Roy Scheider's Adventures With Marathon Man

(aka ecarle.)

Once Scheider 'hit big" with Jaws, he had to be careful about choosing the right "next role."

The aged Alfred Hitchcock -- a legend but not quite Top Dog anymore in 1975 -- offered Scheider the villailn part in "Family Plot"(1975), but Marathon Man was going into production too -- and Scheider was offered the much SHORTER part of Dustin Hoffman's secret-spy brother. Rather like Janet Leigh in HItchcock's Psycho, Scheider's character is brutally killed early in "Marathon Man" -- but Scheider knew this was a bigger deal than Family Plot -- what with Hoffman and Laurence Olivier in the leads. Scheider graciously said "I was very sorry to have to turn Hitchcock down, but I wanted this other role."

Hitchocck cast Roy Thinnes as the Family Plot villain, and announced him at a press conference as "Roy Scheider." (Oops.) Then Hitchocck fired Roy Thinnes and replaced him with William Devane -- who is also a villain in...Marathon Man!

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Screenwniter William Goldman(Butch Cassidy) wrote both the novel and teh screenplay for "Marathon Man." In his book "Adventures in the Screen Trade," Goldman really does a number on Dustin Hoffman's star diva behavior on that movie -- including his forcing the aged and ill Laurence Ollivier to "walk through a scene" through great pain.

Goldman writes about Hoffman doing a scene with Roy Scheider(playing Hoffman's brother) in which Hoffman disagreed with the scene and argued and argued and argued about it to the director for about an hour.

Goldman wrote(paraphrased): "My greatest memory of this argument was how Roy Scheider stood silently through all of it, never saying a word, never interfering, totally calm and patient." Goldman contended that Scheider knew he was on a big movie, and that Hoffman was the star and that he would just have to remain quiet and tough it out.