Minoriteeburg
13-02-2006, 19:06
"Jaws" author Peter Benchley dead at 65
by Chris Michaud
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Peter Benchley, author of the best-seller "Jaws" that was the basis for the blockbuster movie that terrified beachgoers and kept many out of the water for years, died at his home at age 65.
Benchley, well-known for other water-based suspense fiction including "The Deep" and "The Island," which also spawned films, died of complications from pulmonary fibrosis his home in Princeton, New Jersey, on Sunday 12 February.
Benchley was diagnosed with the condition last autumn and his health had been diminishing, but his death at this time had not been expected, according to his son-in-law Chris Turner.
"It was peaceful," he said, adding that the writer's wife Wendy and other family members were by his side at their Princeton, New Jersey home.
In addition to the fame he achieved as a novelist, Benchley was a reporter for the Washington Post and Newsweek, wrote for magazines and 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 also the grandson of writer and humorist Robert Benchley, member of the renowned Algonquin Round Table that included personalities such as Dorothy Parker, George S. Kaufman, Robert Sherwood and Alexander Wolcott.
But it was 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. Then, in 1964, he read about a fisherman who caught a 4,550-pound great white shark off Long Island.
LINK (http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/entertainment/previewsandreviews/tm_objectid=16699126&method=full&siteid=50061&headline=-jaws--author-peter-benchley-dead-at-65-name_page.html#story_continue)
This is a really sad day, I was a huge fan of his works (Jaws, The Deep, and The Beast to name a couple). He will be missed. :(
by Chris Michaud
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Peter Benchley, author of the best-seller "Jaws" that was the basis for the blockbuster movie that terrified beachgoers and kept many out of the water for years, died at his home at age 65.
Benchley, well-known for other water-based suspense fiction including "The Deep" and "The Island," which also spawned films, died of complications from pulmonary fibrosis his home in Princeton, New Jersey, on Sunday 12 February.
Benchley was diagnosed with the condition last autumn and his health had been diminishing, but his death at this time had not been expected, according to his son-in-law Chris Turner.
"It was peaceful," he said, adding that the writer's wife Wendy and other family members were by his side at their Princeton, New Jersey home.
In addition to the fame he achieved as a novelist, Benchley was a reporter for the Washington Post and Newsweek, wrote for magazines and 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 also the grandson of writer and humorist Robert Benchley, member of the renowned Algonquin Round Table that included personalities such as Dorothy Parker, George S. Kaufman, Robert Sherwood and Alexander Wolcott.
But it was 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. Then, in 1964, he read about a fisherman who caught a 4,550-pound great white shark off Long Island.
LINK (http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/entertainment/previewsandreviews/tm_objectid=16699126&method=full&siteid=50061&headline=-jaws--author-peter-benchley-dead-at-65-name_page.html#story_continue)
This is a really sad day, I was a huge fan of his works (Jaws, The Deep, and The Beast to name a couple). He will be missed. :(