"Jaws" author Peter Benchley dead at 65

Sun Feb 12, 2006 8:56 PM ET
By Chris Michaud

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Peter Benchley, author of the bestseller "Jaws" that was the basis for the blockbuster movie that terrified beachgoers and kept many out of the water for years, died at his home at age 65, his family said on Sunday.

Benchley, well-known for other water-based suspense fiction including "The Deep" and "The Island," which also spawned films, died of complications from pulmonary fibrosis, his son-in-law Chris Turner told Reuters.

Benchley was diagnosed with the condition last autumn and his health had been diminishing, but his death at this time had not been expected, according to Turner.

"It was peaceful," he said, adding that the writer's wife Wendy and other family members were by his side at their Princeton, New Jersey home.
In addition to the fame he achieved as a novelist, Benchley was a reporter for the Washington Post and Newsweek, wrote for magazines and a speechwriter for President Lyndon B. Johnson from 1967 until January, 1969.

The Harvard graduate, who grew up in New York City and went to prep school in New Hampshire, was also the grandson of writer and humorist Robert Benchley, member of the renowned Algonquin Round Table that included personalities such as Dorothy Parker, George S. Kaufman, Robert Sherwood and Alexander Wolcott.

But it was the 1974 novel "Jaws," about a series of gruesome shark attacks that cause panic in a placid beach resort, that Benchley won the kind of fame rarely accorded any writer of popular fiction.

The book has sold more than 20 million copies, and Benchley even had a cameo as a reporter in the 1975 Steven Spielberg film, which spawned a series of inferior sequels.

Benchley said he had been interested in sharks since his childhood days spent on the island of Nantucket off Massachusetts. Then, in 1964, he read about a fisherman who caught a 4,550-pound great white shark off Long Island.

"I thought to myself, 'What would happen if one of those came around and wouldn't go away?' That was the seed idea of 'Jaws,'" he said in an interview on his Web site.

But he didn't pursue the idea until 1971. By the time the book, his first novel, came out in early 1974, it had earned more than $1 million before the first press run, including $575,000 for the paperback rights and from sales to books clubs and the film's producers.

Benchley continued his lifelong fascination with the sea and its potential terrors with "The Deep," about divers looking for treasure, and "The Island," in which sailors are terrorized by modern-day pirates. Among his latest books was "Shark Life: True Stories About Sharks and the Sea," which was published only last year.

"Everything I've written is based on something that has happened to me or something that I know a great deal about," Benchley said.

"In 'Jaws' I knew a great deal about sharks. In 'The Deep' I had been lucky enough to learn about Bermuda and to meet Teddy Tucker, a great Bermudan treasure diver, while doing a story for the National Geographic, and I learned about shipwrecks in Bermuda," he added.

But, he noted, he was never injured by any sea creature other than jellyfish stings or sea urchin spines, although he was nearly bitten by sharks a few times.

Other books included "White Shark," "Beast," about a giant squid, and "Rummies," about an alcoholic's journey through recovery and rehabilitation.

Besides his wife Benchley is survived by two grown children. Funeral arrangements have not been formalized.

Altman back with film about real-life radio show

Mon Feb 13, 2006 1:42 AM ET
By Mike Collett-White

BERLIN (Reuters) - Veteran director Robert Altman has chosen an old-fashioned radio show threatened with closure for his latest film, a riotous yet touching story which actress Meryl Streep said recalled a more innocent time for Americans.

Streep leads an all-star ensemble cast in "A Prairie Home Companion" which also features Woody Harrelson, Tommy Lee Jones, Lindsay Lohan and Kevin Kline.

It was written by Garrison Keillor, real-life host of the titular program that is heard every week by millions of listeners around the world.

"There's something about the world that Garrison Keillor creates that locates a place in our childhood, in Americans' childhood," Streep told reporters after the picture premiered at the Berlin Film Festival Sunday.

