Jaws Author Peter Benchley Inducted Into Hall Of Fame

Jaws author and co-screenwriter, Peter Benchley, may have passed away in 2006, but that didn’t stop him being inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame.

New York Times best-selling author, Harlan Coben, introduced Benchley by saying he was the writer of one of the most famous books of the 20th century, a cultural happening like no other, that book was of course Jaws.

There followed a short video, charting Benchley’s life before Jaws and the extraordinary changes that the Steven Spielberg film brought, both for him and sharks. Benchley’s conservation is a huge focus here, which paves the way for his wife’s appearance on stage for this proud moment.

“A cloud in the shape of a killer shark.” Peter Benchley making his cameo in Jaws as a reporter.

Addressing the crowd on behalf of her late husband was Wendy Benchley, who walked across stage to the podium accompanied by a rock version of the Jaws theme, what else?

It was fascinating to hear Wendy speak about how she almost talked her husband out of writing a novel about a shark attacking a small resort, as she thought no one would be that interested. She admitted that, thankfully, he didn’t heed that advice.

Wendy also noted how far we had all come in the last almost 45 years since the cinematic release of James, but that we still had a way to go and that saving the shark meant saving the oceans, and in turn saving ourselves.

Now in its eleventh year, this year’s event saw Benchley inducted alongside fellow author George RR Martin, Jason Alexander and Martha Stewart, to name a few.
Catch the full Peter Benchley induction here:

By Dean Newman

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