New York Local News

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) ― It was during Roy Scheider's run in the play "Trumbo" on Long Island that he realized he was sick.

In late 2004, Scheider was playing Dalton Trumbo at the Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor -- and he was having a hard time standing up after a monologue that required him to sit.

"And it turned out, of course, being the tough guy he was -- we all know him from the films as a tough guy -- he had three vertebrae that were disintegrating down and he was getting shorter," his wife, Brenda Siemer, recalled in an interview with The Associated Press.

"He said, 'I'm either getting really old, or something's gone wrong.' He lost three inches in height, and he's still on the stage having a little trouble getting up in the scene," she said.

Scheider -- a two-time Oscar nominee known best for his role as the police chief in 1975's "Jaws" -- died after a battle with multiple myeloma, a cancer that ravages plasma cells. He was 75. He had been treated at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences' Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy for a year and a half before his death.

Last fall, Scheider tripped over a door frame at his Long Island home. He ripped a gash in a leg, which led to a staph infection.

"We went to the oncology office in Southampton and he got the Band-Aid replaced with three heavy duty doses of antibiotics, which turned out to really stress your kidneys," Siemer said. "So you combine the insults of the antibiotics, staph infection, multiple myeloma. Your kidneys are hurting."

Scheider was taken off life support Sunday. His cause of death was multiple organ failure from relapsing myeloma, said Bonnie Jenkins, director of program coordination for the Myeloma Institute.

Scheider came to Little Rock because he needed stem-cell transplants. The treatment of myeloma involves destroying bone marrow affected by the cancer, then regrowing it with the patient's own stem cells. The experience made Scheider and his family advocates of increasing stem cell research.

"This research has to be done because it's an honoring of everything that's alive and whole in your body," Siemer said.

Activism came naturally to Scheider, his family said. In protest of casualties in the war in Iraq, Scheider and others lay in the middle of Montauk Highway in Sagaponack. The protesters played "Taps" and carried homemade coffins to symbolize the loss of life, Scheider's son, Christian Scheider, recalled in the same interview as his mother's.

"Everybody had to drive by Mr. Scheider and his coffin," Christian, 18, said, adding that his father would wave back at passersby.

Christian Scheider said his father related with soldiers and others in uniform. When preparing for roles, like his turn as Police Chief Martin Brody in "Jaws," Scheider often spent time with regular police officers for perspective.

"The fact that (the war in Iraq) was progressing frustrated him," Christian Scheider said. "Acting as cops and American heroes -- macho, intense characters-- he spent time with them and developed an admiration. He wanted to illuminate through his roles the human behind the uniform."

Far from the Hamptons, Scheider and his family became comfortable in Arkansas. Siemer recalled one of her husband's first visits to the Southern state, when in between visits he'd soak up some sunshine.

"Roy sat with his Speedo, out at the Embassy Suites swimming pool, getting a tan with his chemo pack on," she said, laughing. Actor Richard Dreyfuss had said Sunday after Scheider's death that the actor was "tan-addicted" after a childhood sickness kept him temporarily bedridden.

The family plans a memorial this spring in Sag Harbor. In lieu of flowers, the family requested memorial donations to the Myeloma Institute of Research and Therapy at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.

(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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