Child actor in Jaws becomes police chief in town where movie was filmed

A CHILD actor in classic movie Jaws has snapped up the police chief job in the town where it was filmed.

Jonathan Searle was nine when he was in a scene in which he and a pal, played by his brother, terrify beachgoers by swimming shallows with a fake shark fin on his back.

Now 56, he has been voted in as police chief for Oak Bluffs on Martha’s Vineyard, an island off Massachusetts, US.

In the 1975 Steven Spielberg film, the town doubled as Amity, a resort menaced by a great white shark hunted by a police chief played by Roy Scheider.

Jonathan, a lifelong islander, joined the police in 1986, serving as a sergeant in Edgartown, also used in the movie.

He said: “I’m clearly elated and I’m humbled and honoured to have been offered the position.

“It’s something I’ve been working toward my whole career.”