Who is Peter Benchley?

Peter Benchley spent his summers on Nantucket Island, off the coast of Massachusetts, and when, he would go sailing or fishing – or even, sometimes, just swimming in the surf- the black dorsal fins of sharks could be seen slicing through the surface of the sea. He had always been fascinated by sharks.

His fascination continued through his years at Phillips Exeter Academy (1957) and Harvard College (’61), and when he became a professional writer in the 1960’s, he took every opportunity to do articles about sharks. In 1964,  there was a newspaper item about a fisherman who caught a 4,550-lb. Great White Shark not far offshore from Montauk, Long Island, and Benchley wondered what would happen if such a huge shark were to appear in a seaside resort community.  At the time did nothing with the idea, but seven years later Benchley began to weave it into the story that would become the novel ”Jaws.”

After graduation from college, Benchley traveled around the world for a year and wrote a book about the trip(“Time And A Ticket”),  he served briefly in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve and, at last, got a job and settled down as a reporter for The Washington Post. In 1964, he moved to Newsweek, where he was the Radio & TV editor, and then, in 1967, Benchley was hired as a junior speechwriter for President Lyndon Johnson. When President Johnson left office in January of 1969, he began a career as a freelance writer.

Benchley wrote stories for dozens of newspapers and magazines, including National Geographic, The New Yorker, LIFE, and The New York Times. He wrote novels – seven more following “Jaws,” including “The Deep” and “The Girl Of The Sea Of Cortez” – and when, occasionally, the novels were bought by movie companies, Benchley wrote their screenplays.

Always, though, Benchley continued to be interested in sharks and the sea, and his family and he have dived all over the world with wonderful creatures. He has written, narrated and been in dozens of television documentaries about marine life. In 2005 he was a full-time marine conservationist, writing and speaking about the issues facing our oceans and their precious inhabitants … including, of course, sharks.

Benchley died in February 2006 at the age of sixty-five.