Richard Kiel: A look at the James Bond villain’s roles beyond Jaws

The role of Jaws, the towering metal-mouthed assassin of the James Bond movies, cast a long shadow for the 7-foot-2 character actor Richard Kiel, who died Wednesday at age 74. But although Kiel is best known for his appearances in “The Spy Who Loved Me” and “Moonraker,” his on-screen career spanned more than half a century.

Here are some of Kiel’s roles beyond Bond.

Kiel got his start on the big screen in the early 1960s, appearing in B-movies like the cult favorite “Eegah,” in which he played a caveman who has survived into the modern era; “The Phantom Planet,” in which he played a deadly alien; and “The Human Duplicators,” in which he played a different deadly alien.

One of Kiel’s notable pre-Bond roles came in the 1974 comedy-drama “The Longest Yard,” starring Burt Reynolds as a former NFL quarterback who lands in jail and leads a motley crew of inmates in a game against their thuggish guards. Kiel played Samson, the appropriately named ex-weightlifter who at one point clotheslines a guard into oblivion.

In addition to tangling with Roger Moore’s Bond, Kiel also took on Clint Eastwood’s Preacher in the 1985 western “Pale Rider.” Kiel played the thug Club, who finds himself on the wrong end of a sledgehammer but ultimately has a redemptive moment.

Kiel didn’t only do heavies: He played a kindly recluse in the 1991 family movie “The Giant of Thunder Mountain” (which he also co-wrote) and Adam Sandler’s supportive old boss (taking a nail to the head with aplomb) in “Happy Gilmore.” In the 2010 animated fairy tale “Tangled,” Kiel voiced Vladamir, an apparent thug who ultimately proves to be a decent guy (and a collector of ceramic unicorns).

Over the years, Kiel did TV work as well, appearing on series including “The Twilight Zone,” “The Wild, Wild West” and “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” He also published a 2002 autobiography titled “Making It Big in the Movies.”

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