Roy Scheider, a two-time Oscar nominee best known for his role as a police chief in the blockbuster movie Jaws, died Sunday. He was 75.
Scheider died at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences hospital in Little Rock, hospital spokesman David Robinson said. The hospital did not release a cause of death.
However, hospital spokeswoman Leslie Taylor said Scheider had been treated for multiple myeloma at the hospital’s Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy for the past two years.
He was nominated for a best-supporting actor Oscar in 1971’s The French Connection in which he played the police partner of Oscar winner Gene Hackman and for best-actor for 1979’s All That Jazz, the autobiographical Bob Fosse film.
However, he was best known for his role in Steven Spielberg’s 1975 film, Jaws, the enduring classic about a killer shark terrorizing beachgoers and well as millions of moviegoers.
Widely hailed as the film that launched the era of the Hollywood blockbuster, it was also the first movie to earn $100 million at the box office. Scheider starred with Richard Dreyfuss, who played an oceanographer.
View Scheider’s full filmography here.
