Article of the Week - Richard Kiel

Richard Kiel
Best known for his appearance in two
James Bond movies, he was also cast to
play the Hulk in the original TV series

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. He was 7 feet 1.5 inches tall in his prime but now due to injury and age, he is slightly under 7 feet tall.

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.

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

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Richard Kiel"