accounts conflict as to whether Robert (who was nine at the time) heard this. Edmund's fiancée Lillian Duryea, a wealthy heiress, doted on Robert for many years, and Edmund's death may have seeded the pacifist leanings seen in Robert's writing. Additionally, because the news about Edmund had arrived during a July 4th celebration, Robert for the rest of his life associated fireworks with Edmund's death. Meeting his wife Robert Benchley met Gertrude Darling in high school in Worcester. They became engaged during his senior year at Harvard University, and they married in June 1914. Their first child, Nathaniel Benchley, was born a year later. A second son, Robert Benchley, Jr., was born in 1919. Nathaniel also became a writer, and he published a biography of his father in 1955. He was also a well-respected fiction and children's book author. Nathaniel married and also had talented sons who became writers: Peter Benchley was best known for the book Jaws (which was adapted as the film of the same name), and Nat Benchley wrote and performed in an acclaimed one-man production based on their grandfather Robert's life. Education Robert grew up and attended South High School in Worcester and was involved in academic and traveling theatrical productions during high school. Thanks to financial aid from his late brother's fiancée, Lillian Duryea, he could attend Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire for his final year of high school. Benchley reveled in the atmosphere at the academy, and he remained active in creative extracurricular activities, thereby damaging his academic credentials toward the end of his term. Benchley enrolled at Harvard University in 1908, again with Duryea's financial help. He joined the Delta Upsilon fraternity in his first year, and continued to partake in the camaraderie that he had enjoyed at Phillips Exeter while still doing well in school. He did especially well in his English and government classes. His humor and style began to reveal themselves during this time: Benchley was often called upon to entertain his fraternity brothers, and his impressions of classmates and professors became very popular. His performances gave him some local fame, and most entertainment programs on campus and many off-campus meetings recruited Benchley's talents. During his first two years at Harvard, Benchley worked with the Harvard Advocate and the Harvard Lampoon. He was elected to the Lampoons board of directors in his third year. The election of Benchley