'Jaws' Author Peter Benchley Dies at 65
NEW YORK - Peter Benchley, whose novel "Jaws" made millions think twice about stepping into the water even as the author himself became an advocate for the conservation of sharks, has died at age 65, his widow said Sunday.
Wendy Benchley, married to the author for 41 years, said he died Saturday night at their home in Princeton, N.J. The cause of death, she said, was 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 told The Associated Press.
"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.
A 1974 article in People magazine described Benchley as "Tall, slender and movie-star handsome, with eyes like the deep blue sea." The author's interest in sharks was lifelong, beginning 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.
"I thought to myself, `What would happen if one of those came around and wouldn't go away?"' he recalled. Benchley didn't start the novel, for which he received a $7,500 advance, until 1971 because he was too busy with his day jobs.
"There was no particular influence. My idea was to tell my first novel as a sort of long story ... just to see if I could do it. I had been a freelance writer since I was 16, and I sold things to various magazines and newspapers whenever I could."
The editor of "Jaws," Thomas Congdon, told The Associated Press on Sunday that he had been impressed by some articles Benchley wrote for National Geographic and arranged a lunch at a French restaurant in New York — "a second-class restaurant, not first class, since he was an unknown."
"The lunch didn't go very well," said Congdon, an editor at Doubleday at the time and now retired. "His nonfiction ideas did not seem very promising, but at the end of the meal, I said, `Have you ever thought of writing a novel?' And he said, `Well, I have an idea about a great white shark that marauds an Eastern coastal town and provokes a moral crisis in the community.'"
Congdon loved the idea, but said Benchley was reluctant to start the book because he couldn't afford time away from his journalistic work. So Congdon got him $1,000 as a down payment, in return for an initial submission of 100 pages.
"Ninety-five percent of it was jokey stuff, because he thought that was the way you do it," said Congdon, who dismissed a longtime publishing legend that the book was heavily edited and as much his triumph as Benchley's.
"But the first five pages were wonderful. There were no jokes. I wrote heavily in the margin: `NO JOKES.' He went out and did it again, and it generated whole industries — the movie, amusement park rides. It changed the way people looked at sharks."
While Peter Benchley co-wrote the screenplay for "Jaws," and authored several other novels, including "The Deep" and "The Island," Wendy Benchley said he was especially proud of his conservation work. He served on the national council of Environmental Defense, hosted numerous television wildlife programs, gave speeches around the world and wrote articles for National Geographic and other publications.
"He cared very much about sharks. He spent most of his life trying to explain to people that if you are in the ocean, you're in the shark's territory, so it behooves you to take precautions," Wendy Benchley said.
The author did not abide by the mayhem his book evoked. In fact, he was quite at ease around sharks, his widow said. She recalled a trip to Guadeloupe, Mexico last year for their 40th wedding anniversary, when the two went into the water in a special cage.
"They put bait in the water and sharks swim around and play games," she said.
"We went at a time when the females came in and the females were much larger than the males. And at times we would have 4 or 5 of the most gorgeous female torpedoes drifting by the cage. We were thrilled, excited. We'd been around sharks for so long."
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.
'Pink Panther' Claws to Top of Box Office
LOS ANGELES - Inspector Clouseau bumbled his way to the top of the box office as Steve Martin's "The Pink Panther" debuted with $21.7 million to lead a rush of new releases.
New Line's horror sequel "Final Destination 3" ran a close second with $20.1 million, followed by Universal's animated "Curious George" at No. 3 with $15.3 million and the Warner Bros. thriller "Firewall" starring Harrison Ford in fourth with $13.8 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.
The overall box office rose slightly despite the Winter Olympics and a Northeast snowstorm, both of which kept many movie-goers at home. The top 12 movies took in $106.8 million, up 3 percent over the same weekend last year, when "Hitch" opened as the No. 1 movie with $43.2 million.
After a slump in which attendance dropped 7 percent in 2005, Hollywood is off to a better start this year. Revenues are at just over $1 billion, up 8 percent from last year's. Factoring in higher ticket prices, attendance has risen 5 percent, according to box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations.
