 |
The actor Roy Scheider died yesterday at the University of Arkansas hospital, aged 75, after a long battle against multiple myeloma. Best known as the police chief in Jaws, he also appeared in works as diverse as Klute, Marathon Man, The Myth Of Fingerprints and Naked Lunch. He enjoyed a large fan following as Captain Bridger in SeaQuest DSV and starred as Fyodor Chevchenko in Third Watch.
Fond of strong character roles and often willing to take smaller parts which he could really make something out of, Scheider was cynical but upbeat about the film industry. "You read a lot about movies with budgets of $25 to $30 million. Hell, if a studio can piss away that kind of money, why not let 'em piss on me?" he said.
During the course of his career he was nominated twice for Oscars, for All That Jazz, in 1980, and for his role alongside Gene Hackman in The French Connection, in 1971.
Always popular with his fellow actors, he also starred alongside the likes of Dustin Hoffman, Sean Connery and Laurence Olivier over the course of his career.
Scheider was the man who delivered the immortal line "You're gonna need a bigger boat." The movies will seem smaller without him.
