In 2019 I had the pleasure of travelling to Australia to do two Everest presentations for the Australia New Zealand chapter of The Explorers Club…one in Melbourne, the other in Sydney. 

During my presentation in Sydney I noticed a lovely woman seated near the front.  Afterwords a friend whispered in my ear “do you know who that woman is?’ I obviously didn’t.  He said “that’s Valerie Taylor, she and her late husband Ron worked with Steven Spielberg in the filming of Jaws….world renowned for their underwater photography of sharks”  I was beyond intrigued, then someone introduced themself to me…  When I picked my head up to find Valerie Taylor, she’d already departed. 

Very recently I became aware that Valerie Taylor is the subject of a film called PLAYING WITH SHARKS, The Valerie Taylor Story, -  a National geographic documentary that you can find on Disney+. I actually got Disney+ just so I could see the film.  It’s amazing, tells the story of her life and her late husband Ron’s as pioneers of underwater photography and filmmaking and their conservation efforts to protect sharks and marine areas…. They were the first ever to film a great white shark underwater...out of a cage, no less. Valerie was the first to ever hand feed a shark….seriously. 

The 1971 film BLUE WATER WHITE DEATH, features the Taylors and two other divers entering the water with hundreds of white tip sharks, known as the most deadly shark...the sharks were feeding on a dead whale, and the underwater crew entered the water unsure if they’d survive the encounter.  That footage is a magnificent scene in the new film about Valerie….

A couple of years later they were hired by Steven Spielberg to film underwater footage for Jaws, which would go on to become the biggest selling film of all time. One day during filming almost turned  tragic when a great white shark became entangled in the wires of an underwater cage...the diver escaped just before the cage was ripped from the boat….

All the while Ron filmed this underwater, and Valerie from the boat….the footage was so dramatic and terrifying, that Spielberg literally re-wrote a scene in the movie to incorporate the footage, and instead of the character Hooper dying, like he did in the book, Hooper played by Richard Driefus survives..all because of the work of the Taylors. 

The Taylors were beyond dismayed at the fear of sharks that grew from the movie, as sharks were hunted and killed by millions, misunderstood and maligned. 

Valerie and Ron filmed for dozens of documentaries and films, and Valerie wrote her memoir, called Valerie Taylor: An Adventurous Life: The remarkable story of the trailblazing ocean conservationist, photographer and shark expert 

I interviewed the one and only Valerie Taylor from her home in Sydney Australia last week, and wanted to hear some of her remarkable stories and her cautionary tale about the state of our oceans today…..

let me just add this caveat, the beginning of her interview is not an easy listen for conservation and environment minded individuals….90% of the world’s sharks are believed to have been killed, hundereds of millions killed for shark fin soup, still a desirable dish in China…..the ocean certainly is not what it was when Valerie and Ron Taylor, once world champion spear fishing hunters, first dived in the water back in the 1950’s. Ron passed in 2012….Valerie never stopped campaigning to save the sharks…..