It’s been half a century since Steven Speilberg‘s groundbreaking movie Jaws first made audiences afraid to step foot in the ocean…but one actor is still making thousands of dollars from his extremely brief (if highly memorable) appearance in the film.
As Alex Kintner (otherwise known as “Second Child Killed by Shark”), Jeffrey Voorhees was only in Jaws for one very bloody minute. Even so, as the now 62-year-old actor recently told The Independent, he’s making more money than ever from the gruesome cameo thanks to the highly lucrative fan convention circuit.
“I used to say, ‘I don’t have time for this,’ and then I said: ‘OK, I’ll try it once,’” he said.
“The first one I ever did was in New York, and someone’s at the airport holding your name up and the photos. You make good money at those things and you go all over the world and meet up with real actors,” Voorhees continued.
As for what exactly constitutes “good money,” Voorhees says he gets paid $10,000 per convention appearance. And that’s not the only way he continues to profit from his childhood role, either. On his website, Voorhees sells an assortment of Jaws-themed memorabilia including inflatable life rafts with a shark bite mark ($289), posters ($35) and t-shirts ($45 to $70).
Business, apparently, is booming: Voorhees, who worked in the restaurant business, said he “kind of retired because it’s like I make more money off of Jaws stuff now.”
The former child actor has been surprised by how popular his character is with fans, even 50 years later.
“I’ll be walking down the street sometimes and I can hear people saying, ‘That’s the dead Alex Kintner over there!’ It’s surreal,” he said, adding, “There was a 14-year-old girl crying because her parents drove her five hours down from Chicago and she was so moved to see me. I’m in the movie for one minute!”
“You get a little high off of that,” Voorhees continued. “You make some good money, and you make some people really happy, so why not?”
How much do actors typically make at fan conventions?
Voorhees isn’t the only actor cashing in at fan conventions, with good reason. According to the Hollywood Reporter, many stars are making more money at conventions than they did from the roles that make them famous, with A-listers like Norman Reedus (The Walking Dead), Mark Hamill (Star Wars) and Matt Smith (Doctor Who) easily making hundreds of thousands of dollars in a single weekend.
“If somebody wanted to do a convention every weekend, they could make more on the convention circuit than their episodic fee,” said Arrow star Stephen Amell, whose success on the circuit inspired to start his own talent agency, WFA Entertainment.
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This story was originally reported by Parade on Sep 4, 2025, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
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