"We grew up listening to the radio in a more innocent time."
Keillor appears playing himself in the picture, which was shot in the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minnesota, that is home to the radio show.

The film was warmly received by the famously picky Berlin press corps, and is one of the early frontrunners to win the coveted Golden Bear at the end of the annual film festival.

The action cuts from backstage, where characters reminisce about the good old days, play vinyl records, apply their makeup and even drop dead, to the stage itself where music dominates, from country and folk to commercial jingles.

Streep and on-screen sister Lily Tomlin wear their hearts on their sleeves when they perform, while Harrelson and his singing sidekick John C. Reilly, kick up a storm with their bawdy cowboy comedy act.

Kline imagines himself to be a private eye in the Raymond Chandler mold, while Virginia Madsen plays a mysterious angel whose exact intent is unclear.

RELEVANT TO TODAY

While the film clearly is not a direct commentary on politics today, Altman said it was in some way connected with current events.

"We don't have to go to the battlefield every time to make a comment on the attitudes of this war (in Iraq)," the 80-year-old said. "Although I don't think it's a war, I don't know what it is ... a bombing campaign," he added.

Keillor sets the narrative as the players await the arrival of "The Axeman," played by Jones, whose job it is to close the theater at the end of the show and knock it down.

"This creation is not really like his show," said Streep. "It is an imagined last show, and so it's in the context of being taken over by a radio conglomerate, which is happening to a lot of radio shows at home."

Altman, who has been nominated seven times for an Oscar -- for films including "MASH," "Nashville" and "Gosford Park" -- and never won, will receive an honorary Academy Award at this year's ceremony.

Asked whether he had felt snubbed in the past, he joked: "Let's get on their case. What's the reason for it? I've always handed my name in to the contest."

But he added: "I'm very happy with the fact that I'm being recognized this year. I'm very proud of that. I can't think of a better award. To me it's better for all of my work than just for a couple of things."

Altman is one of two renowned veteran filmmakers launching their latest pictures in Berlin this year.

Sidney Lumet, 81, directs "Find Me Guilty," in which he returns to the theme of justice he so famously explored nearly 50 years ago in "12 Angry Men."

Opus Dei tackles "Da Vinci Code" image problem

Sun Feb 12, 2006 9:29 AM ET
By Claudia Parsons

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Portrayed in the best-selling novel "The Da Vinci Code" as a secretive cult willing to murder to defend a fictional 2,000-year-old Catholic cover-up, Opus Dei is promoting its softer side before the movie of the book arrives in May.

Published in March 2003, Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" is one of the most popular books in publishing history with more than 40 million copies in print worldwide in 44 languages.

The book is also controversial because the plot stems from the idea Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, and had children. Because of this, the novel has been condemned by the Roman Catholic Church.

"It's very sad that Opus Dei and the Catholic Church were portrayed unfairly in the novel," said Opus Dei spokesman Brian Finnerty. "What we're trying to do is take advantage of the interest to explain what the real Opus Dei is all about."

Opus Dei is a far-flung, conservative Catholic organization blessed by the Pope in 1982 with a special status in the church. Founded in 1928 in Spain by Jose Maria Escriva with a mission to teach Catholics to strive for holiness through their work, Opus Dei has 85,000 members worldwide, of which around 2,000 are priests. Escriva was made a saint in 2002.

But as the whipping boy of church liberals for years and with estranged members telling of coercive recruitment tactics and corporal mortification, Opus Dei has been controversial. Now, because of "The Da Vinci Code," it has to do even more to overcome the unblessed image portrayed by the book.

Opus Dei appears in the story as a shadowy cult whose henchman is a murderous albino monk named Silas, who makes himself bleed with a cilice -- a spiked metal belt strapped tight around the upper thigh -- for penance.

Passersby who approach the organization's 17-story building in Manhattan are invited to reach for a leaflet to learn about the real Opus Dei, which means "God's work."

