- "Do you know him?"
"Not socially. His name's Jaws. He kills people." - ― Holly Goodhead and James Bond
Jaws is a professional assassin, so named because of his weapon of choice: a set of stainless steel teeth in his mouth. The character is one of the most famous henchmen in the James Bond franchise; appearing as the secondary antagonist of the 1977 James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me and the film's sequel Moonraker (1979). Portrayed by the late American actor Richard Kiel, Jaws also appeared in many video games, notably GoldenEye 007 (1997), Everything or Nothing (2002) and 007 Legends (2012).
An obvious reference to the 1975 horror/thriller film of the same name, Jaws gets his name both from his enormous size and strong metal teeth that could bite through virtually anything.
Biography[]
Background[]
Jaws was a gigantic man, standing over seven feet tall, with a set of metal teeth, which he could use to bite off many things, but they hampered his speaking ability. He was also very strong physically; as he could bend bars of hard steel with his bare hands without breaking a sweat, as well as being resistant to a great amount of physical abuse. He always came out of big disasters such as falling from a high altitude or a car accident unscathed. He first appeared as a henchman of businessman Karl Stromberg, helping his employer in his plan to create an underwater society.
Egypt[]
Having found out that his assistant stole and sold the Microfilm Plans to his Submarine Tracking System, Karl Stromberg sent Jaws to recover the device and told him to kill everyone who had in so much as come into contact with it. Stromberg sent Sandor with Jaws, to assist him with his task. Jaws and Sandor then headed to Egypt, where they intended to kill Aziz Fekkesh, one of the men who came into contact with the device. While Sandor waited at Fekkesh's house and was eventually killed by James Bond, Jaws followed Fekkesh to the pyramids. When Fekkesh saw Jaws, he panicked and ran away, pursued by Jaws and Bond.
Fekkesh managed to enter into a cavern and closed the iron gates behind him with a lock. However, this did not stop Jaws, who used his steel teeth to bite open the lock. Advancing on the terrified man, Jaws killed Fekkesh by smashing him at a wall, and then biting him in the neck. Upon leaving the cave, Jaws was greeted by Bond, who aimed his gun at him. However, at that moment the light of the lightshow switched, momentarily covering the entire place in darkness, as Jaws used this opportunity to escape. Bond then entered the cave and found a book at Fekkesh's corpse, giving him the information he needed. This book led Bond, and Russian agent Major Anya Amasova, to the club of Max Kalba, who owned a secret microfilm, the object that Stromberg needed. While both agents attempted to buy the microfilm from Kalba, Kalba was told that there was an urgent phone call for him. While in the phone booth, Kalba was killed by Jaws, who posed as a technician and took the microfilm. Bond and Amasova followed Jaws, secretly entering the back of his van.
Jaws fights aganist James Bond in Egypt
However, Jaws had microphones in the back of the van and heard Amasova and Bond talking, as He drove the van into the desert, and eventually reached a site of ruins. Bond and Amasova exited the van, but had lost sight of Jaws, who had headed into the ruins and was hiding on top of one of the giant pillars. Watching the two agents underneath him, Jaws eventually threw a boulder down on them and attacked, briefly fighting Bond until Amasova drew a gun and forced him to yield the microfilm. Jaws took it out of his pocket and threw it down onto the ground, but when Amasova bowed down to take it, he kicked her gun out of her hand. Having obtained the microfilm, Anya proceeded to run off, leaving Bond to continue his fight with Jaws.
This fight was quickly ended when Jaws accidentally hit a pillar of the scaffolding they were fighting under, causing it to collapse, and burying Jaws underneath it. Believing Jaws to be dead, Bond returned to the van, unaware that Jaws had in fact survived. As both agents entered the van, Jaws jumped onto the van's hood, ripping off half the roof with his bare hands. While Amasova attempted to start the van's engines, Jaws used his inhuman strength to virtually demolish the van, ripping the chassis and attempting to stop it by grabbing the bumper. However, eventually, Amasova managed to drive backwards, smashing into Jaws and throwing him into a wall. Bond and Amasova then drove off, leaving Jaws at the site. This caused Jaws, furious at his failure, to drop the boulder he was about to throw, accidentally hitting his own foot.
