Nathaniel Benchley

2024-12-18T07:35:18Z

2601:1C2:4682:15A0:ED55:290B:5870:55C2: /* Personal life */

{{Short description|American author (1915–1981)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=October 2024}}{{sources|date=October 2024}}
{{Infobox writer 
|name = Nathaniel Benchley
|image =
|caption =
|birth_name=Nathaniel Goddard Benchley<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.filmreference.com/film/57/Peter-Benchley.html |title=Peter Benchley Biography (1940–) |website=Filmreference.com |accessdate=August 1, 2018}}</ref>
|birth_date = {{birth date|1915|11|13|mf=y}}
|birth_place = [[Newton, Massachusetts]], U.S.
|death_date = {{death date and age|1981|12|14|1915|11|13|mf=y}}
|death_place = [[Boston]], Massachusetts, U.S.
|occupation = {{flatlist|
* Writer
* journalist
}}
|genre = [[Children's literature]], humorous fiction, [[biography]], [[historical fiction]]
|spouse = Marjorie Bradford Benchley
|children= [[Peter Benchley]]<br>[[Nat Benchley]]
|signature =
}}

'''Nathaniel Goddard Benchley''' (November 13, 1915 – December 14, 1981) was an American author from Massachusetts.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Baker |first= Russell |author-link= Russell Baker |title=NATHANIEL BENCHLEY IS DEAD AT 66; HUMORIST, NOVELIST AND JOURNALIST |journal=The New York Times |date= December 15, 1981 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/12/15/obituaries/nathaniel-benchley-is-dead-at-66-humorist-novelist-and-journalist.html |accessdate= June 12, 2021 }}</ref>

==Early life==
Born in [[Newton, Massachusetts]] to a literary family, he was the son of [[Robert Benchley]] (1889–1945), a noted American writer, humorist, critic, and actor and one founder of the [[Algonquin Round Table]] in New York City, and Gertrude Darling. He graduated from [[Phillips Exeter Academy]] and [[Harvard College]].<ref name=HC>{{cite web |url=https://www.harpercollins.com/cr-100425/nathaniel-benchley |title=Nathaniel Benchley |website=Harpercollins.com |accessdate=August 1, 2018}}</ref>

Benchley enlisted in the [[U.S. Navy]] prior to the [[attack on Pearl Harbor]].<ref name=HC/> He served as a [[public relations officer]], and on [[destroyers]] and patrol craft for North Atlantic convoy duty during the [[Battle of the Atlantic]],<ref>{{cite book|page=[https://archive.org/details/childrensbooksth0000unse/page/56 56]|author=Silvey, Anita|title=Children's Books and Their Creators|publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt|date=1995|isbn=978-0395653807|url=https://archive.org/details/childrensbooksth0000unse/page/56}}</ref> and was transferred to the [[Asiatic-Pacific Theater|Pacific Theater]] in 1945.

==Career==
After the war Benchley worked for the weekly magazine [[Newsweek magazine|''Newsweek'']] as an assistant drama editor. Harcourt, Brace published Benchley's first book in 1950, ''Side Street'', a novel featuring "hilarious activities of two New York City families living in the East Sixties"<ref>[https://www.worldcat.org/title/1632015 "Side street"] - WorldCat record of the 1st ed. Retrieved August 2, 2018.</ref>—that is, living on the East Side of Manhattan near 60th Street.
He wrote a biography of his father Robert that McGraw-Hill published in 1955.
In 1960 Harper & Row published his second novel, ''Sail A Crooked Ship'', and Random House his first children's book, retold from ''[[Sindbad the Sailor]]'' with illustrations by Tom O'Sullivan.<ref>[http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1297740 "Sindbad the sailor"]. WorldCat. Retrieved August 2, 2018.</ref>

Benchley was the respected author of much [[children's fiction]] that provides readers an experience of certain animal species, historical settings, and so on (''Oscar Otter'', ''Sam The Minuteman'', etc). He presented diverse locales and topics: for instance, ''Bright Candles'' recounts the experiences of a 16-year-old Danish boy during the [[German occupation of Denmark]] in World War II; ''Small Wolf'' features a [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]] boy who meets white men on the [[Manhattan#Geography|island of Manhattan]] and learns that their ideas about land are different from those of his own people.

