Peter Benchley, Speechwriter, Author
Sad to note the passing of a speechwriter, who, as is often the case, brought his ability to tell a great story to his craft of speechwriting:
Peter Benchley, whose novel “Jaws” made millions think twice about stepping into the water even as the author himself became an advocate for shark conservation, died Feb. 11 of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a progressive and fatal scarring of the lungs, according to his wife. He was 65. Thanks to Benchley’s 1974 novel, and Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster movie of the same name, a simple dip in the ocean became synonymous with fatal horror. Born in New York City in 1940, Benchley 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. The author’s interest began with childhood visits to Nantucket Island in Massachusetts and heightening in the mid-1960s when he read about a fisherman catching a 4,550-pound great white shark off Long Island, the setting for his novel.
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