SUMMER STARS

It happens every year. Certain summer films give certain actors a chance to bloom. But what happens once the warm weather ends? We checked in on a decade’s worth of summer stars to see what’s happened since.

1975: BRUCE IN ‘JAWS’

From the opening scene in “Jaws,” in which a young, nude swimmer in the night meets her untimely demise, Bruce made his presence felt.

The great white (30 feet long, two tons) was spawned by Peter Benchley’s monster-selling novel. But it was Steven Spielberg’s film about the terror in the waters off Amity, Mass., that let loose sharkmania--complete with summer headlines about shark attacks. It seemed as if Omaha was the only safe distance.

His performance bolstered by the eerie sound track of John Williams, Bruce--who was portrayed by three mechanical sharks--was eventually blown to bits in the climactic finale. But his memory lived on in “Jaws 2,” “Jaws 3-D” and a string of low-budget imitators.

In Real Life, Bruce went on to become a featured performer at the Universal Studios Tour (he began the gig in 1976), where he devours an Amity fisherman many times daily. According to a representative for the tours, Bruce startles tour visitors 200 times each day.