Train Fight[]
Jaws tries to kill James Bond by biting him
While examining the microchip, MI6 and the KGB, having teamed up to find their submarines, traced the microchip back to Karl Stromberg's marine research laboratory on Sardinia. As a result, James Bond and Anya Amasova were sent to investigate together. Traveling by train, Amasova and Bond shared different compartments, and when Amasova opened her cabinet, she was shocked to discover that Jaws was inside. Jaws attacked Amasova and easily overpowered her, as he knocked her out and attempted to bite her neck with his steel teeth. However, Amasova's screams had already alerted Bond, who attacked Jaws by smashing a bottle across his head. Unimpressed, Jaws attacked Bond, who was merely able to defend himself, as every attack on Jaws seemed to be futile. Jaws eventually grabbed Bond by the neck and attempted to bite him. To evade death, Bond grabbed a nearby lamp, smashed the glass, and aimed the wires at Jaw's steel teeth, electrifying him. This caused Jaws to drop Bond and stumble backwards, giving Bond the opportunity to kick Jaws out of the train's window. However, Jaws again survived the encounter, as he simply dusted himself off and continued on foot.
Pursuit by Car[]
After James Bond had met with Karl Stromberg, Stromberg called Jaws into his office, who confirmed that Bond and Anya Amasova were the ones he fought on the train. Stromberg then ordered Jaws to kill both of them once they get ashore. Jaws and other henchmen then follow Bond in a car, shooting at him. To defeat them, Bond used his Lotus Esprit's special equipment to shoot a muddy liquid at the car, spraying the entire windshield and causing the driver to drive off the road, as he lost sight. The car drove off a cliff, eventually crashing into a hut. While the hut's owner, who sat outside, watched the damage in utter shock, the huts door opened and a dirty Jaws left the wreakage, angrily glancing at the owner before walking off.
Fight at Atlantis[]
Jaws attempts to overpower James Bond
After returning to Atlantis and killing Stromberg, Bond heads to the place's prison tract to find and free Amasova. Arriving there, he is surprised to see that Jaws is there as well. Bond shoots at Jaws but only hits Jaws' teeth, causing no damage. When Jaws realises that this was Bond's last bullet, he runs towards Bond, swiftly diving to cover when Bond's gun is reloaded. He then grabs Bond and shoves him into an elevator, which brings Bond to the room where Stromberg kept his Shark Tank. Following Bond, Jaws arrives there as well but Bond activates a magnetic crane and steers it into Jaw's way while the latter tries to get to Bond. The magnet gets hold of Jaws' teeth, lifting him into the air. Bond then steers the magnet over the shark tank and deactivates it, dropping Jaws into the water. Bond then leaves the room to find Amasova, thus not witnessing Jaws biting the shark to death. When Atlantis is torpedoed, Jaws dives out of the facility and escapes.
Revenge on Bond[]
As Bond return from a job in Africa aboard an Apollo Airways airliner, Jaws conspire with both a pilot and a air hostess to kill him by crashing the plane. Holding the spy at gunpoint, the pilot shoots out the plane's controls and attempts to bail out using a parachute. 007 kicks the pistol from his hand and knocks the assassin out of the plane. However, Bond is then grabbed from behind by Jaws and thrown out of the plane without a parachute. In order to survive, Bond dives after the pilot, battling him mid-air and taking his parachute. He is then, in turn, attacked by Jaws, who jumped after him. Jaws grabs Bond's leg and is about to bite it, when Bond activates his parachute and is thus separated from him who keeps falling. When trying to activate his own parachute, Jaws rips the trigger with such force that it is ripped out, rendering his parachute useless. Helpless, he tries to save himself somehow, but keeps falling. He eventually crashes into a circus tent, which cushions his fall despite collapsing in the process.
