"Jaws" Author Peter Benchley Died at the Age of 65

Peter Benchley, author of the bestseller "Jaws" that was the basis for the blockbuster movie directed by Steven Spielberg, has died at age 65, his family said Sunday. His novel "Jaws" made millions think twice about stepping into the water even as the author himself became an advocate for the conservation of sharks.


His widow, Wendy Benchley, married to the author for 41 years, said he died Saturday night at their home in Princeton from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a progressive and fatal scarring of the lungs.


Thanks to Benchley's 1974 novel, and Steven Spielberg's blockbuster movie of the same name, the simple pastime of ocean swimming became synonymous with fatal horror, of still water followed by ominous, pumping music, then teeth and blood and panic. "Spielberg certainly made the most superb movie; Peter was very pleased," Wendy Benchley said. "But Peter kept telling people the book was fiction, it was a novel, and that he no more took responsibility for the fear of sharks than Mario Puzo took responsibility for the Mafia."


Benchley, the grandson of humorist Robert Benchley and son of author Nathaniel Benchley, was born in New York City in 1940. He attended the elite Philips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, then graduated from Harvard University in 1961. He worked at The Washington Post and Newsweek and spent two years as a speechwriter for President Johnson, writing some "difficult" speeches about the Vietnam War, Wendy Benchley said.


Besides his wife, Peter Benchley is survived by three children and five grandchildren. A small family service will take place next week in Princeton, Wendy Benchley said.