Overview

Grizzly is a 1976 American thriller film directed by William Girdler, about a 15-foot-tall, man-eating grizzly bear that terrorizes a National Forest. It stars Christopher George, Andrew Prine and Richard Jaeckel. Widely considered a Jaws rip-off, Grizzly used many of the same plot devices as its shark predecessor, which had been a huge box-office success during the previous year. The giant grizzly bear in the film was portrayed by a bear named Teddy, who was 11 feet tall. A sequel, Grizzly II: The Concert, was filmed in 1983 in Hungary by director André Szöts, but was never released to theaters. Sheldon, the co-producer and writer of Grizzly, wrote the screenplay with his screenwriter wife, McCall, who also reprised her role from the original film. The stars were Louise Fletcher, Steve Inwood, John Rhys-Davies, Deborah Raffin and Deborah Foreman; the cast also included Charlie Sheen, George Clooney and Laura Dern, who were unknown at the time.