No More Chumming, Chiefie (Roy Scheider 1932-2008)

It is with a heavy heart that The Mung Hour says goodbye to an actor who uttered one of the most famous lines in film history. Roy Scheider has died at the age of 75.

Anyone old enough to sneak into PG movies in the 70's was lucky enough to witness the most pivotal shift in entertainment since the advent of color. The summer blockbuster. While 1977's Star Wars was the seminal moment for sci-fi (and consumer products), it was the shark movie two years prior that really changed everything. (Technically, one would have to credit 1973's The Exorcist for creating the modern blockbuster but that was a December release.)

Steven Spielberg has shown us many times that 'we are not alone' but never so frightening as when swimming, surfing or fishing in the ocean. Jaws was more than just a popcorn thriller that scared the masses, it was one of the best ensemble adventures of all time. Finding a better triumvirate of character and chemistry in the film's main three actors would be an exercise in casting futility. Rounding out the hilarious and abrasive Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss was a fairly unknown Roy Scheider. The man was and always will be Chief Martin Brody, the perfect blend of cop, soldier, father and that clichéd word 'everyman'. How many screen heroes have the balls to go mano-a-mano with a 25-foot great white while dangling off the end of a sinking mast with a rifle and a one-in-a-thousand chance of hitting an oxygen tank?

In the movie Platoon, Charlie Sheen's Chris says, "I've felt like a child, born of those two fathers." At the finale of Jaws, Martin Brody is to some degree the grown-up child born of the crazy Quint and the clever Hooper who pulls the trigger on the aquatic beast and the metaphorical beast, fear. Not exactly a subtle character arc here, but Scheider's nuanced performance reflects every inch of the guy caught in the middle and the last man standing.

Many may only remember Mr. Scheider for his two Jaws movies, the helicopter flick Blue Thunder and the doomed-from-the-the-start 2001: A Space Odyssey sequel, 2010. The Mung Hour recommends checking out his brilliant Oscar-nominated work in Bob Fosse's semi-autobiographical All That Jazz. Portraying the pill-popping and sexually carnivorous Fosse-esque protagonist while Fosse himself stood behind the camera couldn't have been a picnic, but Scheider is mesmerizing in the role. Dustin Hoffman was terrific in Kramer vs. Kramer, but had the Academy known in 1980 they'd be giving him his second Oscar a decade later in Rain Man, they might have reconsidered and rewarded Roy Scheider for the performance of a lifetime.

While he didn't fare as well as an aging film veteran, immortality as the lone police chief who slayed the great white shark ain't a bad way to go. Thanks for the fine performances, Roy Scheider and for reminding us that it's not the size of the boat that counts. It's how and when you shoot your bullet at the air tank.