Fighting Bond in Rio[]
A few days later, Jaws is employed by American billionaire Hugo Drax after the death of his henchman Chang. While entering the United States by plane, he walks through a metal detector which rings. When a security man wants to take Jaws aside, he smiles at the man, horrifying him. Jaws then continues his travel.
Jaws attacks Manuela.
When Bond, now at Rio de Janeiro, investigates a warehouse at night, he does so during a parade with his colleague Manuela. While Bond is inside the warehouse, Manuela is approached by a giant figure disguised as a clown. The man removes his mask and reveals himself as Jaws. He advances onto Manuela, about to kill her but is stopped when a door opens and multiple citizens walk through the alley, celebrating. Grabbing Manuela, Jaws acts like they belong together and waits until the people are gone. Again he tries to bite her, this time to be interrupted by Bond, who jumps onto him, causing Jaws to drop the girl. Before they can fight, the alley is once again flooded with celebrating people and Jaws, though trying to prevent it, is swarmed away with the crowd.
Jaws approaches Bond's cart.
The next day, Bond travels to a mountain outside the city, observing an island near the city owned by Drax. While watching one of Drax' planes fly off, he sees Dr. Holly Goodhead -- who in truth is a CIA agent -- nearby. Both decide to work together and leave the station via cable cart. In the station underneath, Jaws grabs one of the giant wheels, thereby stopping the mechanism and trapping Bond's cable cart midway. He then bites one of the cables and climbs the line onto another cable cart on the line next to Bond's. Samuel, one of Drax' henchmen then drives Jaws' cable cart until it is directly next to Bond's. Jaws then jumps over onto Bond's cart and attacks him and Goodhead, who both try to escape him in the small place they have. Eventually, they manage to throw Jaws down into the cable car and close it. They escape the car by using a chain and sliding down the line. Samuel then activates Jaws' cable car to run them down while they are ziplining. After increasingly boosting the speed of Jaws' cable car in order to overtake the escaping agents in time, the henchman is unable to stop the car in time to prevent it from crashing. Bond and Goodhead drop from the line when they are close enough to the ground and Jaws' car crashes into the control room with such force that it brings down the entire building. Regaining consciousness under one of the wheels of the mechanism, Jaws heaves the wheel to escape and is aided by Dolly, one of the civilians around. The two of them fall in love immediately.
Jungle Pursuit[]
Jaws attacks Bond's speedboat.
After Drax' nerve gas has been analyzed, Bond is sent to the Brazilian jungle, wherethe plant from which the toxin is made grows. While cruising the river, Bond is attacked by Drax' henchmen in speedboats, led by Jaws. Though defeating most of them with the special equipment built into his boat, Bond is eventually forced to drive his boat over the edge of a waterfall, escaping via paraglider. Not having a glider, Jaws tries to grab the wheel but, again owed to his strength, rips it out, causing his boat to drive over the edge.
However, while following one of the Drax's girls in the forest, Bond is lured into Drax's hidden base, where he is captured by Jaws, still wet from his fall. Bond is brought before Drax, who allows Bond to watch via screen how four Moonraker shuttles lift off. Claiming that Bond has distracted him enough, Drax tells Jaws to place Bond somewhere where he can get warm after his swim. Jaws brings Bond into the chamber underneath the last Moonraker shuttle, where Dr. Goodhead already awaits him. Jaws then enters the shuttle Moonraker 5 and travels into space, safely arriving at Drax' space base with Dolly.
Space Base[]
At the space base, Drax holds a speech, explaining that he intends to destroy the entire human race except for a small group of carefully selected humans, both male and female, which he views as physically perfected specimen to create a super race with. After a period of time, when the chemical agent has become harmless, Drax plans for his master race to return to Earth to re-inhabit the planet. This plan disgusts Jaws, who looks at Drax in contempt.