Sony's "The Pink Panther" stars Martin in the role defined by Peter Sellers, whose French detective Clouseau was the idiot-savant hero of a string of 1960s and '70s comedy hits by Blake Edwards, who continued the franchise into the '80s and '90s after Sellers' death.
The remake drew a broad audience, with parents and their children accounting for 51 percent of the crowds and viewers evenly divided between those older and younger than 25.
"It was just all over the place, kids, parents, teenagers. We had everybody," said Rory Bruer, head of distribution for Sony, which inherited "The Pink Panther" from MGM in a Sony-led takeover last year.
The top 10 was dominated by five family-friendly films — "The Pink Panther," "Curious George," 20th Century Fox's "Big Momma's House 2," Universal's "Nanny McPhee" and the Weinstein Co. animated tale "Hoodwinked" — and three horror flicks — "Final Destination 3" and Sony's "When a Stranger Calls" and "Underworld Evolution."
"It's a battle of the genres," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations. "Family films and horror films are the most consistently performing genres at the box office, and there really is a lot of choice out there for both right now."
Focus Features' "Brokeback Mountain," the favorite for best picture at the Academy Awards, remained the top-grosser among Oscar contenders, finishing at No. 8 with $4.2 million and lifting its domestic total to $66.6 million.
In limited release, the acclaimed concert film " Neil Young: Heart of Gold" opened strongly at four theaters, taking in $57,303 for a $14,326 average, compared to a $6,241 average in 3,477 cinemas for "The Pink Panther."
Directed by Jonathan Demme ("The Silence of the Lambs"), "Heart of Gold" presents Young as he premiered the songs of his latest album, the country-tinged "Prairie Wind," at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium last August. "Heart of Gold" expands to more theaters this weekend.
Here are the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc. Final figures will be released Monday.
1. "The Pink Panther," $21.7 million.
2. "Final Destination 3," $20.1 million.
3. "Curious George," $15.3 million.
4. "Firewall," $13.8 million.
5. "When a Stranger Calls," $10 million.
6. "Big Momma's House 2," $6.8 million.
7. "Nanny McPhee," $5.2 million.
8. "Brokeback Mountain," $4.2 million.
9. "Hoodwinked," $2.502 million.
10. "Underworld Evolution," $2.5 million.
Clooney Doesn't Expect to Win Any Oscars
BERLIN - He has three nominations, but George Clooney doesn't expect to win any Oscars this year. Clooney is a directing and screenplay nominee for "Good Night, and Good Luck" and a supporting-actor nominee for the provocative oil-industry thriller "Syriana."
"I don't think we're going to win any," a deadpan Clooney told reporters Friday, where "Syriana" was screened at Berlin's annual film festival. "There's been a lot of 'Brokeback Mountain' stuff."
His nomination in the screenplay category for "Good Night, and Good Luck" puts him up against Stephen Gaghan, who wrote and also directed "Syriana."
In "Syriana," Clooney plays a veteran CIA agent assigned to assassinate the heir to the throne in an oil-rich Persian Gulf country.
"Oscar nominations are as important as anything," he said. "The hope is that people will see this film — I don't know about wins."
Clooney grew a beard and piled on weight for the role.
"I put it on so quickly I was anxious to get it off," the 44-year-old actor-director said. "The depressing thing was that I could put on 35 pounds in 30 days."
'Gilmore Girls' Feud Upset More Than Fans
BURBANK, Calif. - This season's "Gilmore Girls" story line where the normally tight mother-and-daughter team of Lorelai and Rory feuded and gave each other the silent treatment caused some sharp arguments among the show's rabid fans.
Turns out there were some divisions on the set, too.
"It wasn't my favorite," admitted Lauren Graham, who plays mom Lorelai.
Lorelai and Rory have since made up; tears flowed. Their rapid-fire repartee is back, although usually by phone. Rory is in Yale now, and, in one busy episode this month, became editor of her school paper and moved in with her boyfriend.
The show's creators are clearly trying to push things and avoid the fatigue that usually afflicts television shows in their sixth season.
