Roy Scheider: Biography

Though he has played a wide assortment of character, lead, and supporting roles, lanky, lean Roy Scheider's weather-beaten face, broken nose (due to a teenage injury during a golden gloves preliminaries boxing match), and sensitive eyes give him the look and feel of a tough, world-weary fighter who would rather fight to the death than give up on life. Born and raised in Orange, NJ, Scheider has a classical background in acting that began in his college days at Rutgers and at Franklin and Marshall College. He made his professional debut plying Mercutio in the 1961 New York Shakespeare Festival production of Romeo and Juliet. He followed this up by spending the next few years playing classic roles in repertory theater. In 1968, he won an Obie for the play Stephen D. Scheider made an unremarkable film debut billing himself as Roy R. Sheider in The Curse of the Living Corpse (1964), and subsequently appeared in two more insubstantial films before making an impact with his Oscar-nominated performance as officer Buddy Russo, Gene Hackman's partner in William Friedkin's true-life police thriller The French Connection (1971). Scheider next played the lead in The Seven-Ups (1973), again playing a Big Apple cop. Wanting to avoid typecasting, he next appeared in the largely unsuccessful romantic comedy Sheila Levine Is Dead and Living in New York (1975). Scheider got his big break the following year when Steven Spielberg gave him the leading role in his blockbuster hit Jaws (1976), the film that made both Spielberg and Scheider Hollywood stars. The actor was next slated to appear as the lead in The Deer Hunter (1979) to fulfill the rest of his three-picture contract with Universal, but he left the production following a dispute about the film's ending that lead to Robert DeNiro's landing the role. Scheider then agreed to take Jaws II, which would count as two films, thereby fulfilling his contract obligations. 1979 proved a very good year for Scheider who appeared in Jonathan Demme's Hitchcock-ian thriller The Last Embrace and most notably as a complicated, chain-smoking, and self-destructive Broadway choreographer in Bob Fosse's autobiographical tour de force All That Jazz. Scheider's performance earned him a second Oscar nomination and a Palm D'Or at Cannes. The '70s proved to be the high point of Scheider's film career for during the '80s, he appeared in films of such varying quality that it seemed as if he might disappear from the screen altogether. Instead, Scheider has become a strong supporting actor in such films as David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch (1991) and The Myth of Fingerprints (1997). He became a television star in 1993 when he was given the lead in Steven Spielberg's sci-fi series SeaQuest DSV (1993-1995). For the television miniseries Leopold & Loeb (1994), Scheider offered a memorable turn as lawyer Clarence Darrow. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide