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Reasons why he wasn't a bigger actor after his 1970s run (French Connection, Jaws, All That Jazz, etc.)

posted 2 years ago by TMC-4 (19392)
11 replies | jump to latest

https://www.quora.com/Why-wasn-t-Roy-Scheider-a-bigger-actor-after-his-1970s-run-French-Connection-Jaws-All-That-Jazz-etc-Why-wasnt-he-a-significant-leading-man-through-the-1980s/answer/Jon-Mixon-1

Multiple reasons, including:

1. Jaws 2 didn’t do as well as the original - Although it grossed more than $200 million USD, that was less than half of the original film on a higher budget. That made a lot of tongues wag about how Scheider couldn’t “win the big games” which was a reputation that he maintained for the remainder of his life.

2. All That Jazz underperformed - Although the film made three times its budget, the hype surround it meant that it was expected to have earned far more. That began Scheider’s “slide”.

3. Still of the Night/Blue Thunder/2010 - Three in a row that all under-performed. Blue Thunder likely hurt the most as it was hyped up on all of the available media and yet still was unable to make Scheider into a bigger star. Things were getting grim for him by the mid-1980s and he needed a hit to keep in the running.

4. 52 Pickup - For some reason, someone thought that this adaptation of an Elmore Leonard novel (Not even one of HIS best) would make a good film. And they also decided that the film needed Ann-Margret. Both were terrible decisions, the film bombed at the box office, and Scheider returned to the ranks of character actor for the remainder of his career.

5. Scheider eschewed any further involvement with the Jaws franchise - After Jaws 2, Scheider declined any further roles in the franchise. While that was his right, he also needed a franchise for when his other film roles dried up and he decided that he did not. After 1987, Scheider’s star dimmed and remained dim for the rest of his life.

Scheider tried a move to television with the sci-fi series SeaQuest: DSV. He lasted for two of the series’ 2 1/2 seasons and left when the ratings plunged and the program was critically savaged. Following this, Scheider was strictly a character actor and even then, his outings were uniformly unsuccessful. He died of cancer in 2008.

While hindsight is 20/20, had he remained with the Jaws franchise and had even one of his early 1980s roles been a major hit, Roy Scheider would have remained a marketable star for the remainder of his life. They didn’t and his career in the 1990s and later was nothing like what his 1970s success foretold.

https://www.quora.com/Did-Roy-Scheider-stop-getting-good-quality-roles-after-1982?q=Roy%20Scheider

[–] Roguemail (1562) 2 years ago

I loved 52 Pick Up, I think its an underated gem and one of his best roles. It has a great storyline and lots of twists and turned, plus some very well drawn, memorable villains, especially Clarence Williams quiet menacing Bobby Shy.

Great score too.

For me Seaquest DSV was rock bottom for Scheider. A dreadful series which did him no favours.

[–] alexjohans0n (2094) a year ago

His rock bottom came later! From 1995 onwards...

[–] Martoto (4082) a year ago

Jaws 2 performed better than expected for a sequel at that time by taking over 60% of the original's gross.

Scheider didn't even want to do Jaws 2 and was expected to be unavailable for it until he was fired from The Deer Hunter (something he suspected was manipulates by the studios). He was dragged kicking and screaming onto the sequel and tried to get himself fired from that too.

The whole episode likely closed a few doors to him. But the idea that All That Jazz not being a mega hit stopped him getting roles is just stupid.

It sounds like Roy wasn't especially enamored with Hollywood in general and not inclined to play the game just for his career.

He did mostly very good work for whoever he chose to work. Everything else is just idle gossip.

[–] kwestmo (4114) a year ago

I have toagree about ATJ. Three times budget is good and I don't see how that was a mass market film.

[–] JosephQCat (706) a year ago

Scheider always struck me as having an aloof personality. If the studios see you as an ATM for them then you can get away with it. Otherwise you wind up on the outside of the studio system. What about 2010 (1984)? He was the biggest name in that. John Lithgow was just some fairly obscure actor who was only known for The Twilight Zone movie a couple of years prior. Scheider doomed Seaquest as he made some statement about television and science fiction that was not complimentary. He also alienated Star Trek fans who should have been a logical part of his show.

[–] tyrannosaurus_sex (397) a year ago

He was on that 90's show Seaquest DSV.

[–] alexjohans0n (2094) a year ago

He was one of the world biggest actors from 1975-1990. He had a great run.
He faded away into obscurity. Lingering in low budget C direct to VHS flicks well into the 2000s.

[–] roger1 (2270) 7 months ago

Cary Grant often offered an analogy in interviews about a "streetcar filled with stars." Grant's idea is that new stars would jump onto the crowded streetcar and old stars would get bumped off...or sometimes NEW stars couldn't hold onto the strap and would fall OFF the streetcar. In the 40's, contended Grant, "only Gary Cooper" was comfortably seated in the middle of the streetcar, and would never fall off. (As it turned out, Cary Grant was seated there too -- he retired at age 62 without ever having to play supporting roles after his stardom, or doing TV.)

