Jaws author's cameo in Steven Spielberg shark classic

Remember the newscaster stood on the beach in Jaws, talking about a cloud in the shape of a killer shark?

Well, that's the author of the book, Peter Benchley. And if his cameo as a news reporter seems convincing, it wasn't a stretch for the writer, who had once been a journalist at the Washington Post and also an editor on Newsweek on television.

His wife, Wendy, and daughter were also on the beach during the filming of that very scene, like Mayor Vaughn, his kid was on that beach too.

There’s also a curious black and white still of Benchley’s reporter interviewing Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) on the beach. If this is a delated scene it hasn’t surfaced on any of the Jaws releases yet, but would be great for it to finally see the light of day.

One presumes that Benchley is interviewing Hooper in his capacity as a shark expert from the oceanographic institute.

There was also another moment filmed where the Jaws author was hot on the heels of Chief Brody to grab an interview about why the beaches weren’t being closed. The scene was shot several time but didn’t make the final cut.

Speaking to the Vineyard Gazette ahead of filming his scenes, Benchley said: “This first appearance will probably be by swansong as well.”

Jaws was Peter Benchley's debut novel and was released to great success in 1974. Even before it was printed it had been sold as a film adaptation to Universal, with it agreed that Benchley would deliver a first draft of the script.

That happened, but director Steven Spielberg needed more rewrites, bringing on board Carl Gottlieb and an uncredited Howard Sackler (who would share credit alongside Gottlieb for Jaws 2).

Benchley shared a co-screenwriting credit with Gottlieb, but didn’t always agree in the direction that Steven Spielberg was taking the film.

This included them disagreeing on the ending, Benchley believing that the audience simply wouldn’t swallow (whole, or otherwise) where Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) blows the shark up by shooting an oxygen tank in its mouth.

And Jaws wasn’t the only Peter Benchley screen adaptation that he appeared in. As well as The Deep (1977) featuring Robert Shaw, Benchley made a cameo as one of the U-boat crew in the prologue in the extended TV version. His scenes are deleted from the theatrically released version of the film.

Over 20 years later Benchley appeared as part of a fishing group in the first episode of the mini-series Creature, which was based on his book White Shark.

Not that Benchley is the only author to cameo in an adaptation of their work. Here's some other examples.

Michael Bond in Paddington

Lee Childs in Jack Reacher

Herge in The Adventures of Tin Tin (also directed by Steven Spielberg)

Michael Morpogo in War Horse (also directed by Steven Spielberg)

Stephen King in Pet Semetary (and lots of other of his films)

William Peter Blatty in The Exorcist

Stan Lee in Marvel films

R.L. Stine in Goosebumps

James Dickey in Deliverance

Irvin Welsh in Trainspotting

Words by Dean Newman

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