Roy Scheider, Actor, Activist, Dies
Passionate liberal known for his nuanced, macho, yet elegant performances
 Durell Godfrey
Roy Scheider, right, and Steven Spielberg at Guild Hall after an anniversary screening of “Jaws” |
(2/14/2008) Roy Scheider, a two-time Academy Award nominee, and a founder of the Hayground School in Bridgehampton, died on Monday at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences hospital in Little Rock. Mr. Scheider, who lived for many years near Gibson Beach in Sagaponack, where his handsome face and sinewy, deeply tanned body became a familiar sight, had moved to Sag Harbor last year with his wife, Brenda Siemer, and their two children, Christian Verrier and Molly Mae.
He had been receiving treatment for multiple myeloma for several years, and died of complications from a staph infection. He was 75.
He was best known for his role as a small-town police chief in “Jaws,” the1975 blockbuster about a man-eating shark preying on bathers on the beaches of a fictional summer resort. It was the first movie to gross more than a $100 million and the only movie to play that summer at the East Hampton Cinema.
Capt. Frank Mundus, a former resident of Montauk, was the inspiration for the fishing boat captain in the novel by Peter Benchley upon which the film was based. “Jaws” not only launched Mr. Scheider’s career, but also that of its director, Steven Spielberg. Mr. Spielberg, who has a house in East Hampton, and Mr. Scheider became lifelong friends.
“In the middle of the ‘Jaws’ experience,” Mr. Spielberg wrote in an e-mail to The East Hampton Star, “when all of us were losing our minds, making an impossible movie possible, Roy Scheider was always the center of gravity. He was the everyman that audiences identified with and loved. He was a fantastic actor and a very good friend. I will miss him.”
Mr. Scheider was born in Orange, N.J., in 1932 to Anne and Roy Scheider. As a teenager he competed in amateur boxing and broke his nose in a New Jersey Diamond Gloves bout. The slightly crooked nose gave the handsome actor a dark, bad-boy quality that added to his gritty appeal. Mr. Scheider, a natural athlete, excelled at giving agile, nuanced performances, macho and taciturn, yet elegant and graceful.
After studying at Rutgers University in New Jersey, he went on to graduate from Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa., with a bachelor’s degree in history. He originally hoped to become a lawyer, but after serving three years in the Air Force as a first lieutenant, he shifted gears, and set his sites on becoming an actor.
In 1961, he made his stage debut as Mercutio in a New York Shakespeare Festival production of “Romeo and Juliet,” and met Robert Whitehead, a co-founder, with Elia Kazan, of the nascent Repertory Theater of Lincoln Center.
“Roy traveled to Japan with Bob Whitehead and my step-father, Harold Clurman,” said Ellen Adler, executive chair of the Stella Adler Studio of Acting in New York City. This collaboration, in 1965, was the beginning of a lifelong friendship with the late Mr. Clurman and the studio. “Roy was extraordinary,” Ms. Adler said. “He was the nicest guy, a passionate liberal, and an idealistic, and noble man.”
As recently as September, Mr. Scheider addressed students at the Stella Adler Studio, where he was a member of the board, as part of a panel on censorship and the arts. He spoke fervently about his belief in the correlation between public apathy over the Iraq war and the elimination of the draft. Opposed to the war in Iraq, he had taken part in local protests, as well.
Mr. Scheider made his movie debut in “The Curse of the Living Corpse,” a low-budget horror film, in 1964. His first major film role was in “Klute,” in 1971, as a menacing pimp fronting for Jane Fonda, a call girl with the makings of a feminist. That year he also acted in “The French Connection” as a police partner to Gene Hackman’s character, Popeye Doyle. He was nominated for a best supporting actor Academy Award for that role.
For many of Mr. Scheider’s fans, though, “All That Jazz” was the quintessential showcase for his special blend of talents. The film is a fictionalized autobiography of the legendary Broadway director and choreographer, Bob Fosse. The story, a complex and dark song-and-dance portrait of ruinous obsession, brought Mr. Scheider an Academy Award nomination for best actor.
In 1979, Mr. Scheider was offered the lead role in “The Deer Hunter,” but an agreement with the producers of “Jaws” obliged him to appear in its sequel. The role eventually went to Robert de Niro.
Over the next two decades, Mr. Scheider continued to work in film, theater, and television. He starred opposite Meryl Streep in “Still of the Night,” written and directed by Robert Benton in 1983. In “Romeo Is Bleeding,” a 1993 thriller, he played a corrupt cop. He continued to act until recently, and two films in which he appeared were in post-production at the time of his death.
In 1994, Mr. Scheider moved to Sagaponack with his wife, Ms. Seimer. He became active in the community, joining the Group for the East End, and the following year he helped found the Hayground School in Bridgehampton with Toni Ross and Kathy Engel.
Mr. Scheider was a regular at the annual Artists and Writers Softball Game in East Hampton, where he pitched for the artists even following his diagnosis with multiple myeloma in 2006. Mike Lupica, the author and sports columnist at The New York Daily News, remembered the game well.
“Scheider was one of the gents of all time,” he said in an e-mail, recalling that Mr. Scheider was the game’s first-ever M.V.P. following his final inning as pitcher. “I called and told him from the Laundry [restaurant],” Mr. Lupica wrote. “Then held out the cellphone somebody had given me while everybody chanted his name. It was the best day in the history of the thing.”
Mr. Scheider’s first marriage to Cynthia Bebout ended in divorce in the late 1980s. Their daughter, Maximillia Connelly Lord, died last year. In addition to his second wife and children, Mr. Scheider is survived by a brother, Glenn Scheider of Summit, N.J., and two grandchildren.
A memorial service is being planned for early spring.