Richard Kiel

Richard Kiel
Richard Kiel, February 2004
Born	Richard Dawson Kiel 1939 (age 84–85) Detroit, Michigan, U.S.
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1960–present
Height	7 ft 1.5 in (2.17 m)
Spouse	Diane Rogers (1974-present)

Richard Dawson Kiel (born 1939) is an American actor known for his role as the steel-toothed Jaws in the James Bond movies The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and Moonraker (1979) as well as the video game Everything or Nothing (he also has cameos in many other James Bond videogames). He is also well known as Mr. Larson in the 1996 comedy Happy Gilmore.

Life and career

Kiel was born in Detroit, Michigan. He made his acting debut in a 1960 Laramie episode called "Street of Hate." He also acted in an unaired TV-pilot featuring Lee Falk's superhero The Phantom, where Kiel played an assassin called "Big Mike", who was hired to kill the titular hero.

Kiel broke into films in the early 1960s with the B-movie Eegah (1962), which was later featured on the TV show Elvira's Movie Macabre, Mystery Science Theater 3000, as were The Phantom Planet and The Human Duplicators. He also co-wrote, produced, and starred in the family-friendly movie The Giant of Thunder Mountain. Kiel also appeared as the towering — and lethal — assistant Voltaire to Dr. Miguelito Loveless in first season episodes of The Wild, Wild West. He later appeared in another role, in the episode "The Night of the Simian Terror", as the outcast son of a wealthy family, banished because of birth defects that distorted his body and apparently affected his mind. This episode is significant because it allowed Kiel the opportunity to really act, rather than just look intimidating. Kiel also had a cameo role in a 1961 episode of The Rifleman.

Kiel as Voltaire and Michael Dunn as Dr. Loveless, 1966.

He also played the role of the hitman with metal teeth Reace in the (1976) film Silver Streak. He and Arnold Schwarzenegger were the original choices to play the title character in the 1977 TV series The Incredible Hulk. Schwarzenegger was turned down due to his height. Kiel participated in the filming of the TV movie pilot. During the shoot, producers decided their Hulk needed to be muscular rather than just towering, and Kiel was dismissed because he possessed more body fat than the producers deemed necessary. According to a Den of Geek interview, Kiel, who sees properly out of only one eye, also reacted badly to the contact lenses used for the role, and found the green makeup difficult to remove, so he did not mind losing the part. All recognizable footage of Kiel was cut, except the one where the Hulk saves the little girl from drowning; the scenes were then re-shot with Lou Ferrigno.

He reprised his role of Jaws in the 2004 game James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing, supplying his voice and likeness.

Other

Before breaking into film & TV, Kiel worked in numerous jobs including a nightclub bouncer and a cemetery plot salesman.

From 1963 to 1965 Kiel worked as a night school math instructor in Burbank, California.

Kiel's distinctive height and features are a result of a hormonal condition known as acromegaly. In his prime, Kiel stood 7 feet 1.5 inches (217 cm) tall. He notes in his 2002 autobiography, Making It Big in the Movies (ISBN 1-903111-31-5), that he used to state that he was 7 feet 2 inches (218.44 cm) because it was easier to remember. He suffers from acrophobia, and during the cable car stunt scenes in Moonraker, a stunt double was used because Kiel refused to be filmed on the top of a cable car at over 2000 feet high.

In 1992, Kiel suffered a severe head injury in a car accident, which has affected his balance. He has since been forced to walk with a cane to support himself (as shown in his appearance in the movie Happy Gilmore, where he is seen leaning on a person or a cane). He has also been seen using a scooter or wheelchair in Welcome to Sweden. Due to this disability he is now retired from the movie business.

He recently co-authored a biography of the abolitionist Cassius Marcellus Clay called Kentucky Lion.

He is also a born-again Christian. His website states that his religious conversion helped him overcome alcoholism.

