RIP, Roy Scheider

One of the most memorable actors from my youth has passed away.

Roy Scheider, a one-time boxer whose broken nose and pugnacious acting style made him a star in "The French Connection" and who later uttered one of cinematic history's most memorable roles in "Jaws," has died.

Scheider died Sunday at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences hospital in Little Rock, hospital spokesman David Robinson said. He was 75.

The hospital did not release a cause of death, but Scheider had been treated for multiple myeloma at the hospital's Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy for the past two years.

Scheider earned two Academy Award nominations — a best-supporting nod for 1971's "The French Connection" in which he played the police partner of Oscar winner Gene Hackman, and a best-actor nomination for 1979's "All That Jazz," the semi-autobiographical Bob Fosse film.

But he was perhaps best known for his role as a small-town police chief in Steven Spielberg's 1975 film "Jaws," about a killer shark terrorizing beachgoers — as well as millions of moviegoers.

In 2005, one of Scheider's most famous lines in the movie — "You're gonna need a bigger boat" — was voted No. 35 on the American Film Institute's list of best quotes from U.S. movies.

Widely hailed as the film that launched the era of the Hollywood blockbuster, "Jaws" was the first movie to earn $100 million at the box office.

Rarely if ever has a movie touched off such panic as Jaws did. I still think there are people who never went back into the ocean.

His IMDB page.

One of the classic scenes from Jaws.