If you have questions or comments regarding these posts, please feel free to contact me via email at revlloydjjones@gmail.com. Those of you who have information that enhances, clarifies or corrects, let me know and – with your permission – I will share the best of them.
Shall we begin:
It is right at 770 miles from the Appalachian valley town of Erwin, Tennessee, to where the Atlantic Ocean embraces the eastern tip of Long Island at Montauk Point, New York. It is approximately 915 miles from Erwin to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, where it meets the ocean. And yet these three locations (and additional ones touching the Eastern Atlantic and Indian Oceans) are all connected by an individual who called Erwin one of his homes. So, let’s follow the photos1:
(Figure 2: Gordon Rynders at his Point Lookout home with a first place trophy he won in a Gulf Coast cabin-boat race. Date and photographer unknown.)
Gordon Rynders (1917-2007) died just short of his 90th birthday2. He worked for 37 years as a photographer for the New York Daily News (Figure 3). From land, sea and air he recorded the broad scope of sports, crime, politics, fashion and entertainment, business and industry, and natural and man made disasters in New York City and the surrounding region. During that span, Rynders won a Pulitzer Prize for one of his photographs, and five of his aerial photographs (four solo credit and one co-credited with Ed Clarity) were included among the 200 or so published in Fifty Years in Pictures, The New York Daily News (1979). For non New Yorkers, Rynders is perhaps best known for his memorable Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade photos which appear in a number of internet photo montages. 3
Rynders’ connection with Erwin, Tennessee, begins and ends with one Sharlotte Jones (died, 2007). Sharlotte and her family were residents of Erwin. She spent much of her formative years in this community at the base of the mountains that form the boundary between Northeast Tennessee and Western North Carolina. As an adult, Sharlotte worked as an airline stewardess based out of Miami and New York
New York is where Gordon Rynders and Sharlotte (Nee Jones) Rynders met. I always thought that they had perhaps met on a commercial flight that Sharlotte had worked. A friend of Sharlotte’s assures me that they met at a New York City party. 4 This makes perfect sense for during their 34 years of marriage, this couple loved and lived the high life. They loved socializing (dressed to the nines), music and musical theater, both on Broadway and at the Barter Theater (The State Theater of Virginia) in Abingdon. They loved boating (Gordon raced-and won in- cabin boats). Gordon, at least, loved sport fishing (Figure 5) in general and specifically for marlin, tuna and shark. Gordon and Sharlotte loved to travel, mostly between their three residences in Long Island, Manzanillo, Mexico and Erwin.
It is hard to overstate the importance of the jaw seen in Figure 6. Or rather, it is hard to overstate the importance of the great white shark that this jaw belonged to. It was a primary inspiration and key influence for a seminal underwater shark documentary and in the creation of a best selling novel and subsequent blockbuster movie.
The photo of that massive Great White jaw is dated September,1964.5 It is the same Jaw that frames Captain Frank Mundus’s head and upper torso on the cover of the book Monster Man (1976) 6, and all subsequent editions of the book (Figure 7). Gordon Rynders took both shots and is given photo credit for the cover shot in all of the published editions.
