February 17, 2008

Roy Scheider (left), pictured with Robert Shaw in a scene from "Jaws."

Roy Scheider, 75: He was 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 lines in “Jaws.” Mr. Scheider died last Sunday at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences hospital in Little Rock. The hospital did not release a cause of death, but Mr. Scheider had been treated for multiple myeloma at the hospital's Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy for two years. Mr. 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 the 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.

Badri Patarkatsishvili, 52: He was a Georgian opposition figure and billionaire businessman accused of plotting to overthrow the ex-Soviet republic's government. He died of a heart attack, his spokesman said Wednesday. Mr. Patarkatsishvili died overnight in his house outside London, Guga Kvitaishvili said. Mr. Patarkatsishvili was seen as a driving force behind anti-government protests in Georgia in November. He ran against presidential incumbent Mikhail Saakashvili in a snap election in January, getting about 7 percent of the vote. Opposition groups have claimed that the vote was rigged. He was under investigation at home on charges of plotting to overthrow the government – accusations he denied, despite acknowledging offering large sums of money to police to side with protesters. The protests were violently broken up by police. Mr. Patarkatsishvili said in December that he had obtained a tape recording of an official in Georgia's Interior Ministry asking a Chechen warlord to murder him while he was London. “I believe they want to kill me,” Mr. Patarkatsishvili said. His claim could not be verified.

Phyllis A. Whitney, 104: She was a novelist whose romantic suspense tales sold millions of copies and earned her top accolades from the Mystery Writers of America. Miss Whitney, who died Feb. 8, wrote more than 75 books, including three textbooks, and had about a hundred short stories published since the 1940s. Miss Whitney's last novel, “Amethyst Dreams,” was published in 1997. She began working on her autobiography at 102. In 1961, Miss Whitney's sixth juvenile mystery, “Mystery of the Haunted Pool,” received the prestigious Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America for the best children's mystery story of the year. She won the award again three years later for her book “Mystery of the Hidden Hand.” But her fiction for grown-up readers brought her the greatest fame. In 1988, Miss Whitney was named a Grand Master, the Mystery Writers of America's highest honor. In 1990, she received the Agatha award, for traditional mystery works typical of Agatha Christie, from Malice Domestic.

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