Peter Benchley
Encyclopedia
Peter Bradford Benchley (May 8, 1940 – February 11, 2006) was an American
author
, best known for his novel Jaws
and its subsequent film adaptation
, the latter co-written by Benchley (with Carl Gottlieb
) and directed by Steven Spielberg
. Several more of his works were also adapted for cinema, including The Deep
and The Island
.
and grandson of Algonquin Round Table
founder Robert Benchley
. His younger brother, Nat Benchley
, is a writer and actor. Peter Benchley was an alumnus of Phillips Exeter Academy
and Harvard University
.
After graduating from college, he worked for The Washington Post
, then as an editor
at Newsweek
and a speechwriter in the White House
for President Lyndon Johnson.
He developed the idea of a man-eating shark terrorising a community after reading of a fisherman catching a 4,550 pound great white shark
off the coast of Long Island
in 1964. He also drew some material from the tragic Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916
.
. Congdon offered Benchley an advance of $1,000 leading to the novelist submitting the first 100 pages. Much of the work had to be rewritten as the publisher was not happy with the initial tone. Benchley worked by winter in a room above a furnace company in Pennington, New Jersey
, and in the summer in a converted turkey coop in Stonington, Connecticut
.
Jaws was published in 1974 and became a great success, staying on the bestseller list for some 44 weeks. Steven Spielberg has said that he initially found many of the characters unsympathetic and wanted the shark to win. Book critics such as Michael A. Rogers of Rolling Stone Magazine shared the sentiment but the book struck a chord with readers.
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. The film, starring Roy Scheider
, Robert Shaw
, and Richard Dreyfuss
, was released in the summer season, traditionally considered to be the graveyard season for films. However, Universal Studios
decided to break tradition by releasing the movie with extensive television advertising. Tautly edited by Verna Fields
, featuring an ominous score by John Williams
and infused with such an air of understated menace by director Steven Spielberg
that he was hailed as the heir apparent to "Master of Suspense" Alfred Hitchcock
, Jaws
became the first movie to gross $100 million at the US box office. It eventually grossed $450 million worldwide. George Lucas
used a similar strategy in 1977 for Star Wars
which broke the box office records set by Jaws, and hence the summer blockbuster
was born. The film spawned three sequels, none of which matched the success of the original critically or commercially, two video games, "Jaws
" in 1987 and "Jaws Unleashed
" in 2006; both met with mostly negative critical attention. The film was also adapted into a theme park attraction at Universal Studios Florida
(in Orlando, Florida
and Hollywood, California), and two musicals
: "JAWS The Musical!", which premiered in the summer of 2004 at the Minnesota Fringe Festival
; and "Giant Killer Shark: The Musical", which premiered in the summer of 2006 at the Toronto Fringe Festival
.
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.
with diver Teddy Tucker while writing a story for National Geographic Magazine
. Benchley co-wrote the screenplay for the 1977 film release, along with Tracy Keenan Wynn and an uncredited Tom Mankiewicz
. Directed by Peter Yates
and starring Robert Shaw
, Nick Nolte
and Jacqueline Bisset
, The Deep
was a moderate success, and one of the Top 10 highest grossing films in the US in 1977, though its box office tally fell well short of Jaws
.
The Island, published in 1979, was a story of descendants of 17th century pirates who terrorize pleasure craft in the Caribbean, leading to the Bermuda Triangle
mystery. Benchley again wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation. But the movie version of The Island
, starring Michael Caine
and co-starring David Warner
, failed at the box office when released in 1980.
During the 1980s, Benchley wrote three novels that did not sell as well as his previous works. However, Girl of the Sea of Cortez, a beguiling John Steinbeck
-type fable about man's complicated relationship with the sea, was far and away his best reviewed book and has attracted a considerable cult following since its publication. Sea of Cortez signposted Benchley's growing interest in ecological issues and anticipated his future role as an impassioned and intelligent defender of the importance of redressing the current imbalance between human activities and the marine environment. Q Clearance published in 1986 was written from his experience as a staffer in the Johnson White House
. Rummies (aka Lush), which appeared in 1989, is a semi-autobiographical work, loosely inspired by the Benchley family's history of alcohol abuse. While the first half of the novel is a relatively straightforward (and harrowing) account of a suburbanite's descent into alcoholic hell, the second part—which takes place at a New Mexico substance abuse clinic—veers off into wildly improbable thriller-type territory.