On June fifth of that year, 1964, Captain Mundus had harpooned a massive, 17.5 foot White Shark with a girth of 13 feet out of Montauk, New York. Using a less than precise formula, Mundus estimated the fish, (a female prematurely dubbed a “Big Daddy” during the catch)7 to weigh around 4,500 lbs. Many have questioned the estimate and formula used to obtain it. Based, however, on the reconstructed snout (see figure 8) on the wall of a local Montauk bar called Salivar’s,8 well respected shark expert Dr. Perry Gilbert agreed that the shark was the largest great white he had ever seen, and that it could indeed weigh 4,500 pounds or better.9 That weight is still widely reported as a valid estimate.10 Mundus himself identifies the jaw in our photos as the jaw of that enormous shark. 11
It is the report of that shark and its capture that brings a 32 year old writer from Newsweek to Montauk to interview and profile the hunter. This is the first of at least two personal encounters between Jaws author Peter Benchley and Frank Mundus. 12 Thirty years after the publication of Jaws, Peter Benchley13 cites first the New York Daily News story about the taking of that great white, along with his many summers spent on Nantucket Island, and the underwater shark documentary, Blue Water, White Death, as his inspirations for penning Jaws. 14
I do not know how or when Gordon Rynder first met Captain Frank Mundus. Mundus provided that his friend Rynders was one of his first customers in the captain’s shark hunting venture.15 It is possible that Rynders chartered the Cricket II, or they met at a Long Island bar, or they were Point Lookout neighbors, or Rynders photographed Mundus to accompany a story on the fisherman. Regardless of how they were introduced, It’s clear from Rynder’s extended and intimate photographic access to Mundus that they were indeed friends. Mundus stayed at the Rynders’ Manzanillo, Mexico condo at least once. 16
The history of general human/shark relations from the early 1950s through today is intertwined with Frank Mundus’ personal history with sharks. From a mostly17 unapologetic hunter of sharks (watch his week of August 11th, 1986, appearance on the David Letterman Show on Youtube) to an advocate for their preservation and more humane catch with the use of circle hooks that catch in a shark’s jaw and not the stomach.18 Captain Mundus (1926-2008) was a larger than life character who appeared three times on the aforementioned David Letterman Show and once on the Larry King Show. He and his history with sharks were featured in an hour long documentary as part of Discovery Channel’s 2005 Shark Week. The episode took Mundus from Hawaii to South Africa where he was able to experience “Air Jaws”, and see up close great white research – many miles and many years distant from the dock at Montauk and that monster great white.
For a rudimentary biography of Mundus, access the Wikipedia page devoted to him. You can also access his current website: www.fmundus.com . Richard Ellis provides a more in-depth profile in The Book Of Sharks, published in 1976.19 There are also, of course, a number of YouTube clips with Mundus featured. For the most personal picture of the man and his methods, Robert L. Boggs, along with Mundus, authored Monster Man in 1976.20 Captain Mundus and Jennette Mundus, his second wife, co-authored a more comprehensive autobiography, Fifty Years A Hooker, published in 2005. Additionally, Mundus, along with co-author Bill Wisner, wrote Sportfishing for Sharks, published in 1971 by Macmillan.
(Figure 11: Mundus and a eight to ten foot Mako, dated Sept, 1968.)
Richard Ellis described Mundus as “a showman , a storyteller, a practical joker, and probably the best shark fisherman on the East Coast of the United States.”, 21 and, “an institution.”. 22 David Letterman called him “the world’s most interesting shark hunter”. Peter Benchly’s wife Wendy, among others, described him as “eccentric”.24 Referring to Mundus, Peter Benchley himself was quoted as saying that he “ was a big, colorful shark fisherman”. 25
Mundus to the day of his death was as adamant that he was the model for Captain Quint of Jaws; as adamant as Peter Benchley was ambiguous about his model for Quint.26 Most impartial observers believe, however, that Mundus was at least an (unconscious?) influence in the creation of the character.27
August 5th, 1986, Mundus and angler Donny Braddick along with crew members from Cricket II and the Fish On, landed a 3,427 pound white shark with rod and reel. 28 This was over 700 pounds heavier than the 2,664 pound specimen Alf Dean landed with rod and reel in South Australia in 1959. 29 Dean’s catch was and still is the formal world record as recognized by the International Game Fish Association. The IGFA declined to recognise Braddick and Mundus’s catch. (There is a photo of Mundus next to that shark in Life magazine’s Jaws, The Shark Movie That Changed The World , published on the 45th anniversary of the movies’ release). 30 Previously, in August of 1979, Mundus and angler James Melanson reeled in a 1,080 pound shortfin mako from the Cricket II. It was at the time a record, and still the biggest mako reeled in on fifty-pound test line. 31
The above photo (Figure 12) dated December,1968, shows Gordon Rynders aboard the Cricket II holding an extended pole with a camera attached to its end. One might wonder what is happening here, but we don’t have to. Captain Mundus tells us:
“The chicken pole was Gordon’s own invention. It was a pole with a camera on the other end and it had a trigger and a turning knob which let you shoot the picture as far underwater as you could push the six-to eight-foot pole. Gordon nicknamed it a chicken pole because if you weren’t chicken, you would go over the side to shoot your own pictures.”. 32
I
It must have been by this technique that Rynders took the above photo of the Blue Shark (figure 13), as well as the photo of a Blue Shark that graced the front cover of the July 14, 1974, New York News Sunday News Magazine (figure 14). The lead feature for that issue was “Shark” (the front page headline tease for the article was “The Deadliest Game:Fishing for Shark in Local Waters”). There is another of Rynder’s blue shark shots and a photo and caption mention of Captain Mundus in the body of that article.
