Roy Scheider: 1932 - 2008

By Joe Leydon
URL: http://www.moviemaker.com/blog/item/roy_scheider_1932_2008_20080211/
"You're gonna need a bigger boat!" Delivering that single, splendidly spot-on line of dialogue—in Jaws, of course—was more than enough to eternally ensure for Roy Scheider a warm spot in the hearts of movie buffs everywhere. (Of course, it didn't hurt that he also said, in the very same movie, "Smile, you son of a bitch!")

But for some of us, the lean and leathery actor with the bluntly chiseled profile will remain most fondly remembered not for his engaging turn as a small-town sheriff battling a Buick-sized shark, but rather for his drop-dead brilliance as Bob Fosse's stressed-for-success, razzle-dazzling autobiographical alter ego in All That Jazz, the go-for-broke, shoot-the-moon musical fantasia that deserves honorable mention on anyone's list of the greatest and most audacious movies of the 1970s. I am not ashamed to admit that, the first time I saw this masterwork in 1979, the gut-punch impact of Scheider's final exit (which, I swear, I most certainly did not see coming) caused me to burst into tears. Bye-bye, life, indeed. Jeez, I can still hear the sound of that damn zipper...