#Richard keil movie
#Richard keil series

He was also a loan shark chasing Ryan O'Neal, who played the inventor of a pair of buttockless jeans, in the screwball comedy So Fine (1981).Īside from his voice performance in the 2010 Disney film Tangled, Kiel's most high-profile work outside the Bond movies was in Clint Eastwood's western Pale Rider (1985) and in the Adam Sandler comedy Happy Gilmore (1996). He cited as a personal favourite his role as a good guy gone bad in the belated Guns of Navarone sequel, Force 10 from Navarone (1978). Following his success as Jaws, he enjoyed a run of parts as assorted heavies.

He played the title role in two 1977 television pilot episodes of The Incredible Hulk, but was replaced by the bulkier Lou Ferrigno when it was decided that girth rather than height was the order of the day. He also appeared in small and sometimes uncredited parts in films, but attracted attention in Robert Aldrich's 1974 prison comedy-drama The Longest Yard (released in the UK as The Mean Machine) starring Burt Reynolds.

#Richard keil series

Other television work followed in series including Mystery Science Theater 3000, The Wild Wild West and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. His earliest acting roles were in the western series Klondike (1960) and Laramie (1961). Even once he moved to California and began taking acting roles, he supplemented his erratic income by working as a night-school maths teacher. Among his early jobs were cemetery plot salesman and nightclub bouncer. He claimed not to have harboured any youthful ambitions to be an actor. He was blind in one eye and also had the hormonal condition acromegaly, which causes excess growth hormones to be produced. By the end of Moonraker, he had persuaded us not only that Jaws could renounce his psychotic ways, but also that he could find love, with a tiny blonde sporting Pippi Longstocking plaits. I said if I were to play the part, I want to give the character some human characteristics, like perseverance, frustration.' He brought even more than that.

'I was very put off by the description of the character and I thought, 'Well, they don't really need an actor, he's more a monster part'. Kiel, who had played a thug with gold teeth only a year before The Spy Who Loved Me, in the 1976 Gene Wilder/ Richard Pryor comedy-thriller Silver Streak, had been unenthusiastic initially about the role, for which David Prowse (Darth Vader in the Star Wars films) was also in the running. Hugo Drax, the villain in Moonraker (1979), must have been alerted to Jaws's sterling work in the areas of looming, menacing and murdering when he began casting around for his own henchman – for Jaws popped up again to try to finish Bond off in a thrilling confrontation on top of a cable car.

#Richard keil movie

But the balance of horror in the movie was skew-whiff: the third world war seemed like a picnic compared to being cornered at night by Jaws in an Egyptian catacomb, or trying to escape in a clapped-out van while he tore through the bodywork as easily as if it were flatbread. He was employed on that first occasion by the dastardly Karl Stromberg, who hoped to trigger a nuclear apocalypse before starting a new underwater civilisation. It had been intended that he would die at the end of The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), and his death was even filmed, but positive audience reaction to his scenes ensured that he lived to bite another day. He was also the only accomplice to appear in two Bond movies. Jaws was distinguished by his height (Kiel was 7ft 1.5in) and by his gnarled steel teeth, which could chomp through padlocks, electrical cables and, on special occasions, human beings.