He returned to nautical themes in 1991's Beast written about a giant squid
threatening Bermuda. Beast was brought to the small screen as a made for TV movie
in 1996, under the slightly altered title The Beast
. His next novel, White Shark
, was published in 1994. The story of a Nazi-created genetically engineered shark/human hybrid, failed to achieve popular or critical success. It was also turned into a made-for-TV movie titled Creature, with Christopher Lehmann-Haupt
of the New York Times saying it "looks more like Arnold Schwarzenegger
than any fish". 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. Among these was his book entitled Shark Trouble, which illustrated how hype and news sensationalism can help undermine the public's need to understand marine ecosystems and the potential negative consequences as humans interact with it. This work, which had editions in 2001 and 2003, was written to help a post-Jaws public to more fully understand "the sea in all its beauty, mystery, and power." It details the ways in which man seems to have become more of an aggressor in his relationship with sharks, acting out of ignorance and greed as several of the species become increasingly threatened by overfishing.
Benchley was a member of the National Council of Environmental Defense and a spokesman for its Oceans Program: "[T]he shark in an updated Jaws could not be the villain; it would have to be written as the victim; for, worldwide, sharks are much more the oppressed than the oppressors."
He was also one of the founding board members of the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute (BUEI).
Benchley died of pulmonary fibrosis
in 2006.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
, best known for his novel Jaws
Jaws (novel)
Jaws is a 1974 novel by Peter Benchley. It tells the story of a great white shark that preys upon a small resort town, and the voyage of three men to kill it....
and its subsequent film adaptation
Jaws (film)
Jaws is a 1975 American horror-thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley's novel of the same name. In the story, the police chief of Amity Island, a fictional summer resort town, tries to protect beachgoers from a giant man-eating great white shark by closing the beach,...
, the latter co-written by Benchley (with Carl Gottlieb
Carl Gottlieb
Carl Gottlieb is an American screenwriter, actor, comedian and executive. He is probably best known for co-writing the screenplay for Jaws, as well as directing the 1981 low-budget cult film Caveman.-Early life:...
) and directed by Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
. Several more of his works were also adapted for cinema, including The Deep
The Deep (film)
The Deep is a 1977 adventure film directed by Peter Yates and based on Peter Benchley's novel of the same name. The film stars Robert Shaw, Jacqueline Bisset, and Nick Nolte.-Plot:...
and The Island
The Island (1979 novel)
The Island is a novel by Peter Benchley, published in 1979 by Doubleday & Co.-Plot summary:Blair Maynard, a divorced journalist in New York City, decides to write a story about the unexplained disappearance of yachts and other small boats in the Caribbean, hoping to debunk theories about the...
.
Early life
He was the son of author Nathaniel BenchleyNathaniel Benchley
Nathaniel Benchley was an American author.Born in Newton, Massachusetts to a literary family, he was the son of Gertrude Darling and Robert Benchley , the noted American writer, humorist, critic, actor, and one of the founders of the Algonquin Round Table in New York City...
and grandson of Algonquin Round Table
Algonquin Round Table
The Algonquin Round Table was a celebrated group of New York City writers, critics, actors and wits. Gathering initially as part of a practical joke, members of "The Vicious Circle", as they dubbed themselves, met for lunch each day at the Algonquin Hotel from 1919 until roughly 1929...
founder Robert Benchley
Robert Benchley
Robert Charles Benchley was an American humorist best known for his work as a newspaper columnist and film actor...
. His younger brother, Nat Benchley
Nat Benchley
Nathaniel Robert "Nat" Benchley is a writer and actor who has performed on stage, television, and film. He is the grandson of humorist Robert Benchley, the son of author Nathaniel G...