Long the WB's most critically acclaimed series, "Gilmore Girls" has quietly grown to become its second most popular after "7th Heaven." The show averages just under 5 million viewers a week, up from 4.1 million two seasons ago, according to Nielsen Media Research.
Last month's announcement that the WB and UPN will shut down to form a new network in the fall has left all of their programs in flux. But "Gilmore Girls" would seem to have earned the right to determine its own destiny and make the move to the new CW network.
The growth has come despite the widely objected-to story line.
Part of Graham's problems with the feud were personal; she missed working with co-star Alexis Bledel every day. Primarily she believed it didn't ring true to her character.
"I struggled with the idea that this character, being the parent, would go so far as to stop speaking to her daughter and not make more of an effort," said Graham, taking a break in her trailer on the Warner Bros. lot during a slow day of filming. "We had it in bits and pieces, but it was hard for me to justify — that I wouldn't try harder, that I wouldn't reach out more, that I could stand to be away from her for that long."
She questioned co-creators Amy Sherman-Palladino and Dan Palladino more this year than ever, "and I'm sure they enjoyed it not at all," Graham said.
Some critics took her side. Ted Cox of the Chicago Daily Herald said "it seemed suddenly as if the characters were being manipulated to create drama, rather than allowing the drama to flow naturally out of the characters."
The Palladinos concede that it's tough to come up with new stories for a long-running show without them seeming contrived. But in this case, they said it was important to do something that shakes Rory to her foundation — a typical rite of passage for budding adults, who learn about themselves by how they respond.
"To really rock Rory's world, we had to go to what the core of the show was and to really have them have a rift and explore what the show would be," Sherman-Palladino said. "I know there are two camps. Personally, for me, I've loved the psychological implications of this year more than any other year because we've really gotten to do some real mother-daughter stories."
Think deeply about the characters, and the silence rings true, she said. Lorelai has spent her life trying to do everything differently from her own mother. And if it was Lorelai taking time off from Yale, her mother would have personally dragged her back to school.
While things are better now between Lorelai and Rory, it's not so for Lorelai and Luke, her diner-owner beau.
They're engaged after an agonizingly long courtship. But the sudden emergence of Luke's daughter from a previous relationship has thrown their marriage plans in doubt.
It's never simple, is it? Driving wedges between seemingly well-suited characters is another risk to an audience's patience. The Palladinos like the idea of exploring the difficulties in bringing together two strong personalities very set in their ways.
"It's very different if you get married at 29, than at 38," Sherman-Palladino said. "It's a very different world, and that's what we're trying to tap into."
The future of "Gilmore Girls" is a convoluted plot itself. The Palladinos say they're genuinely undecided about whether they will continue with the series after this season — alarming news for fans of a series that, more than most, reflects the strong sensibilities of their creators.
One factor that may have driven them away — a pilot for a new series, a romantic comedy, that would have been filmed in New York — is no longer in the picture. It was scrapped with the WB's dissolution.
The Palladinos are making plans for a cliffhanger ending to this season (wedding? no wedding?) and for the show to run without them in the fall, just in case.
Graham said the signs point to one more season after this one; the production company is making sure to add another year for people who had six-year contracts. Graham said that's when she'd like to move on, citing the show's workload.
"Getting the language perfect requires a number of takes that you might not have on another show," she explained. "It's just a lot of work — 13, 14 hours door to door. I've missed weddings, I've missed babies being born. I'm not complaining, because of what it has brought me, but I would be ready for a different balance."
She has a hard time imagining the Palladinos not involved, particularly if the series is coming to an end.
Television economics may also play a part in the decision. The WB is canceling "7th Heaven" because, after a decade on the air, the network's most popular show was losing money because it was so expensive to make.
"They've come to us before and asked point-blank how long we think the show can go," Sherman-Palladino said, "and we say it's a family show, it can go on forever. If `7th Heaven' could have gone on for 10 years, why couldn't this show go for 10 years? There's no reason. They're going to be hard-pressed to assemble a cast this good on television again."