Peter R. Gimbel was an American filmmaker and underwater photojournalist.

Born in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, Peter was the son of Bernard Gimbel and heir to the Gimbels department store chain. After serving in the United States Army occupation force in Japan in 1946-1947, he graduated from Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

 in 1951, earning degrees in both English and economics. He spent ten years as an investment banker but after the death of his twin brother at age 29, he left banking to pursue a career in exploration. He parachuted into the Peruvian Andes with G. Brooks Baekeland, grandson of Leo Baekeland

Leo Baekeland

Leo Hendrik Baekeland was a Belgian chemist who invented Velox photographic paper and Bakelite , an inexpensive, nonflammable, versatile, and popular plastic, which marks the beginning of the modern plastics industry.-Career:Leo Baekeland was born in Sint-Martens-Latem near Ghent, Belgium,...

, inventor of Baekelite, and Peter Lake in search of the lost Inca city of Vilcabamba

Vilcabamba, Peru

Vilcabamba was a city founded by Manco Inca in 1539 and was the last refuge of the Inca Empire until it fell to the Spaniards in 1572, signaling the end of Inca resistance to Spanish rule.- History :...

.

He was the first to dive the wreck of the SS Andrea Doria

SS Andrea Doria

SS Andrea Doria[p] was an ocean liner for the Italian Line home ported in Genoa, Italy, most famous for its sinking in 1956, when 46 people died. Named after the 16th-century Genoese admiral Andrea Doria, the ship had a gross register tonnage of 29,100 and a capacity of about 1,200 passengers and...

and his photos of the ship were published in Life Magazine in August 1956. He produced two documentaries about the ship The Mystery of the Andrea Doria and Andrea Doria: The Final Chapter. He opened the safe of the Andrea Doria on live television in 1984.

Gimbel also directed and produced the 1971 film Blue Water, White Death which was the first cinematic filming of the Great White Shark

Great white shark

The great white shark, scientific name Carcharodon carcharias, also known as the great white, white pointer, white shark, or white death, is a large lamniform shark found in coastal surface waters in all major oceans. It is known for its size, with the largest individuals known to have approached...

, featuring Ron and Valerie Taylor, Rodney Fox, Stan Waterman

Stan Waterman

Stanton A. Waterman , is a five-time Emmy winning cinematographer and underwater film producer.Waterman graduated from Dartmouth College, where he studied with Robert Frost, in 1946 with a degree in English. He began his SCUBA diving career in the Bahamas where he owned and operated a diving...

 and Peter Lake. The shark's attack on Lake's cage at the end of the film inspired Peter Benchley

Peter Benchley

Peter Bradford Benchley was an American author, best known for his novel Jaws and its subsequent film adaptation, the latter co-written by Benchley and directed by Steven Spielberg...

's book, Jaws.

External links