The Steven Spielberg classic “Jaws” takes place in a fictional small town in New England — but Long Islanders claim the blockbuster movie and novel that inspired it owes a hat tip to a late local legend.
“Monster” hunter fisherman Frank Mundus — a proud son of Montauk — was the inspiration for Robert Shaw’s salty Capt. Quint in the movie, which turns 50 on Friday, family and friends said.
“Anybody who knows anything about fishing knows that it’s based on him,” the shark hunter’s daughter Pat Mundus told The Post.
“Everybody on the East End knows,” she added of the mighty man who died in 2008 at 82.
Mundus, who lives in Greenport, said people still ask her daily if she’s related to Frank.
The Brooklyn-born seaman came to the Montauk Point from the north jersey shore in the early 1950s to do what wasn’t traditionally done before: intentionally go out in search of the feared apex predators of the sea.
The self-branded “monster fisherman” turned the tide of “the family-friendly inshore fishing image that Montauk had,” said Pat, a former oil tanker worker who is now 68.
Mundus couldn’t give two flying fins, however.
“He branded himself a ‘monster fisher’ because he knew that it would attract more charter customers,” she explained, adding that there was a method to the madness.
As a boy in the city, Mundus tried jumping from roof to roof between a pair of three-story buildings and fell to the ground, breaking his arm and developing a near-fatal infection. The miracle recovery — one that hindered his schooling to the point he finished eighth grade at nearly 18 — is what gave Mundus his “big booming energy.”
“He painted one toenail red and the other blue and called them port and starboard. He wore an earring. He went barefoot everywhere. He played pranks and made a public spectacle of himself.”
Perhaps Mundus’ most iconic gag was when “he had another guy dress up as a Frankenstein-like monster and they put him in a waterproof casket and marked it offshore.”
“They ‘discovered’ the guy, they brought the casket back and opened it up on the dock, and this big monster sprang out.”
Perhaps Mundus’ most iconic gag was when “he had another guy dress up as a Frankenstein-like monster and they put him in a waterproof casket and marked it offshore.”
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By the 1960s, the attention-grabbing antics were enough to reel in “Jaws” author-to-be Peter Benchley.
The penman fatefully rode on Mundus’ boat, the Cricket, which was named for the running joke that its captain looked like Jiminy.
“My father was a very intelligent person, but not terribly well-educated, so he didn’t know who Peter Benchley was,” Mundus, one of Frank’s three daughters, said.
“He just thought it was a guy who was interested in listening to stories about catching fish.”
The depiction of Quint and the lack of recognition of the real story sent Mundus overboard, his daughter said.
“He had very carefully crafted his whole image in his own brand for 30 years,” she added. “And then some guy just came along and stole it without acknowledging who he was.”