Roy Scheider



Roy Richard Scheider (November 10, 1932 – February 10, 2008) was an American actor. He was best known for his role as police chief Martin Brody in Jaws, as choreographer and film director Joe Gideon in All That Jazz, detective Buddy Russo in The French Connection and his role as Captain Nathan Bridger in science fiction television series SeaQuest DSV. Scheider's final performance is to be released posthumously in the 2010 thriller Iron Cross. Described by Allmovie as "one of the most unique and distinguished of all Hollywood actors", Scheider was nominated for two Academy Awards, a Golden Globe Award and a BAFTA Award over the course of his career.

Early life
Scheider was born in Orange, New Jersey, the son of Anna Scheider (née Crosson) and auto mechanic Roy Bernhard Scheider. Scheider's mother was of Irish Catholic background and his father was German American and Protestant. As a child, Scheider was an athlete, participating in organized baseball and boxing competitions, for which he was classed as a welterweight, weighing in at 140 lbs. He attended Columbia High School in Maplewood, New Jersey, and was inducted into the school's hall of fame in 1985. He traded his boxing gloves for the stage, studying drama at both Rutgers University and Franklin and Marshall College, where he was a member of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity. After three years in the United States Air Force, he appeared with the New York Shakespeare Festival, and won an Obie Award in 1968. Scheider played running roles on two CBS soap operas, Love of Life and The Secret Storm.

Film career
Scheider's first film role was in the 1963 horror film The Curse of the Living Corpse. (He was billed as "Roy R. Sheider"). In 1971, he appeared in two highly popular movies, Klute and The French Connection; the latter, in which he played a fictionalized version of New York City detective Sonny Grosso, garnered him an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. His first starring role came in 1973 in The Seven-Ups, a quasi-follow-up to The French Connection, in which Scheider's character is once again based on Grosso. Two years later, he portrayed Chief Martin Brody in the Hollywood blockbuster Jaws which also starred Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss. Scheider's famous movie line, "You're gonna need a bigger boat", which was actually ad-libbed by Scheider, was voted 35th on the American Film Institute's list of best movie quotes. In 1976, he appeared as secret agent Doc Levy in Marathon Man, with Dustin Hoffman (as his younger brother) and Laurence Olivier. Scheider reunited with French Connection director William Friedkin in the box-office flop Sorcerer, a remake of the 1953 French film Le Salaire de la peur (The Wages of Fear). He was originally cast as Michael (Robert DeNiro's role) in The Deer Hunter, the second movie of a three-movie deal with Universal Studios. However, despite being under contract, Scheider dropped out of the production before filming. Universal offered him the option of reprising his role as Martin Brody for a Jaws sequel, and would consider his contractual obligations fulfilled if he accepted. Scheider accepted and Jaws 2 was released in 1978, though it was not a happy production for Scheider, who came into conflict with the film's director Jeannot Szwarc. In 1979, four years after he appeared in Jaws, he received his second Academy Award nomination, this time as Best Actor in All That Jazz, in which he played a fictionalized version of the film's director and co-writer Bob Fosse. In 1983, he starred in Blue Thunder, a John Badham film about a fictitious technologically advanced prototype attack helicopter which was to be used as security over the city of Los Angeles during the 1984 Summer Olympic Games. This was followed by a role as Dr. Heywood Floyd in Peter Hyams' 2010, a 1984 sequel to Stanley Kubrick's 1968 science fiction classic 2001: A Space Odyssey, in which William Sylvester originated the role of Floyd. One of his later parts was that of Dr. Benway in the long-in-production 1991 film adaptation of William S. Burroughs' novel Naked Lunch. In 1990 he co-starred with Sean Connery in The Russia House as the smart-talking CIA liaison with the British MI6. Among his later films, he appeared as the crusty father of hero Frank Castle in The Punisher (2004), and in 2007, starred in The Poet and If I Didn't Care. When Scheider died in February 2008, he had two movies upcoming: Dark Honeymoon, which had been completed, and the British thriller Iron Cross. In Iron Cross, Scheider plays the leading role of Joseph, a holocaust survivor with a propensity for justice, which was inspired by director Joshua Newton’s late father Bruno Newton. Iron Cross is in post-production and slated for 2010 release.

