Valerie Taylor knows how to survive a shark attack after 50 years swimming with the beasts of the ocean.
‘I know to keep perfectly still and they’ll let go,’ she said after boasting ‘I’ve been bitten by sharks a few times’.
But the woman, once dubbed the world’s most glamorous shark hunter and credited with helping inspire the movie blockbuster Jaws, has been anything but still in an incredible life that has spanned oceans, continents and professions.
‘Well I don’t see it as amazing, it’s just what I did,’ she laughed when asked about her job.
She survived polio at 12 while in a hospital where babies came in crying before leaving in deadly silence wrapped in white blankets.
The adventurous blonde left school at 15 to become an animator, tried her luck at acting and modelling and finally found her love for the water.
She married the love of her life, together they pioneered underwater photography with DIY equipment, took up film-making and caught the attention of Hollywood.
The now 84-year-old has opened up to Daily Mail Australia about her amazing journey which is still reaching new depths.
‘These days I have to do it in the warm waters of places like Indonesia,’ she said.
‘My arthritic joins don’t care for the cold waters of Australia, and the pressure seems to take the pain away.’
Pictured: Valerie Taylor with her diving gear and a camera while working with bull sharks in Fiji
Pictured: Valerie Taylor, who is now 84, preparing for a dive in Indonesia. She can now only dive in warm water because she has arthritis
Valerie was born on Crown Street in Sydney’s inner city in 1935 before moving to Wellington, New Zealand, where her family lived while her father ran a battery factory.
When she was 12-years-old she survived polio – a highly-contagious and deadly virus that affects the spine and can cause deformities, shortened limbs and paralysis.
Valerie was snatched away from her parents and put in a ward filled with crippled and dying victims, and vividly…
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