Roy Scheider

10 November, 1932

| 1.75 m

Actor

Producer

Soundtrack

Biography

Roy Scheider

Lean, angular-faced and authoritatively spoken lead / supporting actor Roy Scheider obviously never heard the old actor's axiom about "never appearing with kids or animals" lest they overshadow your performance. Breaking that rule did him no harm, though, as he achieved pop cult status by finding, fighting and blowing up a 25-foot-long Great White shark (nicknamed "Bruce") in the mega-hit Szczęki (1975) and then electrocuting an even bigger Great White in the vastly inferior Szczęki 2 (1978).Athletic Scheider was born in November 1932 in Orange, New Jersey, to Anna (Crosson) and Roy Bernhard Scheider, a mechanic. He was of German and Irish descent. A keen sportsman from a young age, he competed in baseball and boxing (his awkwardly mended broken nose is a result of his foray into Golden Gloves competitions). While at college, his pursuits turned from sports to theater and he studied drama at Rutgers and Franklin and Marshall. After a stint in the military, Scheider appeared with the New York Shakespeare Festival and won an "Obie Award" for his appearance in the play "Stephen D."His film career commenced with the campy Z-grade horror cheesefest The Curse of the Living Corpse (1964), and he then showed up in Gwiazda! (1968), Papierowy lew (1968), Sztylet (1969) and Zagadka dziecka klęski (1970). In 1971 he really came to the attention of film audiences with his role in the Jane Fonda thriller Klute (1971) and then as Det. Buddy Russo (scoring his first Oscar nomination) alongside fiery Gene Hackman in the crime drama Francuski łącznik (1971). His performance as a tough street cop in that film led him into another tough cop role as NYC Det. Buddy Manucci in the underappreciated Od siedmiu wzwyż (1973), which features one of the best car chase sequences ever put on film.In the early 1970s the Peter Benchley novel "Jaws" was a phenomenal best-seller, and young director Steven Spielberg was chosen by Universal Pictures to direct the film adaptation, Szczęki (1975), in which Scheider played police chief Brody and shared...

Movies

When a killer shark unleashes chaos on a beach community off Cape Cod, it's up to a local sheriff, a marine biologist, and an old seafarer to hunt the beast down.

A pair of NYPD detectives in the Narcotics Bureau stumble onto a heroin smuggling ring based in Marseilles, but stopping them and capturing their leaders proves an elusive goal.

Police chief Brody must protect the citizens of Amity after a second monstrous shark begins terrorizing the waters.

After the murder of his older brother, a New York history student is hounded by shadowy government agents on the trail of a Nazi war criminal who is trying to retrieve smuggled diamonds.

A joint USA-Soviet expedition is sent to Jupiter to learn exactly what happened to the "Discovery" and its H.A.L. 9000 computer.

Director/choreographer Bob Fosse tells his own life story as he details the sordid career of Joe Gideon, a womanizing, drug-using dancer.

Four unfortunate men from different parts of the globe agree to risk their lives transporting gallons of nitroglycerin across dangerous Latin American jungle.

The cop test pilot for an experimental police helicopter learns the sinister implications of the new vehicle.

A British publisher is sent a manuscript detailing Soviet Union nuclear missile capabilities. British Intelligence intercept it and recruit him to investigate the author's editor, a beautiful Russian woman he claims never to have met.

A secret extramarital fling between successful Los Angeles construction magnate Harry Mitchell and his stripper mistress Cini leads to three strangers blackmailing him for a six-figure sum, followed by burglary, theft, and Cini's murder.

Tough detective Buddy leads an elite New York City unit to convict felons and jail them for a minimum of seven years. Buddy is trying to find out who killed his partner but uncovers a plot to kidnap mobsters for money.

A Manhattan psychiatrist probes a patient's murder and falls for the victim's mysterious mistress.