, is a writer and actor. Peter Benchley was an alumnus of Phillips Exeter Academy
Phillips Exeter Academy
Phillips Exeter Academy is a private secondary school located in Exeter, New Hampshire, in the United States.Exeter is noted for its application of Harkness education, a system based on a conference format of teacher and student interaction, similar to the Socratic method of learning through asking...
and Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
.
After graduating from college, he worked for The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
, then as an editor
Editing
Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information through the processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate, and complete...
at Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
and a speechwriter in the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
for President Lyndon Johnson.
He developed the idea of a man-eating shark terrorising a community after reading of a fisherman catching a 4,550 pound great white shark
Great white shark
The great white shark, scientific name Carcharodon carcharias, also known as the great white, white pointer, white shark, or white death, is a large lamniform shark found in coastal surface waters in all major oceans. It is known for its size, with the largest individuals known to have approached...
off the coast of Long Island
Long Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...
in 1964. He also drew some material from the tragic Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916
Jersey Shore Shark Attacks of 1916
The Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916 were a series of shark attacks along the coast of New Jersey between July 1 and July 12, 1916, in which four people were killed and one injured. Since 1916, scholars have debated which shark species was responsible and the number of animals involved, with the...
.
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. The idea was inspired by the several great white sharks caught in the 1960s off Long Island and Block Island by the Montauk charterboat captain Frank MundusFrank Mundus
Frank Mundus was a sport fisherman at Montauk, New York who is said to be the inspiration for the character Quint in the movie and book Jaws...
. Congdon offered Benchley an advance of $1,000 leading to the novelist submitting the first 100 pages. Much of the work had to be rewritten as the publisher was not happy with the initial tone. Benchley worked by winter in a room above a furnace company in Pennington, New Jersey
Pennington, New Jersey
Pennington is a Borough in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough population was 2,585.Pennington was established as a borough by an Act of the New Jersey Legislature on January 31, 1890, from portions of Hopewell Township, based on the results of...
, and in the summer in a converted turkey coop in Stonington, Connecticut
Stonington, Connecticut
The Town of Stonington is located in New London County, Connecticut, in the state's southeastern corner. It includes the borough of Stonington, the villages of Pawcatuck, Lords Point, Wequetequock, the eastern halves of the villages of Mystic and Old Mystic...
.
Jaws was published in 1974 and became a great success, staying on the bestseller list for some 44 weeks. Steven Spielberg has said that he initially found many of the characters unsympathetic and wanted the shark to win. Book critics such as Michael A. Rogers of Rolling Stone Magazine shared the sentiment but the book struck a chord with readers.
Benchley co-wrote the screenplay
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
with Carl Gottlieb
Carl Gottlieb
Carl Gottlieb is an American screenwriter, actor, comedian and executive. He is probably best known for co-writing the screenplay for Jaws, as well as directing the 1981 low-budget cult film Caveman.-Early life:...
(along with the uncredited Howard Sackler
Howard Sackler
Howard Oliver Sackler , was an American screenwriter and playwright who is best known for writing The Great White Hope . The Great White Hope enjoyed both a successful run on Broadway and, as a film adaptation, in movie theaters...
and John Milius
John Milius
John Frederick Milius is an American screenwriter, director, and producer of motion pictures.-Early life:Milius was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Elizabeth and William Styx Milius, who was a shoe manufacturer. Milius attempted to join the Marine Corps in the late 1960s, but was rejected...
, who provided the first draft of the memorable USS Indianapolis
USS Indianapolis (CA-35)
USS Indianapolis was a of the United States Navy. She holds a place in history due to the circumstances of her sinking, which led to the greatest single loss of life at sea in the history of the U.S. Navy...
speech) for the Spielberg film released in 1975. Benchley made a cameo appearance
Cameo appearance
A cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television...
as a news reporter on the beach. The film, starring Roy Scheider
Roy Scheider
Roy Richard Scheider was an American actor. He was best known for his leading role as police chief Martin C...
