50 years of the ‘Jaws effect’
Fifty years ago, Jaws kept scores of people away from the ocean–the primal fear of what lurks beneath, a terrifying soundtrack dominated by two low notes, and the constant need for a bigger boat. But for one family, the pull of the big blue was inescapable. In the wake of the film’s success, the late Peter Benchley, the bestselling author of the novel Jaws, and his wife Wendy Benchley happily took up the mantle of shark and ocean conservationists. “We certainly were brought into the ocean world through the movie Jaws,” Wendy Benchley tells Popular Science. “And what a treat for us! What a marvelous thing to have happened in our lives. As Peter always said, to write a book and then to have the whole world of the ocean open up to us is a miraculous thing. Not many writers have that privilege.” People line up outside of the Rivoli Theater...