Roy Scheider
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| Roy Scheider | |
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 Taken in Krakow, Poland in April 28, 2007 during the production of Iron Cross |
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| Born | Roy Richard Scheider November 10, 1932 Orange, New Jersey, United States |
| Died | February 10, 2008 (aged 75) Little Rock, Arkansas, United States |
| Years active | 1961–2008 |
| Spouse(s) | Cynthia Bebout Scheider (1962–1989) Brenda Siemer Scheider (1989–2008) |
Roy Richard Scheider (November 10, 1932 – February 10, 2008) was an Academy Award- and Golden Globe-nominated American actor. He is best known for his role as police chief Martin Brody in the 1975 blockbuster Jaws, his Academy Award nominated role as Joe Gideon in Bob Fosse's fictional self-biopic All That Jazz, and as detective Sonny Grosso in The French Connection.
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Early life
Scheider was born in Orange, New Jersey,[1] the son of Anna Scheider (née Crosson) and auto mechanic Roy Bernhard Scheider.[2] Scheider's mother was of Irish Catholic background and his father was German American and Protestant.[3][4] As a child, Scheider was an athlete, participating in organized baseball and boxing competitions. 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."
[edit] Film career
Scheider's first film role was in the 1963 horror film 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,[5] 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 his French Connection director William Friedkin for Sorcerer, a brilliant remake of the French film La salaire de la peur, but the film bombed at the box office.
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, bound by a Universal contract to make a Jaws sequel, he was deprived of the role. 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 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.
Among his most 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 Iron Cross, which is in post-production.
[edit] 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 (musical guest: Billy Ocean) 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 in broadcast). Scheider guest-starred in sixth-season episode "Endgame" of Law & Order: Criminal Intent 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; it was also Scheider's last television credit.
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.)
[edit] 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. They remained married until his death.
[edit] Death
In 2004, Scheider was diagnosed with multiple myeloma. In June 2005, he underwent a bone marrow transplant to treat the cancer which was classified as being in partial remission.[citation needed] Scheider died on February 10, 2008 in Little Rock, Arkansas, at the University of Arkansas Medical Sciences Hospital. He was 75 years old. Though a cause of death was not immediately released, Scheider's wife attributed her husband's death to complications from a staph infection.[1]
[edit] Filmography
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[edit] References
- ^ a b Kehr, David (2008-02-10). "Roy Scheider, Actor in "Jaws", Dies at 75". New York Times. Retrieved on 2008-02-10.
- ^ Roy Scheider Biography (1932?-)
- ^ Roy Scheider
- ^ Kachmar, Diane C. (2002). Roy Scheider: A Film Biography. McFarland, 5. ISBN0786412011.
- ^ "Obituary: Roy Scheider". BBC. Retrieved on 2008-02-11.
[edit] External links
- The Roy Scheider Resource
- Obituary in The Times
- Roy Scheider at the Internet Movie Database
- Roy Scheider at the Starpulse Biography site
- Roy Scheider at The New York Times
- Roy Scheider - Obituary and public tribute
- Plum TV Hamptons Tribute
- William Friedkin on Roy Scheider
- Roy Scheider at Find A Grave
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Scheider, Roy |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Scheider, Roy Richard |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | American actor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 10, 1932 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Orange, New Jersey, United States |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 10, 2008 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | Little Rock, Arkansas, United States |