, Robert Shaw
Robert Shaw (actor)
Robert Archibald Shaw was an English actor and novelist, remembered for his performances in The Sting , From Russia with Love , A Man for All Seasons , the original The Taking of Pelham One Two Three , Black Sunday , The Deep and Jaws , where he played the shark hunter Quint.-Early life...
, and Richard Dreyfuss
Richard Dreyfuss
Richard Stephen Dreyfuss is an American actor best known for starring in a number of film, television, and theater roles since the late 1960s, including the films American Graffiti, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Goodbye Girl, Whose Life Is It Anyway?, Stakeout, Always, What About...
, was released in the summer season, traditionally considered to be the graveyard season for films. However, Universal Studios
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
decided to break tradition by releasing the movie with extensive television advertising. Tautly edited by Verna Fields
Verna Fields
Verna Fields was an American film editor, film and television sound editor, educator, and entertainment industry executive. In the first phase of her career, from 1954 through to about 1970, Fields mostly worked on smaller projects that gained little recognition. She was the sound editor for...
, featuring an ominous score by John Williams
John Williams
John Towner Williams is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. In a career spanning almost six decades, he has composed some of the most recognizable film scores in the history of motion pictures, including the Star Wars saga, Jaws, Superman, the Indiana Jones films, E.T...
and infused with such an air of understated menace by director Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
that he was hailed as the heir apparent to "Master of Suspense" Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
, Jaws
Jaws (film)
Jaws is a 1975 American horror-thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley's novel of the same name. In the story, the police chief of Amity Island, a fictional summer resort town, tries to protect beachgoers from a giant man-eating great white shark by closing the beach,...
became the first movie to gross $100 million at the US box office. It eventually grossed $450 million worldwide. George Lucas
George Lucas
George Walton Lucas, Jr. is an American film producer, screenwriter, and director, and entrepreneur. He is the founder, chairman and chief executive of Lucasfilm. He is best known as the creator of the space opera franchise Star Wars and the archaeologist-adventurer character Indiana Jones...
used a similar strategy in 1977 for Star Wars
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, originally released as Star Wars, is a 1977 American epic space opera film, written and directed by George Lucas. It is the first of six films released in the Star Wars saga: two subsequent films complete the original trilogy, while a prequel trilogy completes the...
which broke the box office records set by Jaws, and hence the summer blockbuster
Blockbuster (entertainment)
Blockbuster, as applied to film or theatre, denotes a very popular or successful production. The entertainment industry use was originally theatrical slang referring to a particularly successful play but is now used primarily by the film industry...
was born. The film spawned three sequels, none of which matched the success of the original critically or commercially, two video games, "Jaws
Jaws (video game)
Jaws is an NES game based on the film franchise of the same name, specifically Jaws: The Revenge, the fourth and final film in the series...
" in 1987 and "Jaws Unleashed
Jaws Unleashed
Jaws Unleashed is a 2006 video game licensed from the 1975 motion picture, Jaws. It was developed by Appaloosa Interactive and released by Majesco. Like the Grand Theft Auto series, the game is open-ended; the player can roam free throughout the water, feeding on other animals & humans and...
" in 2006; both met with mostly negative critical attention. The film was also adapted into a theme park attraction at Universal Studios Florida
Universal Studios Florida
Universal Studios Florida is an American theme park located in Orlando, Florida. Opened on June 7, 1990, the park's theme is the entertainment industry, in particular movies and television. Universal Studios Florida inspires its guests to "ride the movies," and it features numerous attractions and...
(in Orlando, Florida
Orlando, Florida
Orlando is a city in the central region of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat of Orange County, and the center of the Greater Orlando metropolitan area. According to the 2010 US Census, the city had a population of 238,300, making Orlando the 79th largest city in the United States...
and Hollywood, California), and two musicals
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
: "JAWS The Musical!", which premiered in the summer of 2004 at the Minnesota Fringe Festival
Minnesota Fringe Festival
The Minnesota Fringe Festival is a performing arts festival held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, every summer, usually during the first two weeks in August. The eleven-day event, which features performing artists of many genres and disciplines, is one of many Fringe Festivals in North...
