Surfer Tamayo Perry, known for a few supporting roles in Hollywood, most notably in “Pirates of the Caribbean,” was killed Sunday in a shark attack off the U.S. island of Hawaii, local authorities said.
A figure on the island of Oahu, this 49-year-old professional lifeguard was attacked by a shark at noon while surfing at Malekahana Beach.
Emergency services were called for a “severely injured surfer after a shark attack,” local official Shane Enright explained during a press conference.
His body was “brought back to the beach” and he was pronounced dead on the sand, he said.
“Tamayo was a legendary sailor,” said Honolulu Mayor Rick Blanciardi, who mourned the “tragic loss.”
This former professional surfer made a name for himself in the early 2000s on Pipeline, one of the world’s most dangerous waves and a veritable mecca on the “North Shore” of Oahu.
This popularity allowed him to appear in the surf movie “Blue Crush” (2002).
A trip to Hollywood later allowed him to play other supporting roles, most notably in “Charlie’s Angels: Les Anges se délément!” (2003), in the series “Hawaii Five-O” (2011) and in the fourth part of the saga “Pirates of the Caribbean” (2011).
Shark attacks are a known hazard in Hawaii, but they’re rarely fatal: Of the 81 “incidents” involving surfers, swimmers or divers recorded in the past ten years, only 5 have died, according to officials.
According to a study published in 2021 in the Journal of the Royal Society, a significant number of shark bites worldwide are due to “misidentification”.
In other words, sharks that attack surfers or swimmers have such poor eyesight that they may be mistaken for regular prey like sea lions.
