Peter Benchley, ‘Jaws’ author

NEW YORK – Peter Benchley (65), author of the bestseller ‘Jaws’, which was the basis for the blockbuster movie that terrified beachgoers and kept many out of the water for years, died on Saturday.

Benchley was well-known for other water-based suspense fiction – including ‘The Deep’ and ‘The Island’, which also spawned films. In addition to the fame he achieved as a novelist, Benchley was a reporter for the Washington Post and Newsweek, wrote for magazines and was a speechwriter for President Lyndon B Johnson from 1967 until January, 1969.The Harvard graduate, who grew up in New York City and went to prep school in New Hampshire, was the grandson of writer and humorist Robert Benchley, member of the renowned Algonquin Round Table, which included literary figures such as Dorothy Parker, George S Kaufman, Robert Sherwood and Alexander Wolcott.It was with the 1974 novel ‘Jaws’, about a series of gruesome shark attacks that cause panic in a placid beach resort, that Benchley won the kind of fame rarely accorded any writer of popular fiction.The book has sold more than 20 million copies, and Benchley even had a cameo as a reporter in the 1975 Steven Spielberg film, which spawned a series of inferior sequels.Benchley said he had been interested in sharks since his childhood days spent on the island of Nantucket off Massachusetts.In 1964, he read about a fisherman who caught a 4,550-pound great white shark off Long Island.”I thought to myself, ‘What would happen if one of those came around and wouldn’t go away?’ That was the seed idea of ‘Jaws’,” he said in an interview on his Web site.But he didn’t pursue the idea until 1971.By the time the book, his first novel, came out in early 1974, it had earned more than US$1 million (more than N$6 million) before the first press run, including US$575 000 for the paperback rights and from sales to books clubs and the film’s producers.Benchley continued his lifelong fascination with the sea and its potential terrors with ‘The Deep’, about divers looking for treasure, and ‘The Island’, in which sailors are terrorised by modern-day pirates.Among his latest books was ‘Shark Life: True Stories About Sharks and the Sea’, which was published last year.”Everything I’ve written is based on something that has happened to me or something that I know a great deal about,” Benchley said.”In ‘Jaws’ I knew a great deal about sharks.In ‘The Deep’ I had been lucky enough to learn about Bermuda and to meet Teddy Tucker, a great Bermudan treasure diver, while doing a story for the National Geographic, and I learned about shipwrecks in Bermuda,” he added.But, he noted, he was never injured by any sea creature other than jellyfish stings or wounds from sea urchin spines, although he was nearly bitten by sharks a few times.Other books included ‘White Shark’, ‘Beast’ – about a giant squid – and ‘Rummies’, about an alcoholic’s journey through recovery and rehabilitation.- Nampa-ReutersIn addition to the fame he achieved as a novelist, Benchley was a reporter for the Washington Post and Newsweek, wrote for magazines and was a speechwriter for President Lyndon B Johnson from 1967 until January, 1969.The Harvard graduate, who grew up in New York City and went to prep school in New Hampshire, was the grandson of writer and humorist Robert Benchley, member of the renowned Algonquin Round Table, which included literary figures such as Dorothy Parker, George S Kaufman, Robert Sherwood and Alexander Wolcott.It was with the 1974 novel ‘Jaws’, about a series of gruesome shark attacks that cause panic in a placid beach resort, that Benchley won the kind of fame rarely accorded any writer of popular fiction.The book has sold more than 20 million copies, and Benchley even had a cameo as a reporter in the 1975 Steven Spielberg film, which spawned a series of inferior sequels.Benchley said he had been interested in sharks since his childhood days spent on the island of Nantucket off Massachusetts.In 1964, he read about a fisherman who caught a 4,550-pound great white shark off Long Island.”I thought to myself, ‘What would happen if one of those came around and wouldn’t go away?’ That was the seed idea of ‘Jaws’,” he said in an interview on his Web site.But he didn’t pursue the idea until 1971.By the time the book, his first novel, came out in early 1974, it had earned more than US$1 million (more than N$6 million) before the first press run, including US$575 000 for the paperback rights and from sales to books clubs and the film’s producers.Benchley continued his lifelong fascination with the sea and its potential terrors with ‘The Deep’, about divers looking for treasure, and ‘The Island’, in which sailors are terrorised by modern-day pirates.Among his latest books was ‘Shark Life: True Stories About Sharks and the Sea’, which was published last year.”Everything I’ve written is based on something that has happened to me or something that I know a great deal about,” Benchley said.”In ‘Jaws’ I knew a great deal about sharks.In ‘The Deep’ I had been lucky enough to learn about Bermuda and to meet Teddy Tucker, a great Bermudan treasure diver, while doing a story for the National Geographic, and I learned about shipwrecks in Bermuda,” he added.But, he noted, he was never injured by any sea creature other than jellyfish stings or wounds from sea urchin spines, although he was nearly bitten by sharks a few times.Other books included ‘White Shark’, ‘Beast’ – about a giant squid – and ‘Rummies’, about an alcoholic’s journey through recovery and rehabilitation.- Nampa-Reuters

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