; and "Giant Killer Shark: The Musical", which premiered in the summer of 2006 at the Toronto Fringe Festival
Toronto Fringe Festival
The Toronto Fringe Festival is an annual theatre festival, featuring uncensored plays by unknown or well-known artists, taking place in the theatres of Toronto. Several productions originally mounted at the Fringe have later been remounted for larger audiences, including the Tony Award-winning...
.
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.
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 BermudaBermuda
Bermuda is a British overseas territory in the North Atlantic Ocean. Located off the east coast of the United States, its nearest landmass is Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, about to the west-northwest. It is about south of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and northeast of Miami, Florida...
with diver Teddy Tucker while writing a story for National Geographic Magazine
National Geographic Magazine
National Geographic, formerly the National Geographic Magazine, is the official journal of the National Geographic Society. It published its first issue in 1888, just nine months after the Society itself was founded...
. Benchley co-wrote the screenplay for the 1977 film release, along with Tracy Keenan Wynn and an uncredited Tom Mankiewicz
Tom Mankiewicz
Thomas Frank Mankiewicz was a screenwriter/director/producer of motion pictures and television, perhaps best known for his work on the James Bond films and his contributions to Superman: The Movie and the television series, Hart to Hart.-Early life and career:Mankiewicz was born in Los Angeles on...
. Directed by Peter Yates
Peter Yates
Peter James Yates was an English director and producer. He was born in Aldershot, Hampshire.The son of an army officer, he attended Charterhouse School as a boy, graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and worked for some years as an actor, director and stage manager...
and starring Robert Shaw
Robert Shaw (actor)
Robert Archibald Shaw was an English actor and novelist, remembered for his performances in The Sting , From Russia with Love , A Man for All Seasons , the original The Taking of Pelham One Two Three , Black Sunday , The Deep and Jaws , where he played the shark hunter Quint.-Early life...
, Nick Nolte
Nick Nolte
Nicholas King "Nick" Nolte is an American actor whose career has spanned over five decades, peaking in the 1990s when his commercial success made him one of the most popular celebrities of that decade.-Early life:...
and Jacqueline Bisset
Jacqueline Bisset
Jacqueline Bisset is an English actress. She has been nominated for four Golden Globe Awards and an Emmy Award. She is known for her roles in the films Bullitt , Airport , The Deep , Class , and the TV series Nip/Tuck in 2006...
, The Deep
The Deep (film)
The Deep is a 1977 adventure film directed by Peter Yates and based on Peter Benchley's novel of the same name. The film stars Robert Shaw, Jacqueline Bisset, and Nick Nolte.-Plot:...
was a moderate success, and one of the Top 10 highest grossing films in the US in 1977, though its box office tally fell well short of Jaws
Jaws (film)
Jaws is a 1975 American horror-thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley's novel of the same name. In the story, the police chief of Amity Island, a fictional summer resort town, tries to protect beachgoers from a giant man-eating great white shark by closing the beach,...
.
The Island, published in 1979, was a story of descendants of 17th century pirates who terrorize pleasure craft in the Caribbean, leading to the Bermuda Triangle
Bermuda Triangle
The Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil's Triangle, is a region in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean where a number of aircraft and surface vessels allegedly disappeared under mysterious circumstances....
mystery. Benchley again wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation. But the movie version of The Island
The Island (1980 film)
The Island is a 1980 American thriller film, directed by Michael Ritchie and starring Michael Caine and David Warner. The film was based on a novel of the same name by Peter Benchley who also wrote the screenplay...
, starring Michael Caine
Michael Caine
Sir Michael Caine, CBE is an English actor. He won Academy Awards for best supporting actor in both Hannah and Her Sisters and The Cider House Rules ....
and co-starring David Warner
David Warner (actor)
David Warner is an English actor who is known for playing both romantic leads and sinister or villainous characters, both in film and animation...
