Judith Barsi wore her own real-life swimsuit in the movie.
Thea Brody is the daughter of Michael Brody and Carla Brody, the only grandchild of Ellen and the late Martin Brody, and the niece of the late Sean Brody. She is five years old in Jaws: The Revenge. In the film, she is portrayed by the late ill-fated Judith Barsi (who also voiced Ducky from The Land Before Time and would later provide the speaking voice of the little orphan girl, Anne-Marie from All Dogs Go to Heaven).
Character Biography
More so then to escape the shark, Ellen likely uses the trip to the Bahamas to clear her fears believing the shark cannot possibly follow her to the Caribbean. There Ellen meets a carefree English airplane pilot named Hoagie (Michael Caine). Michael and his friends Jake (Mario Van Peebles), William and Clarence work as marine biologists. During research, the same shark that had attacked Sean in Amity just weeks before, unexpectedly appears causing havoc and alarm. Michael and Jake decide to keep quiet about the shark’s presence to protect Michael’s credibility and to hide the risk factor due to Ellen’s insistence that Michael get a job on land.
During a second appearance of the same large shark now clearly bent on revenge, Jake stabs a sonar tracking pole into the shark’s side. Michael is then chased by the shark and narrowly manages to escape. The following day, Thea goes out on an inflatable banana boat with her friend Margaret and her mom, while Carla speaks about her city commissioned art work to rapt crowd gathered on the beach. Without warning, the shark again appears, taking Margaret’s mother, and severely shocking Thea. Believing the shark has gone too far, Ellen takes Michael and Jake’s boat and goes after it with revenge in mind. Later, after the shark is killed, Thea happily says good-bye to her grandmother as she leaves for Amity Island.
Behind the Scenes
Judith Barsi portrayed Thea in Jaws: The Revenge. Barsi, before she and her mother Maria left for the Bahamas to shoot the film, her abusive father, Jozsef, threatened her with a knife while packing, hissing, "If you decide not to come back, I will cut your throat", as stated by Judith's uncle, Joseph Weldon. When they arrived at the Bahamas, Maria cried out to people about how threatened and concerned she felt, but no one listened. Sometime later, on the tragic night of Monday, July 25, 1988, Jozsef snuck into Judith's room, and shot her in the head, killing her instantly. Maria heard the gunshot and ran out of her bedroom, where she was greeted by Jozsef in the hallway, and he killed her too. Nearly two days later, he called Judith's agent, Ruth Hansen, informing her that he intended to move out for good, saying that a car already picked up Judith and Maria, but needed time to "say good-bye to my little girl". He poured gasoline and set their corpse on fire, which caused the house to burn, and then he went into the garage, and shot himself in the head a 32. caliber pistol, the same weapon he used to kill the latter two. On August 9, 1988, Judith and Maria were buried in an unmarked grave at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills, California.