After Bond and Goodhead have destroyed the base's radar jammer, Jaws finds the two of them and sneaks up on them. When Bond turns and sees Jaws, more henchmen arrive. They take Goodhead away while Jaws takes Bond. Bond tries to escape Jaws by hitting him in the face, but only hurts himself due to Jaws' steel teeth. Jaws then brings Goodhead and Bond to Drax. Drax orders Jaws to expel both of them into space but Bond, knowing that Jaws is listening, asks Drax whether anyone not matching his ideals of beauty will be killed. Drax confirms this. Realising that he and his girlfriend Dolly will not meet Drax's standards, Jaws refuses to obey Drax any longer, instead attacking his henchmen. They are however overwhelmed by Drax's men. To evade the destruction of the approaching shuttle as well as their own deaths, Bond quickly moves and pushes the base's emergency stop button, causing the entire facility to violently shake. As the base is no longer rotating, it also has no gravity. Bond, Goodhead and Jaws use this advantage to escape from the main room.
Jaws and Dolly reunite in space.
After the US soldiers have battled Drax's henchmen, the station has taken too much damage and is falling apart. The US soldiers abandon the station, leaving Bond and Goodhead to head to Moonraker 5. However. the docking release system is jammed, preventing them from leaving the station. Meanwhile, Jaws has reunited with his girlfriend. In the ruins, they find a bottle of champagne and sit down. Jaws fetches two glasses and says his only words in the series: "Well, here's to us!" . After drinking, Jaws and Dolly roam the station. Bond sees the two and talks to Jaws via PA, asking for help. Jaws indeed manages to free the shuttle and Bond and Goodhead lift off, with Jaws and Dolly staying behind. The part of the station containing Jaws and Dolly then breaks off, falling towards Earth, while the rest of the station explodes. Bond, knowing Jaws, comments that they will be alright.
At the US base, the commander is told that two survivors were picked up, a tall man and a small blonde woman, implying that Jaws and Dolly indeed survived. While Jaws and Dolly are not seen again after this, it is presumed that Jaws left his criminal past behind him and lived a happy and contented life with Dolly.
Continuities after the films[]
Jaws, likely being the most popular of the henchmen and characters in the James Bond franchise, has appeared in numerous video games since his last cinematic appearance in Moonraker. His first appearance was in the 1993 Sega Megadrive game The Duel, where he appears multiple times, and also as the final opponent of the game. His second appearance would be in 1997, in the Nintendo 64 game GoldenEye 007, in which Jaws — for unknown reasons — is working for Drax Corporation once again in a bonus level. In 2001, Jaws appeared in 007 Racing, where Jaws had survived the space capsule wreckage and became villainous again after Dolly was killed in the wreckage debris and worked for a car industry businessman named Hammond Litte. In 2002, he appeared in Nightfire, but only as a multiplayer character.
Jaws ambushes 007 in the ICBM silo elevator shaft, as seen in Everything or Nothing (2004).
In 2004, Jaws appeared again in the video game Everything or Nothing, working for the game's main villain, Nikolai Diavolo. Richard Kiel is credited, because his face and body was used to create the 3D game model. He is fought three times in the game. The first time was in Egypt where he was guarding the train cars holding Dr. Katya Nadanova, where he made full use of his strength and even throwing electrified pillers at the MI6 agent. However, the electricity ultimately was used against him thanks to Q's advice. Although knocked out, he survived and presumably escaped from Egypt to reconvene with Diavolo's group. His next encounter with Bond was in the outskirts of New Orleans, where he was tasked with driving a tanker containing Nadanova's nanobots with the intention of dumping it in one of the levies, flooding the city in the process via Diavolo's orders. Bond ultimately managed to knock his truck off the bridge via flamethrowers on his bike, although he nonetheless suspected that Jaws survived the crash and will return for a rematch. True to Bond's suspicions, Jaws did indeed survive, and traveled to Moscow alongside Diavolo and Nadanova for the culmination of Diavolo's plot involving Platinum tanks. He ultimately confronted Bond in the out of control lift (as Bond was forced to destroy the brakes in an attempt at evading Nadanova's men) with a flamethrower. However, Bond disabled the backpack to his flamethrower, and then used the destroyed aircraft's eject seat to avoid the resulting explosion. It is not clear if Jaws was killed or not. He recorded no dialogue for the game (only grunts). Jaws makes an appearance in the Goldeneye remake in the multiplayer as a playable character in the split screen mode, and on Classic Conflict mode online. He has appeared in game 007 Legends.
