‘You're gonna need a bigger bank account': how a Jaws child actor turned a fleeting appearance into a fortune

The Guardian

13 hours ago

Name: Jeffrey Voorhees.
Age: 62.
Appearance: Just the one.
Occupation: Child actor.
Pretty old for a child actor. He's a former child actor.
Has he been in anything I would have seen? Jaws.
Wow. Anything else? No, not really.
Oh. Well, Jaws is pretty good. I've seen it dozens of times. Jeffrey Voorhees will be pleased to hear that.
Why? Because, despite his very small role as shark victim Alex Kintner when he was 12, Voorhees is still being paid residuals – royalties – 50 years later. Every time Jaws is on TV, he earns money.
Nice work if you can get it. 'It pays to die,' is how he put it in a recent interview with Syfy.
Even so, he can't be pulling in that much after all this time. It's not just residuals. After hiding from fame for years, Voorhees – who still lives on Martha's Vineyard, where Jaws was filmed – has found ways to embrace the full earning capacity of his brief turn as victim number two.
How? By attending fan conventions for '£10,000 a time', selling autographed merch online and making personalised videos on Cameo.
People pay him for that? It helps that Jaws fans are a little obsessive. One woman brought Voorhees an inflatable yellow raft identical to the one on which Alex Kintner met his demise. 'She was in tears and I signed the raft for her,' he said.
That sounds more than a little obsessive. He's even been presented with his old discarded royalty statements – bought by fans on eBay for thousands – to sign. 'I don't throw them away any more,' he said.
Are there any other child actors still raking it in after all these years? Yes, if not to the same extent. Jason Weaver, who provided the singing voice for young Simba in the original animated version of The Lion King, reportedly received, and still receives, far more than the $2m (£1.5m) upfront Disney originally offered him before his mother insisted on a reduced fee plus royalties from soundtrack sales.
Well done, Jason's mum. Are there any more actors with cameos as brief as Voorhees'? Casey Margolis, who fleetingly played a young version of Jonah Hill's character in the 2007 film Superbad, recently revealed he's still getting cheques.
The kid who draws penises on everything? That's him. While the amounts vary from $10,000 to 12 cents, he reckons he's collected about $100k (£74,000) in total.
What a racket! How can I get my kid killed in something huge? Actually, that ship has probably sailed. Streaming services don't tend to pay residuals in the same way, as their content is always available to watch – and young actors have reported receiving minuscule amounts for their work.
Do say: 'These eye-watering sums are a symptom of how out of control fan culture has become.'
Don't say: 'You're gonna need a bigger bank account.'