It carried a sadness, a new reality that part of the beating heart of Sag Harbor was gone forever. Roy Scheider, who adopted the community as his home, had died Sunday in a hospital in Little Rock, Ark.

Scheider's acting career made his craggy face world-famous. And the fortune it brought him was enough to let him call any part of the world his home.

He chose Sag Harbor. At least, he spent as much time there as he could.

"He was a customer," said Bob Schmitz, who owns the Sag Harbor Liquor Store. He'd run into Scheider in the IGA supermarket next door. "If he knew my name, that was OK. But he knew I was from the liquor store."

With multimillion-dollar yachts in the harbor each summer, and world-famous stars passing through - and sometimes performing at the Bay Street Theatre on the dock - Sag Harbor has more than its share of the rich and famous. But Scheider wasn't passing through. He made the difficult transition to being accepted as one of the locals.

"John Steinbeck was like that," Schmitz said. "And Billy Joel and Tom Harris. . . . You learn to treat them like that."

Many knew Scheider as the anti-war protester who lay down on the yellow line in the center of Montauk Highway in Sagaponack - cars and trucks slowly driving by, some honking in support - to protest all of the deaths in Iraq.

And the whole community remembers how Scheider's wife, Brenda Seimer, saved the old Art Deco Sag Harbor movie marquee when the owner of the theater tore it down and threw it out while renovating the building.

She was threatened with arrest for stealing the sign. Scheider helped organize a community fund-raising drive to re-create it, and the theater owner put it back in place.

"They felt that Sag Harbor was one of the last remaining places on the East End [of Long Island]," said Brian Boyhan, editor of the local newspaper, the Sag Harbor Express.

Scheider's East End interests went far beyond Sag Harbor. On the cultural scene, he was available to do stage readings, help with fund-raisers and regularly attend community artistic events and the annual Artists and Writers softball game in East Hampton.

"He was very much a part of this community, and that alone is something remarkable for a Hollywood star," said Ruth Appelhof, director of Guild Hall in East Hampton.

In July 2006, when Guild Hall screened the film "All That Jazz" on the center's 75th anniversary, Appelhof sat next to Scheider when, at the film's end, Scheider's character, Joe Gideon, nears death due to a blockage in his heart.

"It was very moving for me to be sitting next to him, knowing that he was fighting cancer and doing well at that time," she said.

That August, Scheider and director Steven Spielberg turned out for a packed screening of "Jaws" at Guild Hall to raise funds for the Hayground School in Bridgehampton, which Scheider helped found.

Before the opening of the Hayground School, which two of his children would attend, Scheider offered his home for meetings and helped stage an original piece with actor Danny Glover, school officials said in a statement. "Roy didn't just show up the night of the show or the day before. He rolled up his sleeves and worked for weeks and weeks." *