Moore mourns Bond nemesis ‘Jaws’
He was 74.
Kelley Sanchez, director of communications at Saint Agnes Medical Centre, confirmed Kiel was a patient at the hospital and died.
The 7’ 2” performer famously played the cable-chomping henchman who tussled with Roger Moore’s Bond in 1977’s The Spy Who Loved Me and 1979’s Moonraker.
Bond quipped of the silent baddie: “His name’s Jaws. He kills people.”
Despite appearing in several other films and TV shows, such as The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and The Longest Yard, the role of Jaws was an iconic one Kiel could never escape.
“To this day, I go out in sunglasses and a hat because people will shout ‘Hey, Jaws!’ at me from across the street,” he said earlier this year.
“The only way I can explain it is that he’s like the Road Runner, which Coyote keeps trying to blow up, but he keeps going.”
Moore said he is “totally distraught” at the death of his co-star.
Kiel appeared with Moore on Radio 4’s The Reunion only last week to talk about the films.
Moore, 86, yesterday said: “I am totally distraught to learn of my dear friend Richard Kiel’s passing. We were on a radio programme together just a week ago. Distraught. Can’t take it in.”
Kiel’s other memorable roles included bullying golf spectator Mr Larson in Happy Gilmore, lethal Dr Loveless’s assistant Voltaire in The Wild, Wild West and extraterrestrial Kanamit in The Twilight Zone.
He also reprised the character of Jaws for several James Bond video games and voiced the thug Vlad in the animated Disney film Tangled.
Born in Detroit, Kiel began appearing in TV shows and films in the 1960s, debuting in an episode of the Western series Laramie.
He published an autobiography in 2002, titled Making It Big in the Movies.
His height was attributed to a hormonal condition called acromegaly.
His representatives Andrew Boyle and Gareth Owen called Kiel “a giant of a man in every respect”.
“We were honoured to know him and be part of his life,” they said in a statement.
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