'Jaws' actor Roy Scheider dies at age 75

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Gentleman I must sadly inform you that actor Roy Scheider has died.


Jaws star Roy Scheider dies at 75


Scheider was one of Hollywood's biggest stars of the 1970s

US actor Roy Scheider, best known for playing the police chief in the Jaws movies, has died at the age of 75.
As well as starring in the first two shark thrillers, Schneider received two Oscar nominations during his career.

He was up for best supporting actor for The French Connection in 1972 and best actor for 1979's All That Jazz. He died in hospital in Little Rock, Arkansas. He had been treated there for multiple myeloma, a cancer of the plasma cell, for the past two years.
source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7238211.stm
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I loved Roy on screen. I just watched The Seven-Ups about a week ago for the umpteenth time. Much of what follows I had said before in THIS thread, but it bares saying again...




Starting with the violent pimp in Klute (1971 - Pakula), then the partner in The French Connection (1972 - Friedkin) - netting Roy a Best Supporting Actor nomination at the Academy Awards, just as good starring in its Hackman-less unofficial sequel The Seven-Ups (1973 - Philip D'Antoni), to the underseen The Outside Man (1972 - Jacques Deray), and a little cult flick probably nobody ever heard of called Jaws (1975), Roy Scheider was incredibly successful in the first half of the 1970s. And he stayed pretty damn hot with Marathon Man (1976 - Schlesinger), Billy Friedkin's halfway decent but panned reworking of Wages of Fear called Sorcerer (1977), begrudgingly signing on for only the first sequel in Jaws 2 (1978) - which still managed to do healthy boxoffice despite the massive fall-off in quality, Jonathan Demme's solid Hitchcock ode Last Embrace (1979) and capping it off with Bob Fosse's thinly-veiled nightmare-stylized autobiography All That Jazz (1979) which even earned him an Oscar nomination as Best Actor (the year Marathon Man co-star Hoffman finally won for Kramer vs. Kramer). By just about any standard, that was a monster decade for an actor.

It's a shame the '80s weren't as kind to him, with Blue Thunder (1983) being the best of the bunch. The unnecessary sequel 2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984) and 52 Pick-Up (1986) are all OK for what they are, and Roy always does his best. But most of the rest of what he did in the decade was anywhere from forgettable to dreadful (Still of the Night, Night Game, Listen to Me, Cohen & Tate), and none of them made a dent at the boxoffice (other than Blue Thunder, which did respectable business but became a true hit on video).



He never made a real smooth transition into older supporting character actor in the industry's eyes in the '90s. Though I think he's fantastic in The Russia House (1990 - Fred Schepisi), Naked Lunch (1991 - Cronenberg) and Romeo is Bleeding (1993 - Peter Medak), he has been used sparingly since then. I understand why he took that silly Spielberg-produced "SeaQuest DSV" TV show, but it was pretty cheesy Sci-Fi stuff. Now you'll see him pop up in dreck like The Punisher every once in a while. The small supporting role of the callous H.M.O. executive in The Rainmaker (1997) was his last good part in a movie that wasn't an embarrassment, and that was over a decade ago. But I kept waiting for that one part that was going to bring him back to some kind of prominence. The last really good acting job I saw from him was an episode of "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" from the end of the 2006-2007 season. It was called "Endgame" and Roy played a serial killer on Death Row who has one final psychological game to run on Vincent D'Onofrio's Detective Goren involving his past and his mother (Rita Moreno). He was effectively creepy and sadistic as the aged killer with only a few days left to live.




Sad to see him go. He was way frickin' cool back in the day, and I remained a fan even after the quality of the movies declined.



R.I.P., ROY
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Oh wow... I missed this earlier... I always liked him a lot...

RIP
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Gentleman I must sadly inform you that actor Roy Scheider has died.




source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7238211.stm

Seems a shame to me that Scheider is "best remembered" for a movie starring a rubber fish than for films like The Seven-Ups and All That Jazz or even Romeo is Bleeding that were so much more thoughtful and interesting.



A system of cells interlinked
ACK!!!!!!!! Terrible news...


Meanwhile? Rubber fish? Jaws was a hell of a lot more than that. Jaws is a fantastic thriller, and one of the best films of the 70s, IMO.

Ruf, I thought for sure you would like Jaws, as it doesn't rely on Gore to get the scares across, but real tension built over time...

Oh, and it has Quint!

Not that you said you didn't like it... I may be reading into your comment a bit too much!
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My wife will be crushed. Her favorite movie is "JAWS". He will be sadly missed. If you haven't seen it, he was really good in "The Myth of Fingerprints" too. In honor of Roy, put it in your Netflix que or rent it today.
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Will your system be alright, when you dream of home tonight?
He went to the bigger boat in the sky?


Did Jaws finally get him?


lol j/k



Seems a shame to me that Scheider is "best remembered" for a movie starring a rubber fish

For me: Scheider, Shaw and Dreyfuss were the stars and they all did an excellent job, the "rubber fish" as you put it was the catylst maybe but not the star.

RIP
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Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.
I didn't want to come in here, but I guess I should say something. I've already said that Jaws is my favorite film and easily the most significant film in my life. I've also mentioned that of all the characters, I relate to Chief Brody the most. Roy Scheider just had a way to make his characters seem totally believable and honest. Chief Brody is pure perfection, both in his humanity and in his ability to rise above his humanity. But Scheider just had an authenticity about him which I often find missing nowadays. I'm not talking about small films, but I'm talking about his depicting living, breathing characters in some major motion pictures, even when he isn't playing the central character.



Scheider played Dustin Hoffman's older brother in Marathon Man (his next film after Jaws), and he creates a complex character in his very few scenes. It's hard for me to believe that anyone could produce such suspense and empathy playing Doc in the scenes in his Parisian hotel room, the opera, Babe's apartment or the NYC fountain.



I am also impressed by his performance in Sorcerer, even though it's obvious that Friedkin isn't really that interested in the characters. Scheider inhabits his character with his eyes which speak tons. Roy Scheider had awesome eyes, much better than those flippin' black-eyed sharks. The film is a masterpiece of pure cinematic storytelling, even if it shortchanges the characters, but with Scheider on board, it was easy enough to care.



All That Jazz is where Scheider finally got some recognition, and while I won't begrudge him that, his performance is often shaped by the editing and rhythm of director Bob Fosse. I generally love Fosse, but this is my least favorite of his films. Even so, Scheider shines through as the director's doppelganger, especially in the scenes interacting with his daughter, ex-wife and girlfriends.



I think I have to stop now, but I'll reiterate R.I.P to someone who really means the [movie] world to me.

P.S. From what I've read, I don't believe that rufnek has seen Jaws.
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A real shame... he was a very underrated actor. RIP
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Rest In Peace, you hunter of the Great White!
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I love Roy Scheider. I really need to see more of his films. Like most, I have seen and love Jaws, The French Connection, 2010 . . . but I haven't seen some of the others that were mentioned here.
I also enjoyed 52 Pick-up, for what it was.
I'm completely alone on this opinion, but I've always enjoyed Still of the Night. To each their own.
One thing is for sure. He was a great actor, and he will be missed.



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Wow, I totally missed this till this morning. It wasn't in any of the general-news sites I visit, even in the Entertainment sections. What's up with THAT?

I too loved him in All That Jazz. I was a freshman in college when that came out, and the girl across the hall and I took a bus to downtown Pittsburgh a few times a WEEK to see that movie at the Chatham Theater (no longer there) because we were oddly obsessed with it. A lot of that was Scheider's performance. I bought the soundtrack (on vinyl, of course) and still proudly own it.



Very underrated actor