Finnerty's job these days is to promote the group and give reporters tours of the building, a $69 million corner edifice in midtown Manhattan housing a luxurious conference center on five floors as well as accommodations and offices for around 65 members.

COUNTRY-HOUSE STYLE

Waiting rooms and lounges are furnished in country-house style with leather armchairs, antique-style furniture and elegant bookshelves carrying religious and historical works as well as novels by the likes of Willa Cather and Jane Austen.

An airy conservatory leads out to a roof-top terrace with deck-chairs, potted plants and a small statue of the Virgin and Child. Two middle-aged men were discussing "investment philosophy" in the conservatory when a visitor passed through.

A few floors down is what looks like a hotel VIP lounge with a grand piano and views of the iconic Chrysler Building.

"It's like a very nice home," Finnerty said. "It's not at all like a monastery or a 'Da Vinci Code' setting. You won't see anyone like Silas walking through here dripping blood."

John Allen, author of a book on Opus Dei, said it had long been a "lightening rod" for liberal Catholics to criticize.

"Dan Brown didn't make up the idea of Opus Dei as the boogeyman of the Catholic Church," Allen told Reuters in a phone interview from Rome, where he reports on the Vatican.

"Critics would often say Opus Dei is a very conservative version of Catholicism. Some would say it is a very worldly version of Catholicism focused on wealth and power," he said.

The late Pope John Paul II was an admirer of Opus Dei, but Allen said its influence was not as strong as some think.

Allen said just two of the 115 cardinals who elected Pope Benedict were Opus Dei, and the group claimed only around 40 of the world's 4,500 bishops as members.

"They simply don't have the stranglehold on power that people imagine," Allen said, adding that Opus Dei's wealth was also exaggerated by critics. Worldwide assets were around $2.8 billion, he said, with U.S. assets of $350 million -- around the same as a mid-sized diocese.

Finnerty emphasized Opus Dei's charitable work, including schools and hospitals in the United States and Africa.

But some former members writing on the Web site of the Opus Dei Awareness Network say that aspect is overshadowed by coercive and cult-like recruitment tactics that alienate members from their families and pressure people into harmful practices such as the use of the cilice.

Marc Carroggio, an Opus Dei spokesman brought in from Rome as a reinforcement before the film, said corporal mortification was a small and "marginal" element of Opus Dei, and voluntary. Finnerty added that Mother Theresa wore a form of a cilice.

He said Opus Dei wrote to Sony Pictures asking them to leave the organization out of the movie but to no avail, so it now aims to use the film as a "teaching moment."

Heather Locklear Files for Divorce

Thursday Feb 02, 2006 4:55pm ESTThursday Feb 02, 2006 7:10pm EST (updated)

Heather Locklear and her rock-star husband Richie Sambora are splitting up, the actress's rep, Cece Yorke, tells PEOPLE. "After 11 years of marriage Heather Locklear has filed for divorce from Richie Sambora," says the rep. "This is a private matter and there will be no further comment at this time." In paperwork filed Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, Locklear requests physical custody of the couple's 8-year-old daughter, Ava Elizabeth, with visitation rights for Sambora. The actress cites "irreconcilable differences" as the reason for the split.

According to the divorce petition, the couple signed a prenuptial agreement that determines how their assets will be divided. The couple, who were married Dec. 17, 1994 in Paris, were introduced by Locklear's friend, makeup artist Lisa Christy. Seven months later, Sambora, the guitarist for Bon Jovi, popped the question. The day after the proposal, Locklear, who was then starring on Melrose Place, proudly flashed her pear-shaped diamond engagement ring from Cartier while attending the Emmys. They soon set up house in Locklear's airy, four-bedroom home in L.A.

This is the second marriage for Locklear, 44, who split from Motley Crue dummer Tommy Lee in 1993 after nearly eight years of marriage. This was the first marriage for Sambora, 46, who previously dated Cher. Locklear's TV credits include Spin City, Dynasty and T.J. Hooker. She recently starred opposite Hilary Duff in The Perfect Man.--->