Monday, February 11, 2008

The bigger boat in the sky.


Roy Scheider, a one-time boxer whose broken nose and pugnacious acting style made him a star in "The French Connection" and who later uttered one of cinematic history's most memorable lines in "Jaws," has died. He was 75.

Scheider earned two Academy Award nominations — a best-supporting nod for 1971's "The French Connection" in which he played the police partner of Oscar winner Gene Hackman, and a best-actor nomination for 1979's "All That Jazz," the semi-autobiographical Bob Fosse film.
But he was perhaps best known for his role as a small-town police chief in Steven Spielberg's 1975 film "Jaws," about a killer shark terrorizing beachgoers — as well as millions of moviegoers.
In 2005, one of Scheider's most famous lines in the movie — "You're gonna need a bigger boat" — was voted No. 35 on the American Film Institute's list of best quotes from U.S. movies.

You can talk Jaws all you want, but I will always think of Scheider as Capt. Nathaniel Brideger from SeaQuest DSV. Hey, never underestimate a bearded guy with a pet dolphin.

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