Robert Boggs stated that Rynders collected “some of the best underwater shots of the sport of shark fishing ever taken.”, despite having to use some guesswork in the process. 33 Ron Taylor used a similar technique – minus the aluminum pole (head, shoulder and camera in the water)34 – to take the first underwater photo of a great white in 1964. 35 That photo became the poster advertisement for the movie Blue Water, White Death, 36 which we will say more about now.
Unlike Gordon Rynders, Peter Gimbel (1927-1987) was not afraid to go over the side to shoot (actually film) his own shark photos. Scion of the Gimbel Department Store family, he was New York City born and Yale educated. He left a near decade-long career on Wall Street to become an explorer/ adventurer, world class scuba diver, and outdoor documentary filmmaker both on land and undersea.
Sequentially The first shot (Figure 15 ) shows Gimbel on deck of the Cricket II with his state of the art underwater camera. The second shows (Figure 16) Gimbel’s shark cage ascending (or descending?) from the boat. The next photo (Figure 17) captures Gimbel leaving (or reentering?) the cage. The fourth and final shot (Figure 18) has Gimbel outside the cage with his left hand up and slightly above the water, as if to ward off the approaching Blue Shark. In the center foreground of that photo, a forearm can be seen pointing a rifle toward the water and the shark.
One might wonder what story is unfolding here in figure , but we don’t have to. Captain Mundus, himself, explains what’s happening: “The blue shark came up slowly, straight toward Pete. Pete raised his hand and waited until the blue shark was close enough to touch. Then he slowly lowered his hand, took the blue shark by the nose, and gently turned him to the left.”37 Earlier Mundus had directed Gimbel to stay close to the boat so that Mundus would have a clear shot at the sharks with the rifle if they threatened Gimbel (ibid)
If, as I suspect, these shots were taken in September or October of 1968, then it is probable that Gimbel was using the Cricket ll as his base for last minute adjustments to his out-of-the cage underwater filming techniques that would be employed in South Africa, Ceylon and Southern Australia beginning in March of 1969.38 That is when Gimbel, Stan Waterson, Valerie and Ron Taylor , Rodney Fox and others39 began filming the seminal underwater documentary Blue Water, White Death. That experience is also documented by author Peter Mattthiesen in his classic nature book: Blue Meridian: In Search of the Great White. Published in 1971. (Valerie Taylor also devotes a chapter to that pursuit in her recent poignant 2019 autobiography An Adventurous Life,40) Gimbel had already produced an underwater documentary film , In the World of Sharks, from the Cricket ll in 1965.41 Gimbel worked with the same Montauk Blue Sharks for that documentary as seen in our photos here. Additionally, there are still shots at the very beginning of Blue Water, White Death (as well in the movie’s trailers) of a 3,500 pound great white that Mundus and mate Stanley Lennox had landed on the Cricket II on July 5, 1960.42 I believe that another still at the beginning of the movie is that of the great white snout from Salivar’s bar.
According to Peter Matthiesen,43 it’s Gimbel’s fascination with that reconstructed trophy snout in Salivar’s, and the awe, fear and potential challenge a fish like that would produce, that spurred his idea for Blue Water, White Death. (Matthiesen, himself, had earlier traveled a short distance from his nearby home to see the still whole fish on the Montauk docks, and was also duly impressed).44 Valarie Taylor also adds Her and husband Ron’s Ronald and the Great White Shark as an inspiration for Gimbel’s documentary vision. 45
Gimbel and Mundus were acquainted with each other at least as early as the mid 1960s when Gimbel located an old crude diving cage in Mundus’ backyard. 46 (Matthiessen47 has it as early as 1960). It was from this prototype that Mundus and some of his customers had created 48 that Gimbel specially designed and built the cages he would use for the Blue Water, White Death filming, and quite possibly including the one seen in figures 15-18. If Gimbel, with the input of Mundus, did not develop the first shark cage – as Boggs and Mundus asserted 49 – then they certainly created a “state of the art” 50 cage, a patent for which Gimbel held and which is still applicable to this day.51
Oddly, if also appropriately enough to this blog, one of two of Gimbel’s surviving cages can be seen at the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga. The aquarium is located near the base of Lookout Mountain which is the southern boundary of my Appalachia.
