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Peter Benchley passes on at 65
Feb. 14th, 2006 01:19 pmFrom IMDB.com :
'Jaws' Author Dies
Jaws author Peter Benchley died in his Princeton, New Jersey home on Saturday night. He was 65. The writer, whose 1974 best-selling novel was adapted into Steven Spielberg's movie blockbusters, died from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a progressive and a fatal scarring of the lungs, his widow Wendy confirmed. Despite his novel turning sharks into objects of fear for millions of people around the world, the author was a long-time campaigner for the conservation of the sea creatures. Wendy says, "Spielberg certainly made the most superb movie; Peter was very pleased. 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 is survived by three children and five grandchildren.
What I remember most is what me and my sister fondly recall as a "dad story." Dad stories range from the absolutely bizarre (he worked with the last victim of the Bubonic plague; he contracted it when his wife threw a dead squirrel at him wile on vacation in the islands after learning he was having an affair) to the funny (his swearing date, a girl he went out with who declared loudly after realizing that they'd walked into the movie theater just a moment too late, "Aw shit! We missed the fuckin' Donald Duck!").
The Peter Bencley story is more of a quite, coincidence type dealies. So it goes that my dad was in an elevator in the Newsweek building (where he worked as an assisstant editor in my youth) and a man that he vaguely recognized as being somewhat of a local celebrity stepped in. The man next to him shook his hand with a smile and congratulated him on selling the movie rights to his new book for such a good deal. The new arrival said something about a young director taking it on and that he was pleased with the script. Well, I don't need to tell you who it was or how it turned out, I'm sure!
Peace, Ghani
'Jaws' Author Dies
Jaws author Peter Benchley died in his Princeton, New Jersey home on Saturday night. He was 65. The writer, whose 1974 best-selling novel was adapted into Steven Spielberg's movie blockbusters, died from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a progressive and a fatal scarring of the lungs, his widow Wendy confirmed. Despite his novel turning sharks into objects of fear for millions of people around the world, the author was a long-time campaigner for the conservation of the sea creatures. Wendy says, "Spielberg certainly made the most superb movie; Peter was very pleased. 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 is survived by three children and five grandchildren.
What I remember most is what me and my sister fondly recall as a "dad story." Dad stories range from the absolutely bizarre (he worked with the last victim of the Bubonic plague; he contracted it when his wife threw a dead squirrel at him wile on vacation in the islands after learning he was having an affair) to the funny (his swearing date, a girl he went out with who declared loudly after realizing that they'd walked into the movie theater just a moment too late, "Aw shit! We missed the fuckin' Donald Duck!").
The Peter Bencley story is more of a quite, coincidence type dealies. So it goes that my dad was in an elevator in the Newsweek building (where he worked as an assisstant editor in my youth) and a man that he vaguely recognized as being somewhat of a local celebrity stepped in. The man next to him shook his hand with a smile and congratulated him on selling the movie rights to his new book for such a good deal. The new arrival said something about a young director taking it on and that he was pleased with the script. Well, I don't need to tell you who it was or how it turned out, I'm sure!
Peace, Ghani
