Un Homme est Mort

Roy Scheider, dead at 75. Though I've got a head start on the Monday morning news sources, I assume this'll be heavily covered, so just a brief word on the man's sequel and remake work. He garnered a brief, snarky mention in this blog a few weeks ago, but the man generally did good work.

Scheider appeared more reputably in sequels to two AFI Top 100-type movies, reprising his role as Chief Brody in Jaws 2 (before getting out while the getting was good) and taking over William Sylvester's role as "moon...American...Floyd, Heywood R." in the unloved 2010. He didn't make it into The French Connection II, or it could have been three.

His chief role as Martin Brody in Jaws lent him an authoritative air in casting directors' minds; after Jaws, he went on to play three doctors (though I'm not entirely convinced of Dr. Benway's credentials in Naked Lunch)(despite the name, Marathon Man's Doc was not an M.D.), an officer, two colonels, a mayor, a captain (a sea captain, on three seasons of SeaQuest DSV), an apparently Spanish Cardinal, and Presidents Carlson, Baker, and Cahill.

His sequel work beyond the abovementioned is fairly limited: Angels Don't Sleep Here (the sequel to Backflash), Dracula II, and Dracula III. His only remake is the 2004 Punisher do-over, unless you feel like counting All That Jazz.

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