There is one other bit of connection between these photographs and their subjects. Peter Gimbel had made his early reputation on his underwater exploration and photographic documentation of the wreck of the Italian luxury liner, the Andrea Doria. On July 25th, 1956, the ship had been struck by a Swedish liner, and fifty of the 2,000 passengers aboard the Andrea Doria died in the disaster.
Gordon Rynders was in the air with the New York Daily News airplane photographing the unfolding disaster, but due to a refueling break was not in the air when the ship sank below the surface. Sharlotte Jones Rynders was quoted as saying that this was Gordon’s greatest disappointment as a journalistic photographer. 52 It should be noted, though, that one of Rynders’ shots of the listing Andrea Doria does end up as one of the selections in the aforementioned Fifty Years of Photographs, The New York Daily News.
On the Andrea Doria that day was a young boy named Robert Boggs, who survived that sinking along with his parents.53 At least twice, Mundus, Rynders and Boggs fished together on the Cricket ll, and on at least one of those occasions, June, 1970, found themselves fishing in the same general area of the disaster. Though Mundus doesn’t mention it, it is hard to imagine that it was not a subject of conversation during their time together. It is equally hard to believe that Rynders and Gimbel didn’t swap Andrea Doria stories during the time they shared on the Cricket ll, if they talked at all.
It is almost universally accepted that Jaws the book, and more so the movie, led to “such a time of carnage for shark populations”.54 It is clear that the popularity of individual and tournament shark fishing soared nationwide55 following the movie premier. It is also true, however, that the backlash from that slaughter led to greater shark interest, research and conservation efforts than ever before!56 (Do I need to mention we just finished watching the 34th year of “Shark Week and the 10th year of Sharkfest? And how many of us follow the ping points of various great whites, tigers, etc tagged over the last decade by Ocearch?).
Both Peter Benchley and Wendy Benchley were happy to highlight the number of young people who had entered into the various specialities related to the general field of Oceanography due to the Jaws phenomenon – and their own conservation efforts that grew out of their own shark education and field experience. Wendy Benchley echoed what David A. Ebert (see footnote 52 below) and many others have said. when she was quoted in 2020 as saying “The Jaws phenomenon changed popular culture and continues to inspire a growing interest in sharks and the ocean today”. 57
We are indeed blessed that Gordon Rynders was present and able to record some of the early key players and components of that movement from slaughter to conservation.
Acknowledgements
My deep gratitude goes out to Kathy Effler Alford. Being unable to attend the estate sale following Sharlotte’s Rynders’ death, I asked Kathy to attend the sale and purchase anything “sharky”. She succeeded beyond my wildest hopes. Without her salvage efforts, these photos would have almost certainly been lost to history. The same goes out to Caitlin Neal-Jones who provided some great editorial suggestions. Caitlin also launched me kicking and screaming into the blogosphere.
Endnotes
1. Unless otherwise noted, all photos were taken by Gordon Rynders
2. I served as Gordon and Sharlotte Rynders’ pastor near and at the end of Gordon’s life. Though both his physical health and memory were failing, Gordon loved to regale me with stories about aerial photography, fishing and Captain Frank Mundus.
3. e.g. vintagenewsdaily.com/30-vintage-photographs-of-the-macy’s thanksgiving-day-parade-balloons-and-floats-from-the-1920s-to-the-1960s/
4. Evelyn Stack, personal communication, 2014.
5. These are film development dates.
6. Boggs, Robert, Cricket II Publishing
7. Boggs, 2001:148
8. Ibid:155
9. Ellis, 1976:259,
10. e.g. Cresswell, 2019:41
11. Mundus and Mundus, 2005:160-162
12. Ellis, 1976:217
13. Benchley, 2004:34-35
14. Other reported influences include the 1916 Jersey Shore shark attacks e.g. (Life,2020:17, Ellis, 1976:), and “Shark”, an article Benchley wrote and published in the November, 1967, issue of Holiday Magazine (Potts, 2021).
