Stage and Screen Great Roy Scheider Dead at 75

Roy Scheider, who began his acting career in the theater and received acclaim for his portrayal of a character based on Bob Fosse in All That Jazz, died on February 10 in Little Rock, Arkansas, where he was being treated at the Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. The actor's wife, Brenda, said he died of a staph infection, brought on by complications of the multiple myeloma with which he was diagnosed in 2004. Scheider was 75 and had lived in Sag Harbor, NY, in recent years.

Born on November 10, 1932, in Orange, NJ, Scheider studied at Rutgers and at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, PA, where he graduated as a history major with the intention of going to law school. He served three years in the U.S. Air Force, rising to the rank of first lieutenant. When he was discharged, he returned to Franklin and Marshall to star in a production of Richard III.

Scheider made his professional stage debut as Mercutio in a 1961 New York Shakespeare Festival production of Romeo and Juliet. He made his Broadway debut in 1965 in Tartuffe and starred in the original Broadway production of Harold Pinter's Betrayal in 1980 opposite Blythe Danner and Raul Julia. In recent years, Scheider lent his support to Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor and appeared in the title role of Trumbo: Red, White and Blacklisted for several performances in 2004.

With 70 feature films to his credit, Scheider earned Oscar nominations for his performances in the 1971 crime thriller The French Connection and for All That Jazz in 1979. He was best known for his role in Steven Spielberg's 1975 blockbuster Jaws, in which he played the resort police chief whose beach town is terrorized by a great white shark. His other film credits included Klute, Marathon Man and Still of the Night. In the 1990s, Scheider starred in the futuristic undersea adventure series SeaQuest DSV, playing the captain of a giant, high-tech submarine. The NBC show was executive produced by Spielberg.

In addition to his wife, Scheider is survived by three children and two grandchildren.