Posted on 02/10/2008 6:00:57 PM PST by lunarbicep
Roy Scheider, a stage actor with a background in the classics who became one of the leading figures in the American film renaissance of the 1970s, died on Sunday afternoon in Little Rock, Ark. He was 75 and lived in Sag Harbor, N.Y.
Mr. Scheider had suffered from multiple myeloma for several years, and died of complications from a staph infection, his wife, Brenda Seimer, said.
Mr. Scheider’s rangy figure, gaunt face and emotional openness made him particularly appealing in everyman roles, most famously as the agonized police chief of “Jaws,” Steven Spielberg’s 1975 breakthrough hit, about a New England resort town haunted by the knowledge that a killer shark is preying on the local beaches.
Mr. Scheider conveyed an accelerated metabolism in movies like “Klute” (1971), his first major film role, in which he played a threatening pimp to Jane Fonda’s New York call girl; and in William Friedkin’s “French Connection” (also 1971), as Buddy Russo, the slightly more restrained partner to Gene Hackman’s marauding police detective, Popeye Doyle. That role earned Mr. Scheider the first of two Oscar nominations.
Born in 1932 in Orange, N.J., Mr. Scheider earned his distinctive broken nose in the New Jersey Diamond Gloves Competition. He studied at Rutgers and at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa., where he graduated as a history major with the intention of going to law school. He served three years in the United States Air Force, rising to the rank of first lieutenant. When he was discharged, he returned to Franklin and Marshall to star in a production of “Richard III.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The book also made a big deal about Brody’s wife “marrying down,” since she had grown up as part of the rich Martha’s Vineyard summer crowd. By the end of the book, she realized that she loved Chief Brody and her life with him, and that she needed to grow up and leave all her attempts at social climbing and returning to her halycon young adult days behind. Her affair with Hooper had been an attempt to recapture those days, because he came from her old world.
He was in the sequel,which I believe was titled 2010.
That’s too bad. It seems like we’re hearing more and more of people dying from staph infections. Always enjoyed Mr. Scheider’s work. May he rest in peace.
bingo......hence his off the wall water comments
certainly not Martha’s Vineyard elite concerns
I live in Little Rock and this wasn’t even on the local 5 o’clock news.
That he did. Even better though was Robert Shaw as Quint. Best movie character of all time as far as I’m concerned.
He was superb in “Jazz.” What’s really creepy if you watch that movie (and realize it is essentially Fosse’s autobiography) is that how Fosse’s alter ego in the film dies, that’s exactly how Fosse would die 8 years later.
I thought,bad casting ..then saw Roy ...He was great
RIP!! We will miss you!!
Wasn’t he in “The Onion Field” in 1983?
That’s some bad hat, Harry.
RIP Mr Scheider. Loved it all.
I love that movie, but that point never dawned on me. Wow, the things that you learn later./Just Asking - seoul62.........
“All that Jazz” was great.
Roy was terrific.
The cattle call scene in the beginning was good and the song fit it perfectly.
“He served three years in the United States Air Force, rising to the rank of first lieutenant.” - NYT
Honesty compels me to admit that I’m a bigger fan of the movie than the book (I know, I know). Benchley’s writing of the shark moments were exceptional, but I just felt the character drama was...meh. A little too much. The movie made a wise decision in skipping straight to the action.
” His weirdest role had to be in Naked Lunch. I saw that only two weeks ago.”
I saw Naked Lunch in Yurakucho , Tokyo when it first came out ...Roy was super as Dr. Benway .
Sag Harbor Long Island ...Such a nice place ..or was the last tiem I was there about 25 years ago ...
The movie “Jaws” is like the gift that keeps on giving. I still get nightmares! Thanks a lot Roy... (just kidding) RIP
I remember that movie to. I have it on tape somewhere.
I could be wrong but I seem to remember that actor saying that he was on a flight about a month before 9/11 and he said he saw some arab men who he thought were perhaps doing a "dress rehersal" of sorts for 9/11. He was on The O'Reilly Show talking about this after 9/11. I could be thinking of someone else.
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