15. Mundus and Mundus, 2005:103
16. Ibid: 287-289
17. We’re told that Mundus did feel sorry for Big Daddy, and that the shark should have kept to deep waters (Boggs 2001: 152)
18. In 2005 Mundus and his second wife Jennette also co-authored a children’s story titled White Shark Sam Meets the Monster Man, which promoted shark conservation and responsible tagging and research.
19. Ellis also provides excellent profiles of Peter Benchley, Peter Gimbel, Ron and Valerie Taylor, Stan Waterman, Rodney Fox and others mentioned in this piece
20. First published in 1976 by Cricket II Publishing and republished by Lorenz Press as Shark Man in 1977
21. Ellis, Richard, 1976:257
22. Ibid:260
23. In a week of March 11, 1986, episode of the David Letterman Show, perhaps quoting from a 1983 Newsweek article?
24. Dowling, 2014
25. JawsFest 2005
26. Benchley stated that the character was “ a composite of old salts from Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard and Long Island (Benchley quoted in Finn, 2000).. It should be noted that Frank Mundus certainly qualified as an “old salt” from Long Island. Wendy Benchley insisted that “Quint was more nuanced” than Mundus,, and based on more “complex “ personalities such as Rodney Fox (Dowling, ibid)
27. e.g. Rutenberg, 2013, in an article in the New York Times on shark sport fishing, describes Mundus as “a model for the grizzled shark hunter, Quint, in ‘Jaws’”.Ewen MacAskill, 1986, in an article in the Washington Post, wrote “He is a shark hunter, believed by many -particularly Mundus – to be the inspiration for Quint…” Upon his death there was not a major American newspaper that posted an obituary for Mundus that failed to mention this belief.
28. Mundus and Mundus, 2005:382-389
29. Dean held the previous record as well with a sixteen foot, nine inch long white weighing 2,536 pounds
30. Life, 220:17
31. Mundus and Mundus, 2005:360
32. Mundus and Mundus, 2005:169
33. Boggs, 2001:171
34. Taylor, 2019:62
35. Ellis, 1976:274
36. Ellis, 1989:180-181
37. Mundus and Mundus.2005:169
38. Taylor, 2019:104-105
39. Those others include Peter Lake, Stewart Cody and Tom Chapin (Harry Chapin’s brother, folk music artist and host of the vintage saturday morning kid’s show “Make a Wish”.
40. An excerpt from Blue Meridian and selections from Valerie Taylor’s diary of that experience can be found in Great Shark Writings, Valerie and Ron Taylor, editors, with Peter Goadby, The Overlook Press, Woodstock and New York, New York, 2000.
41. Ellis, 1976:240
42. Mundus and Mundus,2005:164
43. 1997:30-31
44. Ibid:28
45. Blue Water, White Death 50th Anniversary Virtual Reunion, streamed live May 12, 2021, accessed May 12, 2022.
46. Ellis, 1976:239
47. Matthiessen, 1997:26
48. Boggs, 2001:161
49. Boggs, 2001:169
50. Taylor, 2019:240
51. Rodney Fox is usually credited with inventing and pioneering “modern shark cage diving,(Stewart, 2017) Discovery Channel’s Shark Week companion magazine for 2018 (pg. 64) lists Fox’s “idea to create the world’s first protective Shark Cage” as one of the five defining moments in human/shark relations. Jacques-Yves Cousteau wrote that his team had been “Putting men in cages to protect them from sharks” since 1950. (Cousteau and Cousteau, 1987, 34). I guess it depends on how one defines “modern”, “protective”, etc to understand the evolution of shark cages and who should get credit for what. I’m a confused landlubber and would appreciate any clarity anyone could give regarding this.
52. New York Daily News, “Gordon Rynders, Retired Daily News Photographer, Has Died”, posted Saturday, April 7th, 2007, 4:00 AM.
53. Mundus and Mundus, 2005:171
54. Taylor, 2019:174
55. e.g. Slocum, 1975; Braswell, 2020:16, Ellis, 1977:219; Hodges and Skerry, 2016:133; among many, many others.
56. e,.g. David A. Ebert (2021) provides a brilliant and concise synopsis regarding the reality:and almost universal acknowledgement of the damage Jaws did to shark populations. More importantly, he highlights the overwhelmingly beneficial light that Jaws caused to shine on sharks and shark conservation issues. Ebert suggests that the interest, study and action that resulted from that attention is Peter Benchley’s true legacy. Find this article and read it (listed in References Cited).