, failed at the box office when released in 1980.
During the 1980s, Benchley wrote three novels that did not sell as well as his previous works. However, Girl of the Sea of Cortez, a beguiling John Steinbeck
John Steinbeck
John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. was an American writer. He is widely known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden and the novella Of Mice and Men...
-type fable about man's complicated relationship with the sea, was far and away his best reviewed book and has attracted a considerable cult following since its publication. Sea of Cortez signposted Benchley's growing interest in ecological issues and anticipated his future role as an impassioned and intelligent defender of the importance of redressing the current imbalance between human activities and the marine environment. Q Clearance published in 1986 was written from his experience as a staffer in the Johnson White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
. Rummies (aka Lush), which appeared in 1989, is a semi-autobiographical work, loosely inspired by the Benchley family's history of alcohol abuse. While the first half of the novel is a relatively straightforward (and harrowing) account of a suburbanite's descent into alcoholic hell, the second part—which takes place at a New Mexico substance abuse clinic—veers off into wildly improbable thriller-type territory.
He returned to nautical themes in 1991's Beast written about a giant squid
Giant squid
The giant squid is a deep-ocean dwelling squid in the family Architeuthidae, represented by as many as eight species...
threatening Bermuda. Beast was brought to the small screen as a made for TV movie
Television movie
A television film is a feature film that is a television program produced for and originally distributed by a television network, in contrast to...
in 1996, under the slightly altered title The Beast
The Beast (1996 film)
The Beast is a 1996 made for TV movie starring William Petersen, Karen Sillas and Charles Martin Smith. The movie is based on the 1991 novel Beast by Jaws author Peter Benchley. The film is about a giant squid that attacks and kills several people when its food supply becomes scarce and its...
. His next novel, White Shark
White Shark (novel)
White Shark is a 1994 novel by author Peter Benchley, famous for Jaws, The Island, Beast and The Deep. It is similar to Jaws, but it does not feature a shark, unlike the title suggests...
, was published in 1994. The story of a Nazi-created genetically engineered shark/human hybrid, failed to achieve popular or critical success. It was also turned into a made-for-TV movie titled Creature, with Christopher Lehmann-Haupt
Christopher Lehmann-Haupt
Christopher Lehmann-Haupt is an American journalist, critic and novelist who has worked in the field of books all of his professional career. He began as an editor for various New York City publishing houses, among them Holt, Rinehart and Winston and The Dial Press, from where he moved in 1965 to...
of the New York Times saying it "looks more like Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger is an Austrian-American former professional bodybuilder, actor, businessman, investor, and politician. Schwarzenegger served as the 38th Governor of California from 2003 until 2011....
than any fish". 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. Among these was his book entitled Shark Trouble, which illustrated how hype and news sensationalism can help undermine the public's need to understand marine ecosystems and the potential negative consequences as humans interact with it. This work, which had editions in 2001 and 2003, was written to help a post-Jaws public to more fully understand "the sea in all its beauty, mystery, and power." It details the ways in which man seems to have become more of an aggressor in his relationship with sharks, acting out of ignorance and greed as several of the species become increasingly threatened by overfishing.
Benchley was a member of the National Council of Environmental Defense and a spokesman for its Oceans Program: "[T]he shark in an updated Jaws could not be the villain; it would have to be written as the victim; for, worldwide, sharks are much more the oppressed than the oppressors."
He was also one of the founding board members of the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute (BUEI).
Benchley died of pulmonary fibrosis
Pulmonary fibrosis
Pulmonary fibrosis is the formation or development of excess fibrous connective tissue in the lungs. It is also described as "scarring of the lung".-Symptoms:Symptoms of pulmonary fibrosis are mainly:...
in 2006.
Fiction
- JawsJaws (novel)Jaws is a 1974 novel by Peter Benchley. It tells the story of a great white shark that preys upon a small resort town, and the voyage of three men to kill it....
