Richard Dawson Kiel (born 1939) is an American actor best 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, and Mr. Larson in Happy Gilmore.
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 title 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.
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; the scenes were then reshot with Lou Ferrigno.
He reprised his role of Jaws in the 2004 game James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing, supplying his voice and likeness.
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Before breaking into film & TV Kiel worked in numerous jobs including a night club bouncer and a cemetery plot salesman. 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. He is largely 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.