Roy Scheider's most famous role was the oceanographer in 'Jaws', the Spielberg film that inaugurated the era of 'blockbusters' in Hollywood.
Actor Roy Scheider, who rose to international fame as police chief Martin Brody in Steven Spielberg's Jaws, has died at the age of 75, sources at the University of Arkansas Hospital said.
The institution's spokesman, David Robinson, did not specify the cause of death, although center workers explained that the American interpreter had received treatment for multiple myeloma during the last two years.
Both Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss, who played an oceanographer, starred in Jaws (1975), the film that inaugurated the era of Hollywood "blockbusters" since it was the first film to exceed the barrier of 100 million dollars in theaters.
In 2005, one of Scheider's most famous phrases in that film ("You're going to need a bigger boat") was chosen by the American Film Institute (AFI) among the best lines in the history of American celluloid. The other actor in the leading trio of Jaws was Robert Shaw (Quint, in the film), who died in 1978.
Scheider came face to face with another huge shark in the second part of that classic, Jaws II (1978), a minor film directed by Jeannot Szwarc.
Despite the massive success of Spielberg's famous film, academic recognition came to him for The French Connection, for which he was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in 1972, a film in which he coincided with the Spanish Fernando Rey. Eight years later he was up for an Oscar again, this time as the lead in Bob Fosse's All That Jazz.