I'll just talk male stars, here, but the seventies seemed to bring us a "bumper crop" of new male stars -- replacing the retired or dead old stars before them -- and -- some of them stayed on the streetcar(Nicholson, Pacino, DeNiro, Hackman, Eastwood, Redford) but a lot of them fell off (Jon Voight, George Segal, Elliott Gould, Ryan O'Neal, James Caan..and eventually even Burt Reynolds and Charles Bronson.) The three Jaws stars (Robert Shaw, Roy Scheider, and Richard Dreyfuss) became "instant leading men." Shaw made some action movies and died young at age 51(heart attack.) Dreyfuss did the best -- Close Encounters for Spielberg again and a Best Actor Oscar win the same 1977 year(The Goodbye Girl) ...then he fell off the streetcar...then he "came back" in the 80's with movies for the New Disney(Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Stakeout, Tin Men.) Dreyfuss has hung around for decades as a character guy -- the last of the Jaws trio still alive.

I was talking 70's male stars above, but several stars minted in the 60s -- Paul Newman, Sean Connery, Dustin Hoffman -- all stayed on the streetcar, too.

As for Roy Scheider, he got some lucky hits(French Connection with an Oscar nomination, Jaws, All That Jazz -- replacing DREYFUSS, who had a drug problem like George Segal and James Caan), and went as far as he could go but...he simply couldn't stay on that streetcar forever...

[–] BKB (5864) 5 months ago

1. Jaws 2 didn’t do as well as the original - Although it grossed more than $200 million USD, that was less than half of the original film on a higher budget. That made a lot of tongues wag about how Scheider couldn’t “win the big games” which was a reputation that he maintained for the remainder of his life."

JAWS 2 was an interesting sequel in which, it showed the shark more than the original, had more kills in it then the original, had most of the original cast back that weren't dead from the 1st movie, but for some reason, it just wasn't as good as the original.. I don't know if it was the annoying teenagers or Scheider looking like he phoned this in along with getting a great tan for his trouble??

[–] roger1 (2270) 5 months ago

JAWS 2 was an interesting sequel in which, it showed the shark more than the original, had more kills in it then the original, had most of the original cast back that weren't dead from the 1st movie, but for some reason, it just wasn't as good as the original.. I don't know if it was the annoying teenagers or Scheider looking like he phoned this in along with getting a great tan for his trouble??

---

Steven Spielberg once noted that he didn't have enough clout, when he made the first Jaws, to control sequel rights. And after he saw the sequels - Jaws 3D and 4 being particularly awful -- he set out forever after to control all sequels. I suppose he shared those rights with George Lucas on Indy Jones, but he secured the Jurassic Park sequel rights and directec the very good "2" (The Lost World) himself.

Anyway, NONE of the sequels to Jaws come close to the quality and power of the original. 3D and 4 have no redeeming qualities, but 2 at least FELT closer to the original, had one of the original trio(Scheider, under contractural obligation) and two of the original main co-stars -- Lorainne Gary and 'Jaws Mayor" Murray Hamilton(his character inexplicably continuing as the Mayor after his poor management of things in the first film --THIS was a clue that this sequel had no respect for the original.)

CONT

[–] roger1 (2270) 5 months ago

In addition to not having Spielberg along to direct(with his talent for composition, bustle and pace), Jaws 2 demonstrated that the CORE of the original -- what made it more than just a "scare picture" -- was that great comibination of offbeat leads in the first movie: Scheider(the straight man), Shaw(the scenery chewing Old Salt) and Dreyfuss(the youthful standi for Spielberg and film nerds, with a touch of Woody Allen.) In the first half of the movie, they are introduced one by one by one, we like all of them and then in the second half, they are thrown together on that too-small boat and we wait to see who survives that terrifying shark. And alas, Scheider was the least interesting of the three leads. Quint died, so Shaw couldn't come back; Dreyfuss refused to come back(he was also the sole holdout on the American Graffiti sequel -- smart moves, both times.)

But the awful gambit in Jaws 2 was to "pander to the youth audience." Scheider, Shaw and Dreyfuss were MEN -- a cop, a sailor with Navy experience and a daring oceanographer -- Jaws 2 focused on a bunch of permed and wave teens that I called "Peppers" at the time -- after a Dr. Pepper commercial with dancing teens and a theme ""I'm a Pepper, he's a peppper, she's a pepper..wouldn't you like to be a Pepper too?)

So: no classic trio of guys as in the first, and emphasis on the teens(with no real personalities) and the same problem as Die Hard 2 -- "I can't BELIEVE a shark has shown up AGAIN" -- "I can't believe I'm caught up in a terorist plot during Christmas AGAIN." Screenwriter William Goldman called these kind of sequels "whore movies" they make money but they ruin the originals.

Jaws 2 followed by one year Scheider's inability to carry William Friedkin's "Sorcerer." It was all pretty much downhill from there. No scratch that. All That Jazz was Oscar-nommed(Scheider too) but not a very big hit. ?THEN it was downhill..