57. Boomers Daily, News, Views & Reviews For The 55+, Sept 9, 2020
References Cited
Benchley, Peter, Shark Trouble, Random House Inc., New York, 2002
Blue Water, White Death 50th Anniversary Virtual Reunion, Keith Cowley, Living Sharks Museum, moderator, streamed live May 12, 2021. Accessed May 12, 2022
Boggs, Robert F., Monster Man, Master Hunter of the Deep, Abery Publishing Company, Honaunau, Hawaii, 2001
“New Interviews: Wendy Benchley On Legacy Of Peter Benchley’s ‘Jaws””, Books Connect Us: The Podcast in Boomers Daily, News, Views & Reviews For The 55+, September 9, 2020. Accessed July, 5, 2022
Braswell, Tommy, Remember when every week was ‘Shark Week’?, Tideline, a special “Shark Issue” publication of the Charleston Post and Courier, July/August issue, Charleston, South Carolina.
Cousteau, Jacqes-Yves and Philippe Cousteau, The Shark, Arrowwood Press, New York, New York, 1987
Creswell, W. Clay, Sharks in the Shallows, Attacks on the Carolina Coast, The University of South Carolina Press, Columbia, South Carolina, 2021.
Discovery Communications, Sharks, The Definitive Companion, Tim Baker, editor, Topix Media Lab, New York, New York, 2018.
Dowling, David, “How the Creator of ‘Jaws’ Became the Shark’s Greatest Defender.”, Narratively: Human Stories, Boldly Told, August 15, 2014
Ebert, David A., Jaws, Lost Sharks, and the Legacy of Peter Benchley; Princeton University Press.July 13, 2021. Accessed April 10th, 2022
Ellis, Richard, The Book Of Sharks, Grosset & Dunlap, a Filmways
Company, New York, 1976
“The Legendary Shark”, Sharks, Dr. John D. Stevens, consulting editor, Intercontinental Publishing Corporation, Hong Kong, 1989.
Finn, Robin, “Dear Great Whites: I Didn’t Really Mean It.” Public Lives, section B, page 2, 2000. Accessed July 5, 2022
Hevesi, Dennis, “Frank Mundus, 82, dies; Inspired ‘Jaws’”, New York Times obituary, September 16, 2008, New York Times Company, New York
Hodges, Glen and Brian Skerry, photographer, “Bolt From The Blue”, National Geographic Magazine, volume 232, number 2, August, 2017 National Geographic Society, Washington D.C.
Jaws, The Shark Movie That Changed The World, Meredith Corporation, New York, New York.
MacAskill, Ewen, “Hunter of The Great White”, Washington Post, August 20, 1986
Matthiessen, Peter, Blue Meridian: The search for the Great White Shark, Penguin Nature Classics, Edward Hvagland , series editor,
Mundus, Frank and Jeanette Mundus, Fifty Years a Hooker, 2005
The New York Daily News, Fifty Years In Pictures, Worth Gatewood editor, A Dolphin Book, Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York, 1979
Potts, Rolf, “Shark” by Peter Benchley (The 1967 Magazine Essay that Inspired “Jaws”., R.P. internet site, November, 1967
Rutenberg, Jim, “Rethinking Tournaments Where Sharks Always Lose.”New York Times, July 22, 2013
Slocum, Kenneth, “Tough and Bloody, Big Shark Fishing Becomes a Passion.”, The Wall Street Journal, September 26, 1975.
Taylor, Valerie, An Adventurous Life, Hachette, Australia, Sydney, 201
Sharks, Stevens, John D.,contributing editor and Tony Pyrzakowski
illustrator, Facts On File Publications, New York, 1987
Stewart, James, What happens after you’re bitten by a great white shark?, Adventure.com, April 19, 2017, retrieved july 7, 2022
Vintagenewsdaily.com, “30 Vintage Photographs of the Macy’s ThanksgivingDay Parade Balloons and Floats from the Late 1920s to the 1960s.”, November 17, 2017
Webster, David Kenyon, Myth And Maneater, The Story of the Shark. W.W. Norton Company Inc., New York, 1963
Eclectic Appalachia 
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