Episode # 24 Guest: Richard Kiel

- August 03, 2018

Richard Dawson Kiel (September 13, 1939 – September 10, 2014) was an American actor, voice artist, and comedian, best known for his role as Jaws in the James Bondfranchise, portraying the character in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and Moonraker (1979); he lampooned the role with a tongue-in-cheek cameo in Inspector Gadget(1999). His next-most recognized role is the tough, but eloquent Mr. Larson in Happy Gilmore (1996). Other notable films include The Longest Yard (1974), Silver Streak(1976), Force 10 from Navarone (1978), Pale Rider (1985) and Tangled (2010).

In television, Kiel portrayed the Kanamit alien in the now-classic The Twilight Zone episode "To Serve Man" (1962) and Dr. Miguelito Loveless' assistant, Voltaire, in first-season episodes of The Wild Wild West (1965-1966). Kiel was born in Detroit, Michigan. His height and features were a result of the hormonal condition of acromegaly. In his prime, Kiel was 7 ft 1 1⁄2 in (217 cm) tall. He noted in his 2002 autobiography Making It Big in the Movies that he used to state that he was 7 ft 2 in (218 cm), because it was easier to remember. He suffered from acrophobia(fear of heights), 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 over 2,000 feet (610 m) above the ground.

Before film and television, 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.

In the Man from U.N.C.L.E. episode "The Vulcan Affair", Kiel appeared as a guard in Vulcan's plant, and he portrayed Merry in "The Hong Kong Shilling Affair". In 1967 he played a monster in an episode of The Monkees ("I was a Teenage Monster").

On September 10, 2014, three days short of his 75th birthday, Kiel died at St. Agnes Medical Center in Fresno, California, of a heart attack, possibly caused by coronary artery disease.

You'll find much more about UNCLE in