(1974) - The Deep (1976)
- The IslandThe Island (1979 novel)The Island is a novel by Peter Benchley, published in 1979 by Doubleday & Co.-Plot summary:Blair Maynard, a divorced journalist in New York City, decides to write a story about the unexplained disappearance of yachts and other small boats in the Caribbean, hoping to debunk theories about the...
(1979) - The Girl of the Sea of Cortez (1982)
- Q Clearance (1986)
- Rummies (1989)
- The BeastThe Beast (1996 film)The Beast is a 1996 made for TV movie starring William Petersen, Karen Sillas and Charles Martin Smith. The movie is based on the 1991 novel Beast by Jaws author Peter Benchley. The film is about a giant squid that attacks and kills several people when its food supply becomes scarce and its...
(1991) - White SharkWhite Shark (novel)White Shark is a 1994 novel by author Peter Benchley, famous for Jaws, The Island, Beast and The Deep. It is similar to Jaws, but it does not feature a shark, unlike the title suggests...
(1994) - Creature (re-publishing of White Shark) (1997)
Non-fiction
- 1964: Time and a Ticket
- 1970: Life's Tempo on Nantucket
- 1994: Ocean Planet: Writings and Images of the Sea
- 2001: Shark Trouble: True Stories About Sharks and the Sea
- 2002: Shark!: True Stories and Lessons from the Deep
- 2005: Shark Life: True Stories About Sharks and the Sea (with Karen Wojtyla)
Film
- JawsJaws (film)Jaws is a 1975 American horror-thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley's novel of the same name. In the story, the police chief of Amity Island, a fictional summer resort town, tries to protect beachgoers from a giant man-eating great white shark by closing the beach,...
, 1975 film adaptation; actor: Interviewer. - The DeepThe Deep (film)The Deep is a 1977 adventure film directed by Peter Yates and based on Peter Benchley's novel of the same name. The film stars Robert Shaw, Jacqueline Bisset, and Nick Nolte.-Plot:...
, 1977 film adaptation - Jaws 2Jaws 2Jaws 2 is a 1978 thriller film and the first sequel to Steven Spielberg's Jaws , which is based on Peter Benchley's novel of the same name...
, based on characters from Jaws - The Island, 1980 film adaptation
- Jaws 3-DJaws 3-DJaws 3-D is a 1983 thriller film directed by Joe Alves and starring Dennis Quaid, Bess Armstrong, Lea Thompson and Louis Gossett, Jr...
(a.k.a. Jaws 3), based on characters from Jaws - Jaws: The RevengeJaws: The RevengeJaws: The Revenge, Also known as, 'Jaws 4: The Revenge', is a 1987 thriller film directed by Joseph Sargent. It is the third sequel to Steven Spielberg's Jaws and the final installment of the series....
, a fourth film based on characters from Jaws - Dolphin Cove, 1989 TV series
- The BeastThe Beast (1996 film)The Beast is a 1996 made for TV movie starring William Petersen, Karen Sillas and Charles Martin Smith. The movie is based on the 1991 novel Beast by Jaws author Peter Benchley. The film is about a giant squid that attacks and kills several people when its food supply becomes scarce and its...
, 1996 TV film adaptation - CreatureCreature (TV movie)Creature is a 1998 made for TV movie starring Craig T. Nelson, Kim Cattrall and Matthew Carey. The movie is based on the 1994 novel White Shark by Jaws author Peter Benchley...
, 1998 TV film adaptation - Amazon, 1999 TV series
- Mrs. Parker and the Vicious CircleMrs. Parker and the Vicious CircleMrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle is a 1994 film scripted by writer/director Alan Rudolph and former Washington Star reporter Randy Sue Coburn...
, 1994 (actor, as Frank Crowninshield)
See also
- Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916Jersey Shore Shark Attacks of 1916The Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916 were a series of shark attacks along the coast of New Jersey between July 1 and July 12, 1916, in which four people were killed and one injured. Since 1916, scholars have debated which shark species was responsible and the number of animals involved, with the...
- List of bestselling novels in the United States