Marcia Hathaway: Tragic star was Sydney’s last fatal shark attack victim 59 years ago
Australian actress Marcia Hathaway did not know the horror that awaited as she toasted her engagement with her fiance on the shoreline of a Sydney bay.
The tragic star, who worked extensively in theatre and on Sydney radio, is best known as the last person to be killed by a shark in the Australian city nearly six decades ago. The 32-year-old Hathaway was soaking up the sun on a boat with her partner Frederick Knight and some other pals in Middle Harbour on January 28, 1963, when her friends dared her to prove she could swim. Little did they know the playful bet would prove fatal.
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Just moments after Hathaway and Knight entered the shallow waters of Sugarloaf Bay, the glamorous actress thought she had been ambushed by an octopus in just 30 inches of water. “We had been in the water for about five minutes and I was about 12 to 15 feet away from Marcia with my back to her," Knight later recalled, as quoted by Mosman Collective. “And then I heard her call out ‘I think an octopus has got me.’"
Knight couldn't believe his eyes as he saw his lover being dragged under the water by a bull shark. He sprang into action and bravely tried to wrestle the monster, even straddling its back at one point in his efforts to free Hathaway. However, the shark had sunk its jagged teeth deep into her thigh. “I kept hold of Marcia and kept trying to drag her away from the shark,” Knight told the Sydney Morning Herald following the attack. “The water was stained with blood and I never thought I would get her away from it. I think at one stage I had my foot in its mouth. It was soft and spongy.”
Shortly after, Knight and some other friends managed to pull Hathaway free as nearby boat owners tore sheets from their bunks to serve as tourniquets. The actress was hauled aboard another boat as she bled out, before being transferred to an ambulance that met her and Knight at Mowbray Point. But as fate would have it, the ambulance broke down. More than a dozen men attempted to push the vehicle up a steep hill before conceding that another ambulance was required.
Knight remembered being stunned at how Hathaway remained calm as she lost consciousness. “When I asked her if it hurt, she told me, 'No I am not in pain',” he recalled. “I have seen men die, but I have never seen anyone as brave as Marcia, I think the last words she said to me were, ‘Don’t worry about me dear, God will look after me'."
By the time another ambulance arrived at the scene, Hathaway had stopped breathing. Riled up by her tragic demise, locals returned to the bay in a bid to snare the bull shark. They reportedly caught the beast they believed killed the actress and put it on display for the public. This week, Sydney reported its first fatal shark attack since Hathaway's death 59 years ago when Simon Nellist was mauled to death by a 4.5-meter shark.