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1961	The Phantom Planet	The Solarite
1962	The Magic Sword	Pinhead	uncredited
1962	Eegah!	Eegah
1963	30 Minutes at Gunsight	uncredited
1963	House of the Damned	The giant
1963	The Nutty Professor	Bodybuilder #1	uncredited
1964	Roustabout	Strong man	uncredited
1964	The Nasty Rabbit	ranch foreman	uncredited
1965	Two on a Guillotine	Tall man at funeral
1965	The Human Duplicators	Dr. Kolos
1965	Brainstorm	Psychiatric hospital patient	uncredited
1965	Lassie's Great Adventure	Chinook Pete
1966	The Las Vegas Hillbillys	unknown role
1967	A Man Called Dagger	Otto
1968	Now You See It, Now You Don't	Nori
1968	Skidoo	Beany
1970	On a Clear Day You Can See Forever	Blacksmith	uncredited
1972	Deadhead Miles	unknown role
1974	The Longest Yard	Samson
1975	Barbary Coast	Moose Moran
1976	Flash and the Firecat	Tracker
1976	Gus	Large man
1976	Silver Streak	Reace
1977	The Spy Who Loved Me	Jaws
1977	The Incredible Hulk (1978 TV series)	The Hulk	one scene
1978	Force 10 from Navarone	Capt. Drazak
1978	They Went That-A-Way & That-A-Way	Duke
1979	The Humanoid	Golob
1979	Moonraker	Jaws
1981	So Fine	Eddie
1983	Hysterical	Captain Howdy
1983	Phoenix	Steel Hand
1984	Aces Go Places 3	Jaws
1984	Cannonball Run II	Arnold, Mitsubishi driver
1984	Mad Mission 3: Our Man from Bond Street	Big G
1985	Qing bao long hu men	Laszlo
1985	Pale Rider	Club
1989	The Princess and the Dwarf	unknown role
1990	Think Big	Irving
1991	The Giant of Thunder Mountain	Eli Weaver
1996	Happy Gilmore	Mr. Larson
1999	Inspector Gadget	Jaws, Famous Guy with Metal Teeth
2009	The Awakened	Jasper
2010	The Corpse of Albert Cradette	Albert Cradette
2010	Tangled	Vladamir	Voice work

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1960	Laramie	unknown role	episode Street of Hate
1960	Klondike	Duff Brannigan	episode Bare Knuckles
1961	The Phantom	Big Mike
1961	Thriller	Master Styx	episode Well of Doom
1961	The Rifleman	Carl Hazlitt	episode The Decision
1962	The Twilight Zone	Kanamit	episode To Serve Man
1964	The Man from U.N.C.L.E.	henchman for Mr. Vulcan	episode The Vulcan Affair, uncredited
1965	The Man from U.N.C.L.E.	Merry	episode The Hong Kong Shilling Affair
1965	I Dream of Jeannie	Ali	episode My Hero
1966	Honey West	Groalgo	episode King of the Mountain
1966	My Mother the Car	Cracks	episode A Riddler on the Roof
1966	The Wild Wild West	Voltaire	episodes The Night the Wizard Shook the Earth, 1965; The Night That Terror Stalked the Town, 1965; The Night of the Whirring Death
1966	Gilligan's Island	Spook	episode Ghost-a-Go-Go
1967	The Monkees	Monster	episode I Was a Teenage Monster
1967	The Monroes	Casmir	episode Ghosts of Paradox
1968	I Spy	Tiny	episode A Few Miles West of Nowhere
1968	The Wild Wild West	Dimas	episode The Night of the Simian Terror
1968	It Takes a Thief	Willie Trion	episode The Galloping Skin Game
1969	Daniel Boone	Le Mouche	episode Benvenuto...Who?
1970	Disneyland	Luke Brown	episode The Boy Who Stole the Elephant: Part 1 & 2
1974	Kolchak: The Night Stalker	The Diablero	episode Bad Medicine
1974	Emergency!	Carlo	episode I'll Fix It
1974	Kolchak: The Night Stalker	Peremalfait, the swamp monster	episode The Spanish Moss Murders
1975	Switch	unknown role	episode Death Heist
1976	Starsky and Hutch	Iggy	episode Omaha Tiger
1975 – 1976	Barbary Coast	Moose Moran	unknown episode, 1975–1976
1977	Land of the Lost	Malak	Third Season – "Survival Kit", "Flying Dutchman"
1977	The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries	Manager – 'Haunted House'	episode The Mystery of the Haunted House
1977	Young Dan'l Boone	unknown role	episode The Game
1981	The Fall Guy	Animal	episode That's Right, We're Bad
1983	The Greatest American Hero	mutant	episode Heaven Is In Your Genes
1983	Simon & Simon	Mark Horton	episode The Skeleton Who Came Out of the Closet
1988	Out of This World	Norman	episode Go West, Young Mayor
1989	Superboy	Vlkabok	episode Mr. and Mrs. Superboy
2000	Bloodhounds Inc.	Mortimer	episode #5: Fangs for the Memories

Video games

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2004	James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing	Jaws	Voice work
2012	007 Legends	Jaws	Likeness only

See also

• Rondo Hatton
• Ted Cassidy
• Lock Martin
• Carel Struycken
• The Great Khali
• John Aasen

External links

• Richard Kiel at IMDb
• Den of Geek interview, January 2009