Personality & Abilities[]
Jaws normally doesn’t use firearms unless attacking from a distance, preferring to use his physical strength and his metal teeth as his weapons. He seems to enjoy tearing out the jugulars of his victims after scaring them half to death. He effectively uses fear as a tactic to make his foes do mistakes, but Jaws also attacks in haste at times thus striking down objects that he shouldn’t have struck.
He speaks very rarely, although he is fully capable of doing so. Trying to get a dialogue going with him in combat situations is useless. Plus, the likes of Bond will be too busy simply trying to survive to even contemplate banter. When taking orders from his employer Jaws usually just nods and gets going. His intents are usually apparent from his body language. While not too intelligent, he is actually somewhat smarter than people usually give him credit for, and will perform some trickery. There is, at times, a certain slyness about him and his methods - he does use covers and disguises - and underestimating would be a severe mistake. At the same time he exhibits some of the behavior of a child.
While Jaws mostly does missions solo, he is not above teaming up with other henchmen or even opponents if justified. The death of such temporary comrades doesn’t become him the least, always being mission-oriented. He seems to find it amusing that Bond has survived him so many times, and usually greets him with a grin upon meeting him again. He always does what his employers tell him to do (unless they try to have him killed); if that happens he will look after his own interests and ally with former enemies, because as a professional he bears no ill will towards them. Neither will he be part of anything that could lead to the destruction of mankind or the Earth.
Jaws is also an exceptionally strong and tough man, being able to lift people up with both hands and hold up extremely heavy weights in general, e.g. lifting a car without problem. Jaws survived collapsing structures, being thrown from a train and getting electrocuted, falling from a cliff while being in a car, and the entire Atlantis falling on him; he manages to survive without a scratch. For being such a large man he is very quiet and stealthy, capable of surprising or evading the most perceptive of opponents. His famous bite attack, using his titanium teeth, is strong enough to easily cut through metal chains or flesh, and can even withstand a bullet. He also easily killed a shark by biting it numerous times. He has something of a knack for finding his targets in very big cities without trouble, probably by using his criminal colleague.
Weapons & Vehicles[]
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Behind the Scenes[]
Although Ian Fleming had requested that no elements from his original book The Spy Who Loved Me be used in the film series, the novel's antagonists would provide the basis for the characters of Jaws and Sandor. The novel features two thugs named Sol Horror and Sluggsy Morant. Horror is described as having steel-capped teeth, while Sluggsy had a clear bald head.
While Jaws was in two James Bond films, he actually only had one short line of dialogue. In Moonraker, towards the end of the film, he turns to his girlfriend Dolly and says "Well, here's to us".
Jaws makes an appearance in the "Minion Recovery Group", Inspector Gadget (1999).
In the final credits sequence of the 1999 film Inspector Gadget, Dr. Claw's former henchman Sykes is shown hosting a "Minion Recovery Group". Richard Kiel is one of the participants (along with Oddjob and Nick Nack) and is billed in the credits as 'Famous Guy with Silver Teeth'.
Richard Kiel was good friends with his co-star Roger Moore and passed away 3 days prior to his 75th birthday.
Trivia[]
- Jaws, aside from the James Bond franchise's main villain, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, Mr. White, Dr. Vogel and Blofeld's right-hand man, is the only villain to be in more than one James Bond film.
- During filming, Kiel could only wear the metal teeth for a few minutes at a time because they hurt his mouth so much.
- It was originally intended that Jaws return in For Your Eyes Only, which would follow up on his relationship with Dolly and having her marry her as a minor plot point. This was removed altogether after production changed and decided to make the film more grounded overall.
Gallery[]
References[]
See also[]
- Jaws
- Jaws (Literary)
- Jaws (James Bond Jr.)
- The Spy Who Loved Me (film)
- Moonraker (film)
- Everything or Nothing
- 007 Legends
- Sandor
- List of James Bond villains
- List of James Bond henchmen