''Sail A Crooked Ship'' was [[film adaptation|adapted]] as a comedy [[Sail a Crooked Ship|feature movie of the same name]] by Columbia Pictures in 1961. His 1961 novel ''The Off-Islanders'' was made into comedy feature ''[[The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming]]'' by director/producer [[Norman Jewison]] in 1965. ''The Visitors'' (1965) was adapted as a horror/comedy feature ''[[The Spirit Is Willing]]'' by Paramount Pictures in 1967. In October 1975, ABC showed the made-for-television drama ''[[Sweet Hostage]]'', based on Benchley's 1968 novel ''Welcome To Xanadu''.

Benchley was a friend of the actor [[Humphrey Bogart]] and wrote a biography of Bogart published in 1975.

==Personal life==
Benchley and Margaret Bradford were married not long after his college years. They settled in New York City and had two sons, one before and one after World War II.<ref name=HC/>
His eldest son [[Peter Benchley]] (1940–2006) was a writer, best-known for the novel [[Jaws (novel)|''Jaws'']] and its [[Jaws (novel)|1975 screen adaptation]], directed by [[Steven Spielberg]]. Younger son [[Nat Benchley]] is a writer and actor who has portrayed his grandfather, Robert Benchley, in a one-man, semi-biographical stage show, ''Benchley Despite Himself''. The show was a compilation of Robert Benchley's best monologues, short movies, radio rantings, and pithy pieces as recalled, edited, and acted by grandson Nat, combined with anecdotes, family reminiscences and friends' perspectives.

Nathaniel Benchley died 1981 in Boston and was interred in the family plot at Prospect Hill Cemetery in [[Nantucket]].

==Bibliography==
{{Expand list|date=September 2016}}{{bots|deny=Citation bot}}

===Novels===
* ''Side Street'' (Harcourt, Brace, 1950)
* ''A Firm Word or Two'' (1958)

*{{cite book  |title=Sail a crooked ship |location=New York |publisher=McGraw-Hill |year=1960 }}
*{{cite book  |title=The off-islanders |location=New York |publisher=McGraw-Hill |year=1961 }}
*''Catch a Falling Spy'' (1964)
*''A Winter's Tale'' (1964)
*''The Visitors'' (1965)

*''The Monument : A Satiric Novel'' (1966)
*''Welcome to Xanadu'' (1968)
*''The Wake of the Icarus'' (1969)
*''Lassiter's Folly'' (1971)
*''The Hunters Moon '' (1972)

*''A Necessary End: A Novel of World War II'' (1976)
*''Sweet Anarchy'' (1979)
*''Portrait of a Scoundrel'' (1979)
*''All Over Again'' (1981)
*''Speakeasy'' (1982)

===Non-fiction===
* ''The Benchley Roundup: A Selection by Nathaniel Benchley of His Favorites'' (1954), by Robert Benchley, {{LCCN|54-8937}}
* {{cite book  |title=Robert Benchley, a biography |location=New York |publisher=McGraw-Hill |year=1955 }}
* ''Humphrey Bogart'' (1975)

=== Essays and reporting ===
* "Introduction", ''Twentieth Century Parody, American and British'', ed. Burling Lowrey (1960), {{OCLC|338183}}
* {{cite book |author=Benchley, Nathaniel |editor=Birmingham, Frederic A. |title=The girls from Esquire |location=London |publisher=Arthur Barker |date=1953 |pages=214–218 |chapter=Are husbands helpless?}}

