Read The Times obituary

The actor Roy Scheider, a two-time Oscar nominee best known for his portrayal of a small-town police chief in the 1970s blockbuster Jaws, has died. He was 75.

Scheider died yesterday of complications from multiple myeloma, a cancer of the blood cells, at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, where he had been treated over the past two years.

A classically trained actor recognised for his angular facial features and boxer’s nose, the New Jersey-born Scheider often played harried lawmen or average guys caught up in extraordinary circumstances.

A talented child athlete who excelled at baseball and boxing - his broken nose virtually became his trademark – Scheider's first film role came in the 1963 horror film Curse of the Living Corpse.

He earned his first Oscar nomination for his supporting role as Gene Hackman’s partner in the 1971 film The French Connection and made a notable appearance that same year in Klute.

Eight years later, he was nominated as Best Actor for playing the womanizing, pill-popping Joe Gideon, alter ego of the famed choreographer Bob Fosse, in the semi-autobiographical All That Jazz, which Fosse co-wrote and directed.

But Scheider will perhaps best be remembered for his starring role in Jaws, the 1975 Steven Spielberg thriller based on Peter Benchley's bestseller. The original summer blockbuster, it was also the highest-grossing film to that date.

In it, he played Martin Brody, the intrepid police chief of a New England seaside resort who goes on a hunt (alongside a shark scientist and a grizzled old fisherman) for a Great White Shark that is terrorising his community – although not before doing battle with the town mayor who wants to keep the beaches open.

The film's most memorable line - said to have been improvised by Scheider himself - was: "You’re gonna need a bigger boat."

Scheider also made notable appearances in Marathon Man – as the shady CIA operative who is Dustin Hoffman’s older brother – and in Still of the Night opposite Meryl Streep.

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