Roy Scheider, 1932 - 2008.

Roy Scheider, a stage actor with a background in the classics who became one of the leading figures in the American film renaissance of the 1970s, died on Sunday afternoon in Little Rock, Ark.... Mr Scheider's rangy figure, gaunt face and emotional openness made him particularly appealing in everyman roles, most famously as the agonized police chief of Jaws, Steven Spielberg's 1975 breakthrough hit, about a New England resort town haunted by the knowledge that a killer shark is preying on the local beaches.

Dave Kehr, New York Times.

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.

Joe Leydon.

Posted by dwhudson at February 10, 2008 11:02 PM