Wendy Benchley

Wendy Wesson was born and raised in Montclair, New Jersey, to Harrison and Dorcas Wesson. Harrison Wesson was a surgeon and served in the Philippines during WWII. Wendy Wesson graduated from Montclair High School in 1959, after which she did a grand tour of Europe with her family.

Wesson continued her studies at Skidmore College where she majored in philosophy and psychology.[1] While in college, Benchley became involved in activism and was arrested for picketing Woolworth in Saratoga Springs in protest of the department store's segregation policy.[1]

While in Pennington, New Jersey, Peter Benchley wrote the novel Jaws, which became a critical and commercial success.[2] The process of researching ‘Jaws’ and the aftermath of the novel's success and film adaptation left both Peter and Wendy Benchley with a profound interest in sharks and ocean conservation. The couple subsequently became involved in conservation efforts and traveled internationally to meet with researchers and go cage diving with sharks.[3] Wendy Benchley served as a board member of the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) from 1986 to 2006[4] and Peter was an EDF spokesperson. They made appearances together to speak about protecting sharks and conservation.[5] Peter Benchley recalled his wife saving his life in 1974 during a televised cage diving expedition in the Neptune Islands off of Australia. Unnoticed by the crew, the great white shark being filmed got its teeth entangled in the rope that Peter Benchley's cage was suspended by and was struggling to break free. Wendy was the only one on board the crew's boat to notice and she successfully attempted to free the rope from the shark's mouth before it was severed.[6]

Wendy Benchley later became active in environmentalism and grassroots political causes outside of marine conservation, co-founding the New Jersey Environmental Federation and becoming involved in New Jersey politics. During this time she advocated for green energy and environmental reforms.[7] Wendy was elected to the Mercer County Board of Chosen Freeholders in 1992, before being elected to the Princeton Borough Council for three terms, from 1999 to 2008 before leaving New Jersey politics to focus on ocean conservation.[8]

Benchley was awarded the 2014 SeaKeeper Award and was inducted into the Women Divers Hall of Fame in 2015.[17] Benchley received the 2016 Beneath the Sea, Diver of the Year Award for environmentalism[18] and 2017 Pegasus Wings Awards for her lifetime achievements as an ocean conservationist. In 2019 she was awarded the Rob Stewart Foundation Lifetime Achievement for Ocean Conservation Award.[19]

Wendy Wesson met Peter Benchley at the Jared Coffin House in Nantucket in 1963, and the two were married the following year. The couple had their first child, a daughter named Tracy, in 1967.[20] They later had a son named Clayton in 1969, and a third child, Christopher, in 1987.

• Wendy Benchley at IMDb