Novelist, journalist, and screenwriter, born in New York City, New York, USA, the son of writer Nathaniel Benchley and grandson of the humorist Robert Benchley. As a child, he made many trips with his family to Nantucket Island, MA where he developed a lifelong interest in sharks. He studied at the Philips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, and graduated from Harvard University in 1961. Taking up a career in freelance journalism, he joined The Washington Post, became an editor for Newsweek, and spent two years as a speechwriter for President Lyndon Johnson. He also published several novels, but it is for his first book, Jaws (1974), that he is best known, and he later co-wrote the screenplay for Steven Spielberg's hugely successful 1975 film version of the same name. A keen conservationist, he served on the national council of Environmental Defence, was a regular contributor to National Geographic magazine, and wrote and presented television wildlife programmes.
Peter Benchley|
Benchley being interviewed about Jaws |
|
| Born: |
May 8, 1940 New York City |
|---|---|
| Died: |
February 11, 2006 Princeton, New Jersey |
| Occupation: | Author |
| Website: | Official site |
Peter Bradford Benchley (May 8, 1940 – February 11, 2006) was an American author best known for writing the novel Jaws and co-writing the screenplay for its highly successful film adaptation. The subsequent film directed by Steven Spielberg and co-written by Benchley is generally acknowledged as the first summer blockbuster. Benchley also wrote The Deep and The Island which were also adapted into films.
Early life
Benchley was from a literary family. He was the son of author Nathaniel Benchley and grandson of Algonquin Round Table founder Robert Benchley. Peter Benchley was an alumnus of Phillips Exeter Academy and Harvard University.
After graduating college, he worked for The Washington Post, then as an editor at Newsweek and a speechwriter in the White House.
Jaws
Doubleday editor Tom Congdon saw some of Benchley's articles and invited Benchley to lunch to discuss some ideas for books. Congdon was not impressed by Benchley's proposals for non-fiction but was interested in his idea of a novel about a great white shark terrorizing a beach resort. Congdon offered Benchley an advance of $1,000 leading to the novelist submitting the first 100 pages.
Jaws was published in 1974 and became a great success, staying on the bestseller list for some 44 weeks.
Benchley co-wrote the screenplay with Carl Gottlieb (along with the uncredited Howard Sackler and John Milius, who provided the first draft of the memorable USS Indianapolis speech) for the Spielberg film released in 1975. Benchley made a cameo appearance as a news reporter on the beach.
Benchley estimated that he earned enough from book sales, film rights and magazine/book club syndication to be able to work independently as a film writer for ten years ("Peter Benchley "Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2003).
Subsequent career
His reasonably successful second novel, The Deep, is about a honeymooning couple discovering two sunken treasures on the Bermuda reefs -- 17th century Spanish gold and a fortune in World War Two-era morphine -- who are subsequently targeted by a drug syndicate. This 1976 novel is based on Benchley's chance meeting in Bermuda with diver Teddy Tucker while writing a story for National Geographic. Benchley co-wrote the screenplay for the 1977 film release, along with Tracy Keenan Wynn and an uncredited Tom Mankiewicz.
The Island, published in 1979, was a story of descendants of 17th century pirates who terrorize pleasure craft in the Caribbean, providing a logical explanation to the Bermuda Triangle mystery. Benchley again wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation.
During the 1980s, Benchley wrote three novels that did not sell as well as his previous works. Sea of Cortez signposted Benchley's growing interest in ecological issues and anticipated his future role as an impassioned and intelligent advocate for redressing the current imbalance between human activities and the marine environment. Rummies, which appeared in 1989, is a semi-autobiographical work, loosely inspired by the Benchley family's history of alcohol abuse. ("Peter Benchley" Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2003) White Shark was also converted into a TV movie in 1998, under the name Peter Benchley's Creature. In 1999, the television show Peter Benchley's Amazon was created, about a group of plane crash survivors in the middle of a vast jungle.
In the last decade of his career, Benchley wrote non-fiction works about the sea and about sharks advocating their conservation.
"If I were to try to write Jaws today, I couldn't do it.
Death
Benchley died of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a progressive and a fatal scarring of the lungs, at his home in Princeton, New Jersey, on February 11, 2006.
User Comments Add a comment…