Other work
In 1993, Scheider signed on to be the lead star in the Steven Spielberg-produced television series SeaQuest DSV as Captain Nathan Bridger. During the second season, Scheider voiced disdain for the direction in which the series was heading. His comments were highly publicized, and the media criticized him for panning his own show. NBC made additional casting and writing changes in the third season, and Scheider decided to exit the show. His contract, however, required that he make several guest appearances that season. He also repeatedly guest-starred on the NBC television series Third Watch as fictional character Fyodor Chevchenko. Scheider hosted an episode of Saturday Night Live in the tenth (1984–1985) season and appeared on the Family Guy episode "Bill and Peter's Bogus Journey", voicing himself as the host of a toilet-training video (portions of which were censored on FOX and syndicated broadcast). Scheider also did voicework on the Family Guy episode Three Kings (which was recorded in September 2007 but aired in May 2009, a year and three months after his death in February 2008) which also featured his Jaws co-star Richard Dreyfuss. Scheider guest-starred in sixth-season episode Endgame of Law & Order: Criminal Intent TV series as serial-killer, death-row-inmate Mark Ford Brady, a crucial role in that the character Brady is later revealed to be the father of one of the series' central characters. Scheider narrated and served as associate producer of the 2006 Jaws documentary The Shark is Still Working. In 2007, Scheider received one of two annually-presented Lifetime Achievement Awards at the SunDeis Film Festival in Waltham, Massachusetts. (Academy Award winner Patricia Neal was the recipient of the other).

Personal life
Scheider's first marriage was to Cynthia Bebout on November 8, 1962. The couple had one daughter, Maximillia, before divorcing in 1989. On February 11, 1989, he married actress Brenda King, with whom he had a son, Christian, and a daughter, Molly aka Kiki. They remained married until his death.

Death
In 2004, Scheider was found to have multiple myeloma. In June 2005, he underwent a bone marrow transplant to treat the cancer. Scheider died on February 10, 2008 in Little Rock, Arkansas, at the University of Arkansas Medical Sciences Hospital.

Filmography

 * The Curse of the Living Corpse (1964)
 * Paper Lion (1968)
 * Stiletto (1969)
 * Puzzle of a Downfall Child (1969)
 * Loving (1970)
 * Klute (1971)
 * The French Connection (1971)
 * Assignment: Munich (1972) (Television Movie)
 * The Outside Man (1972)
 * The Assassination (1972)
 * The Seven-Ups (1973)
 * Sheila Levine Is Dead and Living in New York (1975)
 * Jaws (1975)
 * Marathon Man (1976)
 * Sorcerer (1977)
 * Jaws 2 (1978)
 * Last Embrace (1979)
 * All That Jazz (1979)
 * Still of the Night (1982)
 * ''Jacobo Timerman: Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without
 * Blue Thunder (1983)
 * Tiger Town (1983)
 * 2010 (1984)
 * Terror in the Aisles (1984) (archive footage)
 * Saturday Night Live (1985)
 * The Men's Club (1986)
 * The Egg's Sunset on the Upside Down Turned Ramp (1986)
 * 52 Pick-Up (1986)
 * ''Jaws: The Revenge (1987) (archive footage) (uncredited)
 * Cohen and Tate (1988)
 * Listen to Me (1989)
 * Night Game (1989)
 * The Fourth War (1989)
 * The Russia House (1990)
 * Somebody has to Shoot the Picture (1990)
 * Naked Lunch (1991)
 * Wild Justice (1993)
 * seaQuest DSV (1993) (Television Series)
 * Romeo is Bleeding (1994)
 * The Peacekeeper (1996)
 * Money Play$ (1997)
 * Executive Target (1997)
 * The Myth of Fingerprints (1997)
 * The Rainmaker (1997)
 * The Definite Maybe (1997)
 * The Rage (1997)
 * Plato's Run (1997)
 * The White Raven (1998)
 * Silver Wolf (1998) (Television Movie)
 * Evasive Action (1998)
 * Better Living (1998)
 * The Seventh Scroll (1999) (Television Mini-Series)
 * RKO 281 (1999)
 * Chain of Command (2000)
 * Falling Through (2000)
 * Daybreak (2000)
 * The Doorway (2000)
 * Time Lapse (2001)
 * Diamond Hunters (2001) (Television Movie)
 * Red Serpent (2002)
 * King of Texas (2002) (Television Movie)
 * Third Watch (2002) (Television Series)
 * Regulus: The First Nuclear Missile Submarines (2002)
 * Texas 46 (2002) aka The Good War (USA)
 * Citizen Verdict (2003)
 * Dracula II: Ascension (2003)
 * The Punisher (2004)
 * Dracula III: Legacy (2005)
 * Carrier: Arsenal of the Sea (2005)
 * The Shark is Still Working (2006)
 * Last Chance (2006) (Short)
 * Law and Order: Criminal Intent (2007) (Television Series)
 * The Poet (2007)
 * If I Didn't Care (2007)
 * Hearts of War (2007)
 * Chicago 10 (2007)
 * Family Guy ("Bill and Peter's Bogus Journey") (2007)
 * Dark Honeymoon (2008)
 * Family Guy ("Three Kings") (2009)
 * Iron Cross (2010) (in post-production)