William Toti is a graduate of Annapolis and a 26-year Navy veteran whose career culminated with tours as captain of the nuclear fast-attack submarine USS Indianapolis (SSN-697) and as commodore of Submarine Squadron 3 in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

In 1994, while serving as Executive Officer (second in command) of the Trident missile submarine USS Florida (SSBN 728), he was involved with Jerry Bruckheimer, Don Simpson, and screenwriter Michael Schiffer in pre-production research for the Denzel Washington character in Crimson Tide (1995).

In 1998, he wrote an unproduced sequel screenplay to Crimson Tide (1995) titled "The Genocide Game" which envisioned an al Qaeda strike on New York City, finishing as a semi-finalist (top 25 scripts of more than 5000 submitted) in the 2001 Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences Nicholl Screenwriting Contest. Later that year, Toti was personally forced to deal with an al Qaeda attack while on duty in the Pentagon during the 9/11 attack. His experience that day was covered in the 2016 PBS documentary 9/11 Inside the Pentagon (2016).

Toti was also involved in the exoneration of Captain Charles Butler McVay, III, the commanding officer of World War II cruiser USS Indianapolis (CA 35), the ship memorialized by Quint's monologue in the movie Jaws (1975). His role in that historical event was covered in the 2015 documentary USS Indianapolis: The Legacy (2015).

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William Toti

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