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1971L Roy Scheider Breaks out in "The French Connection" and "Klute"

posted a year ago by roger1 (3876)
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"Jaws" (1975) made leading men out of all three of its male leads -- Robert Shaw(who got some action movies and died young at 51), Richard Dreyfuss(who perhaps went the farthest -- winning a Best Actor Oscar for The Goodbye Girl and appearing in Close Encounters the same year), and Roy Scheider.

Scheider outlived Shaw, but couldn't quite keep his leading man career going. He hit big in All the Jazz(replacing, unbelievably, DREYFUSS as an athletic Broadway dance man based on Bob Fosse, who made the film) and held on a bit into the 80s with Blue Thunder and 52 Pick Up.

But before Jaws and everything that followed could happen, Scheider needed to "make his name" in movies, and in 1971, he did it:

He was in The French Connection, which won the Best Actor award for Gene Hackman.
He was in Klute, which won the Best Actress award for Jane Fonda.

So, two quality movies, two hits. The French Connection hit bigger than Klute, with a Best Picture win and a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nom for Roy Scheider -- sympathetic as the buddy movie partner to cop Gene Hackman in a movie that wasn't too buddy-buddy at all.

Both The French Connection and Klute were set in a gritty New York City, "underbelly up" -- though Klute had a bit more glamour given the upperclass world in which call girl Fonda moved.

Scheider's role in Klute was more dangerous to his career, perhaps than his hero cop in The French Connection. In Klute, Scheider is an upper-level "white pimp" working out of a nice apartment with a cover job -- but he is very much a villain, whose control of Fonda (as demonstrated to "nice guy cop" Donald Sutherland as Klute) is the usual "bad guy wins" sort of proposition.

Indeed, its hard to believe the slimy pimp played by Scheider in Klute being the same "regular guy" on the sea in Jaws...but...that's acting.

"French Connection" director William Friedkin gave Scheider the "American lead" in the international cast thriller "Sorcerer" which was a big flop after Friedkin's two hits(French Connection and The Exorcist.) Friedkin almost had Steve McQueen for the part, but lost him. Schieder's inability to play movie star at McQueen level probably cost him later. "All that Jazz" was a fluke -- Scheider replaced Dreyfuss.

Roy Scheider had a solid, long career until death. He went out as he came in -- a solid character man in support. With some leads in between.

But its fun to see him "making his debut"(after some other unknown movies) all in the same year, only a month or two apart in the fall, as I recall.

The cop in The French Connection. The pimp in Klute. A great launch until that great white shark could make him a star.

[–] sadpopcorn (1852) a year ago

While successful, I think he never TRULY broke out because he was so difficult to work with.

[–] roger1 (3876) a year ago

While successful, I think he never TRULY broke out because he was so difficult to work with.

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I never thought of it that way, but I know he promoted "Jaws 2" with a kind of backhanded insult, saying he didn't want to be in the sequel, but had to be because of a contract, so he wanted it to be as good as possible.

I've certainly heard of actors and actresses who pretty much lost their careers over being difficult. They would say things like "they call me difficult but I'm just a perfectionist" and STILL stop getting roles. Debra Winger for instance. (Even as Barbra Streisand lasted forever.)

Drug use affected the ability of actors George Segal and James Caan to do their jobs on various movies, and Segal cost productions dearly by walking off of Lucky Lady(replaced by Gene Hackman) and 10 (replaced by Dudley Moore.)

PS. With this thread on my mind, I was flipping the streaming dial the other night and came upon what looked like a "Direct to Video" cop/serial killer movie from 1989. I saw that it starred Roy Scheider, so I watched a little of it. It was called "Night Games" and -- get this -- about a serial killer who kills his victims whenver a certain pitcher pitches a game. I guess that's a workable premise, but it looked cheap. Scheider as the investigating detective was his Jaws-iconic self, but...saddled with very pedestrian dialogue. I turned it off. I guess Schieder recovered with a Spielberg underwater TV show and some good movie parts(The Rainmaker) but to see him "grabbing a paycheck" here was kinda depressing.

[–] DoctorThirteen (14658) a year ago

I always liked Scheider, but he never seemed to hit as big as I thought he would. I wondered if not being conventionally 'handsome' had any bearing on it, but that never held Hackman back.

[–] roger1 (3876) a year ago

I always liked Scheider, but he never seemed to hit as big as I thought he would. I wondered if not being conventionally 'handsome' had any bearing on it, but that never held Hackman back.

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These things are subjective, but I think that Hackman in the 70s and 80's(with "movie star" treatment in the cinematography) was a surprisingly handsome man. Like Spencer Tracy, he didn't have a voice one could imitate but it WAS distinctive -- crisp, confident, hitting all the right notes, and THAT helped make him handsome, too. Also, sometimes he wore a moustache and looked more handsome still (Prime Cut, Night Games, Bite the Bullet...but NOT The Conversation, where his moustache was as wimpy as the character he played.)

(Note in passing: some interviewer tried to butter up the current character actor John C. Reilly by saying that HE looked like Gene Hackman but -- clearly, no. Hackman was more handsome than that.)

With re: Scheider's looks. Early on, I "locked in" a vision of his face in profile that forever hurt his looks with me:

If you've ever put a minnow or other small fish on a fishhook as bait, in profile, you get this "flat face with a big eye and thin lips" that -- I can't deny it -- is how Roy Scheider always looked in profile to me. A very skinny face, too. It sort of helped with Jaws -- he had the face of a FISH, IMHO. And when SPOILER...his character is stabbed in Marathon Man, he seemed like a gutted fish, too!

Note in passing: I recall from interviews in the 70's that the very thin Scheider told interviewers that he had been very overweight as a child. Maybe the weight loss gave him that look.