Giant sharks in Myrtle Beach. How one man started the building frenzy that you see today

In the late 90s, a local businessman awoke from a dream that would change the face of the Grand Strand.

In the dream, David Eliyahu saw tourists by the thousands walking through the gaping jaws of a giant shark to enter his beachwear shop.

It’s been 24 years since that dream was made reality by a local artist who created the 100-foot-long facade of Jaws Resortwear in Garden City.

The senior Eliyahu is now deceased, but his son Moshe’ Eliyahu, who now runs the business, said his father frequently talked of that dream and the artist that made it a reality.

Who is Bob Duato, and how do you know that name?

The HBO series “East Bound & Down,” season 3 aired in 2012 and the show was set in Myrtle Beach.

In just one scene Bob Duato and his enormous shark sculptures are mentioned by both of the famous actors in the show - Will Farrell and Danny McBride.

That infamous scene launched a vulgar catchphrase that created an internet sensation, sparking YouTube videos, T-shirts, and even songs about Bob Duato.

How a famous TV show fight scene made this Myrtle Beach artist an internet sensation

Bob Duato’s contribution to Myrtle Beach culture

Bob Duato came to Myrtle Beach from Cape Cod in 1989 to work re-building the damage caused by Hurricane Hugo and stayed to work as a painting contractor. But his art gradually became his business.

The Sun News published an article about Duato’s recovery from problems with alcohol and homelessness in 1998 with the headline “Artist sculpts new lifestyle.”

”I never really dreamed when I came down to this beach with nothing but a hangover that one day I’d have something,’‘ Duato said at the time.

The artist owned a small shop off Pine Island Road called Bob’s Original Sculptures and Water Gardens where he began experimenting with animal sculptures using concrete, fiberglass and steel. His big breakthrough came when Eliyahu visited his shop and asked if he could create a giant shark that would draw passing tourists into his new beachwear store in Garden City.

To attach a giant structure to a building in Horry County, the construction had to meet strict building codes and wind requirements for the area. Duato said he really didn’t know what he was doing in the beginning. It was something he had to figure out entirely on his own. Scaling that sculpture up to that gargantuan size, welding the rebar frame, and covering it with a concrete and stucco mix before painting was a monumental task.

“Nothing is easy about any part of this - it’s brutal,” he said.

Duato charged just $20,000 for that first enormous sculpture. He would charge upwards of $50,000 for similar pieces in the future.

But that first big piece led to big changes in the Myrtle Beach area.

Myrtle Beach went through a sculpture ‘frenzy’ in the 2000s.

Jaws Resortwear opened in September of 2000, and by June of 2001 The Sun News described the Myrtle Beach area as being in a “frenzy” of adding themed sculptures to building facades.

Duato explained that store owners figured out that, “If you have a strip of five or six stores and you put a big shark in front of one of them, all those people are going to stop at the one that’s got the shark.”

Giant crabs, fish, alligators, turtles and dolphins went up on restaurants, surf and gift shops. Duato even built an enormous gaping shark head leaping out of a billboard at passing motorist for Clearview Cable.

He built a killer whale for Pacific Beachwear in Garden City, both vertical and horizontal sharks in North Myrtle Beach and a host of smaller sculptures up and down the Grand Strand.

Duato says Topsail Island, North Carolina is home to his largest shark, a 110-foot behemoth and he also has a 90-foot alligator in Surf City. Additionally, he has built large sculptures in Panama City Beach, Fla, and in South Padre Island and Corpus Christi, Texas.

Where is Bob Duato now?

Dauto, now 63, moved to Bay County, Fla. in 2007, where he completed five large sculptures that he now gets to visit frequently, including the Big Willie’s Killer Whale and the Titanic ship exhibit at Ripley’s Believe It or Not.

Speaking with The Sun News on the phone from the antique store he owns, Bob House Furniture in Panama City Beach, Duato said he was excited when he saw that “East Bound & Down” would be set in Myrtle Beach.

He remembers hoping he would catch a glimpse of one of his sharks on screen but he never imagined one of his favorite actors would reference him on the show. He missed the first airing of Season 3, Episode 7 that would make his name, and work, a viral catchphrase. Then his phone started to ring with friends buzzing about the show.

Then, his name blew up on the internet.

Duato said he never got paid for having his name used on the T-shirts and in the songs. He briefly considered getting lawyers involved. He wanted to let the world know “that I wasn’t some fictional character,” he said.

But he ultimately let it go. “It’s pretty weird,” he said, “but it’s all good.”

Duato says that he doesn’t have any large sculptures planned for the future and enjoys running his antique store. His daughter is currently in art school in Pensacola and he hopes to one day collaborate with her on some future projects.

Where can Myrtle Beach visitors see Duato’s sculptures?

Back at Jaw’s Resortwear, visitors stop daily to have their picture made in the maw of that monstrous Great White that started it all.

Store owner Moshe’ Eliyahu says that he remembers visiting Duato’s shop with his dad as a boy and the edifice has become a “staple of the area” for vacationers.

He said he has had multiple generations come to take pictures of their kids with the shark and show him old pictures from their own childhoods taken in the same location.

Eliyahu said that the Jaws-inspired shark has stood up well over time due to all the storms that have passed through the area, but he has regularly had the sculpture repainted.

The shark head that once jumped from the Clearview billboard has been restored and is placed at the front corner of the parking lot.

Inside the store, a nearly life-size prop plane with a shark’s teeth painted on its nose hangs from the middle of the ceiling along with at least two other shark sculptures by Bob Duato.

A few other Duato sculptures can still be found along the Grand Strand. A princely frog sits in front of Pacific Superstore on 5th Avenue South in Myrtle Beach, and shoppers can enter through one of his vertical shark’s mouths at the Pacific Beachwear on Old Highway 17N in North Myrtle Beach.

But, the shark featured in “East Bound & Down” at 36th Avenue South in North Myrtle Beach was torn down, a gym in place of the beachwear store that once hosted it.

Broken remnants of a pair of smaller sharks that once served as fountains, now lay stacked among the bushes and road litter under the Sugar Kingdom sign near the Myrtle Beach State Park.

Retro Myrtle Beach Guy, Jordan Farrar, who has a YouTube channel dedicated to promoting Myrtle Beach’s culture and history has devoted several episodes of his channel to Duato and produced a video about those sculptures in hopes of preserving the artist’s work.

Seeing his work being torn down or falling apart is, “like if you saw the house you grew up in falling down. It brings back a little tang of nostalgia,” he said.

“I can’t get too sentimental about it. I have a lot of good memories of Myrtle Beach.””