it in the film.
“I sat there with a tape recorder and had him tell some of his best stories,” she said. “His voice, and the way he spoke was very measured. My parents were absolutely fantastic storytellers. They could tell jokes, but they just knew so many interesting people and stories to tell. It was so wonderful to live in a house where people talked and listened.”
Craig Kingsbury had a varied life, working as a rumrunner, selectman and a farmer.
Craig Kingsbury had a varied life, working as a rumrunner, selectman and a farmer.
Though it has been over two decades since her dad died, Ms. Henshaw said he and her mother are with her always.
“There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think of both of my parents in one context or another,” she said. “I don’t tire of thinking and talking about either one of them, because they were just great people. It’s a funny thing, when people disappear physically, sometimes they glow more brilliantly.”
Mr. Campopiano, an archivist with PBS’s Frontline, has made a career of doing behind-the-scenes looks at famous horror films, directing Pennywise: The Story of It in 2021, as well as Snapper, a documentary on a never-finished horror film where a snapping turtle terrorizes a New England lakeside community.
“One of the things that the team is excited about is to have something new to contribute to the larger sort of Jaws canon,” he said. “It was a challenge because it’s been so well documented, but those moments have been some of the most exciting for our team.”
Jaws historian Jim Beller enjoyed finding never-before-seen photos during his research.
“My job [was] finding photos and stuff with the locals,” he said. “I can’t wait for fans to see that we have footage that no one’s [seen]. I’m very proud of that.”
For Mr. Campopiano, this project has been a labor of love.
“To give back to the movie that we love so much, to give back to the Island that we love so much, especially now [was important],” he said. “We’ve been working so closely with Craig Kingsbury’s family, that we want to do right by them and Craig’s story. I’ve learned that we can persevere when things are difficult and it’s important to see things through.”
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