=== Short fiction ===
{|class='wikitable sortable' width='90%'
|-
!width=25%|Title
!|Year
!|First published
!|Reprinted/collected
!|Notes
|-
|Short cut
|1950
|{{cite journal |author=Benchley, Nathaniel |date=January 28, 1950 |title=Short cut |journal=The New Yorker |volume=25 |issue=49 |pages=26-29}}.
|
|
|-
|}

=== Plays ===
* The frogs of spring, a comedy in three acts (1954) https://lccn.loc.gov/54036696

===Children's books===
*{{cite book  |title=Sinbad, the sailor |others=Illustrated by Tom O'Sullivan |location=New York |publisher=Random House |year=1960 }}
*''Welcome to Xanadu'' (1968)
* ''The Flying Lesson of Gerald Pelican'' (1970), illus. Mamoru Funai 
* ''Feldman Fieldmouse: A Fable'' (1971), illus. Hilary Knight 
* ''Gone and Back'' (1971) – Oklahoma "pioneer adventure of Obediah Taylor, a boy reaching manhood" {{OCLC|129030}} 
* ''The Magic Sled'' (1972), illus. Mel Furukawa; UK title, ''The Magic Sledge'' 
* ''Only Earth and Sky Last Forever'' (1972) – "Although recognizing the end of the Indians' freedom is near, a young Cheyenne still chooses to fight with Crazy Horse", {{OCLC|584020}} 
* ''The Deep Dives of Stanley Whale'' (1973), illus. Mischa Richter 
* ''Bright Candles: A Novel of the Danish Resistance'' (1974) – features "a sixteen-year-old Danish boy during the German occupation", {{OCLC|852747}} 
* ''Beyond the Mists: A Novel'' (1975) – features "an adventurous youth who travels to Vinland with Leif Eriksson", {{OCLC|1728948}} 
* ''Kilroy and the Gull'' (1977), illus. John Schoenherr – a Marineland killer whale "escapes to life on the open sea with his friend Morris the sea gull", {{OCLC|2372722}} 
* ''Demo and the Dolphin'' (1981), illus. Stephen Gammell 
* ''Snip'' (1981), illus. Irene Trivas 
* ''Walter, the Homing Pigeon'' (1981), illus. Whitney Darrow 

;I Can Read series

* ''Red Fox and His Canoe'' (1964), illustrated by [[Arnold Lobel]] 
* ''Oscar Otter'' (1966), illus. Lobel 
* ''The Strange Disappearance of Arthur Cluck'' (1967), illus. Lobel 
* ''A Ghost Named Fred'' (1968), illus. Ben Shecter 
* ''Sam, the Minuteman'' (1969), illus. Lobel 
* ''The Several Tricks of Edgar Dolphin'' (1970), illus. Mamoru Funai 
* ''Small Wolf'' (1972), illus. Joan Sandin 
* ''Snorri and the Strangers'' (1976), illus. Don Bolognese 
* ''George, the Drummer Boy'' (1977), illus. Bolognese 
* ''Running Owl the Hunter'' (1979), illus. Funai 

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*{{IMDb name|70360}}
* {{Find a Grave|6998248}}
* {{LCAuth|n79064710|Nathaniel Benchley|52|}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname= Nathaniel Benchley}}

{{Peter Benchley}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Benchley, Nathaniel}}
[[Category:1915 births]]
[[Category:1981 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century American biographers]]
[[Category:20th-century American male writers]]
[[Category:20th-century American novelists]]
[[Category:American children's writers]]
[[Category:American magazine editors]]
[[Category:American male biographers]]
[[Category:American male novelists]]
[[Category:Esquire (magazine) people]]
[[Category:Harvard College alumni]]
[[Category:The New Yorker people]]
[[Category:Novelists from Massachusetts]]
[[Category:Phillips Exeter Academy alumni]]
[[Category:United States Navy personnel of World War II]]
[[Category:Writers from Newton, Massachusetts]]

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Nathaniel Benchley