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FlickChick: In Praise of Roy Scheider (1932-2008)
Roy Scheider by Stephen Lovekin/WireImage.com
Yeah, Jaws. Everybody remembers Roy Scheider as Chief Brody. Partly because it's impossible to imagine anyone else as the small-town family man forced to wage war on a prehistoric eating machine with only a nebbish and a psychopath as allies, and partly because the one-two punch of Jaws and Star Wars changed American movies forever.
Being in Jaws — let alone being the guy who summed up the man vs. shark odds in the laconic observation, "You're gonna need a bigger boat" — eclipsed everything.
But Scheider made his first movie in 1964 and his last three in 2007. He didn't die painfully young like Heath Ledger. But his soft, gravelly voice, off-kilter good looks – Scheider beat Owen Wilson to broken-nosed sexiness by decades – and air of lean, secretly damaged authority were such a familiar presence in TV and movies, large and small, that it was hard to imagine it ever being gone. And now Scheider is.
Born and raised in Orange, New Jersey, Scheider was lean and athletic; not a gym rat, but a serious amateur boxer (hence the nose) who pumped gas as a teenager and spent three years in the Air Force before he started acting.
He began on the stage — wrap your mind around Chief Brody as Romeo's cynical cousin Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, at the New York Shakespeare Festival no less — and got into movies by way of the quintessential skeleton in the celluloid closet, The Horror of Party Beach schlockmeister Del Tenney's eminently forgettable Curse of the Living Corpse.
By 1971 he was an Oscar nominee for William Friedkin's The French Connection (1971), playing the marginally cooler partner of Gene Hackman's loose-cannon cop Popeye Doyle.
When you think gritty, '70s New York movies, you should be thinking Scheider: Alan J. Pakula's Klute, as call-girl Jane Fonda's ex-pimp, John Schlesinger's Marathon Man, as Dustin Hoffman's mysterious brother, French Connection producer-turned-director Philip D'Antoni's The Seven-Ups, as another hard-nosed cop.
Scheider gave a genuinely harrowing performance as a mentally unbalanced ex-cop in Jonathan Demme's sleek thriller Last Embrace, and scored a second Oscar nomination playing a self-destructive choreographer in Chicago creator Bob Fosse's semiautobiographical All That Jazz. The 1980s weren't kind to actors like Scheider, favoring pretty boys and cartoonish action heroes.
But he never phoned it in, and, given material he could work with, Scheider unleashed that perfectly controlled intensity and lit it up: Check out his performance as a hit man in the seriously underrated Cohen and Tate (1986). And he just kept on making the most of what came his way — look at his small turn in The Punisher (2004) as revenger Frank Castle's father.
I'm glad I can look forward to Iron Cross and Dark Honeymoon, but oh, how I wish there were more.
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Feb 12, 2008 1:14 PM
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Scheider did a great episode arc on Third Watch as an organized crime boss - he was fantastic!
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Feb 12, 2008 1:29 PM
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I'm glad you mentioned "Marathon Man" because he was really amazing in that...
Other favorites I recall were "Sorcerer," "Blue Thunder," "52 Pick Up" and "2010".... I know it wasn't as good as 2001, but I thought it was still interesting...
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Feb 12, 2008 1:37 PM
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Of his less favored titles, I have come to really like 2010 over the years (but I am still prefer Dune in that battle). And he was pretty good in the inconceivably competent Naked Lunch.
52 Pick-Up was a nice little thriller. Not a big movie. Not a lot to it. But nice.
Yes, I do like Jaws 2. So sue me!
And rock on Blue Thunder!!
I will miss you, Mr. S.
(Maitland, I hope you have time for few minutes of tribute on this week's Podcast)
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Feb 12, 2008 1:58 PM
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Mr. Schieder was a complete actor with a great civil way about himself and really caught the audience with his perfect tone for each of his roles. He will be missed for many reasons but he was just a good old fashion street/stage actor. Jaws will be what he is most noted but another great role was his role in the seven ups. God is getting a really great guy too early!
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Feb 12, 2008 2:20 PM
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I fell in love w/ Roy when I saw All That Jazz, my love affair will never end, even though he is gone.
Yes, 52 Pick Up is my favorite.
He is and always will be a handsome devil.
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Feb 12, 2008 2:51 PM
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Okay, I know it wasn't a critically-loved series and couldn't decide on the show it wanted to be, but I'll always love Scheider as Captain Nathan Bridger on seaQuest.
That's a naval boat I would have loved to be on (till Season 3).
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Feb 12, 2008 3:56 PM
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This is truly a loss.
Rest in peace, Mr Scheider. Thank you for your legacy.
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Feb 12, 2008 7:04 PM
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Roy Scheider was a character actor who could carry a film as its lead - not the usual kinda guy to have so many good-to-great films under his belt as a lead.
Only Scheider could have played off Malcolm McDowell so well in something like Blue Thunder, for example.
Rest in peace, Roy.
Catch you, later.
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Feb 12, 2008 11:20 PM
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Roy Scheider, you will be missed dearly. My 5 yr old son took the news pretty badly and it broke my heart watching him cry after I told him the news. My son is a HUGE Jaws fan and imitates Roy Scheider, draws pictures of him and even had his hair cut like Chief Brody. My son has Leukemia and he had wanted to meet Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss for his Make a Wish to discuss Jaws and tell them how he is going to make Jaws 5 when he gets older. Rest in Peace Roy. My prayers and sympathy to Roy's family and friends. He will live on in our memories.
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Feb 13, 2008 1:40 AM
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Gosh..I had forgotten about him in Klute! And, forgive mymemory lapse, was 52-Pickup the one that had a crucial scene on a bridge?
Scheider may have made the ocassional clinker but there was never a performance of his that I didn't appreciate. Sometimes, no matter at what age they leave us-Marlon Brando, Duke Ellington,Gregory Peck,Jessica Tandy-it's still too soon.
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Feb 13, 2008 3:09 AM
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........air of lean, secretly-damaged authority were such a familiar presence in TV and movies, large and small, that was hard to imagine it ever being gone. And now Scheider is.
I cant imagine that he is dead either, somehow it just didnt occur to me that he ever could+ I just want to thank Maitland McDonagh for such an excellent piece, I had to register to this site to write this no big deal, I am English live in a small town by the sea in the north west of england. Roy Scheider is one of the few actors that made me want to be an actor too, I have just completed my 20th film role, this one with jean Claude Van damme, maybe one day I will be able to reach the heart of what Roy Scheider reached, I was totally obsessed with his role in Blue Thunder it was just SO SO SO good, it hit all the spots as of course he did in all his films. The man was magnificent, I am as sad as hell, and now feel mortal damn it somehow people like him make us feel like we can live forever. One can only celebrate life whilst we have it and an ode to Roy for hitting the heart of the matter, try chumpin some o this sh****t !!!
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Feb 13, 2008 6:27 AM
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