Almost two years to the day after we lost Peter Benchley, author of the bestseller Jaws and staunch marine conservationist, today we lost the actor who made Benchley's landlubbing Chief Brody come to life. Roy Scheider died today at age 75. Robert Shaw, who played the tough and eccentric Captain Quint, passed away in 1978, only three years after the film's release. So, of the actors that brought to life the three companions that set sail to hunt the hungry Carcharodon carcharias aboard the Orca, only Richard Dreyfuss, who portrayed the adventurous and nerdy Matt Hooper, remains with us.
Jaws is one of my all-time favorite movies. I love it mostly for the classic scenes aboard the Orca where three vastly different personalities squabble and bicker, but ultimately bond and come together. The hysteria the movie "caused" over sharks has far more to do with ignorance and idiocy rather than any fault of the movie itself or its message. It just took a simple fact (i.e., that sharks can be really dangerous critters) and built it up into a fantastic tale. Fear and paranoia were never called for, but that has never stopped them from overwhelming us before.
But I don't want to pontificate on Jaws and sharks right now. Instead, I want to say thank you to Roy Scheider for bringing Martin Brody to life and leaving us with an all-time great bit of cinema. Rest in peace, Chief.
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