this week - I just learned that Roy Scheider died today and I'm really going to miss him. He's in one of my very favorite movies - All That Jazz - where he plays Joe Gideon, the fictional alter ego of Bob Fosse.
I love dance movies - I don't mean musicals, though I like those as well - but I love movies about dance. And All That Jazz may be my very favorite. Scheider is great in this move. It's dark and the music is wonderful, the dancing is perfect. It's
And though Jaws doesn't quite reach All That Jazz for me, I still love the movie, and I use the line we're gonna need a bigger boat fairly regularly. I didn't know this until today but rumor is that Scheider actually improvised that line - which ended up as #35 on the American Film Institute's list of 100 greatest movie quotes of all times.
Marathon Man, where he plays Dustin Hoffman's big brother, is another favorite. Scheider has such a great face, such a distinctive way of moving, that even if he has a smaller part, he can take over the screen, even from such great actors as Dustin Hoffman, Robert Shaw or Meryl Streep. He had presence.
So now you know what I'm going to be doing this week - watching movies, probably all three of those movies, with Roy Scheider in them. And if I could, I'd rent Seaquest DSV, a short-lived TV series that I also enjoyed, almost entirely because of Scheider.
Kate
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