Bond villain 'Jaws' actor Richard Kiel dead at 74

Richard Kiel, best known for playing the James Bond villain with the teeth of steel, has died. He was 74. Kiel broke his leg last week and died in St Agnes Medical Center in Fresno, California, last afternoon, confirmed his agent Steven Stevens Sr. Kiel’s signature character appeared in the Bond films ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’ (1977) and ‘Moonraker’ (1979). [caption id=“attachment_1707127” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Kiel was best known for playing Bond villain Jaws: AP[/caption] His Bond character of Jaws alongside Roger Moore was inspired by author Ian Fleming’s description of a crook who went by the name of Horror and had steel-capped teeth in the 1962 novel ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’. The 7-foot-2 actor also played an alien in the famed 1962 Twilight Zone episode To Serve Man, a hitman in the Gene Wilder-Richard Pryor comedy Silver Streak (1976) and Adam Sandler’s boss in the classic golf comedy Happy Gilmore (1996). The Detroit native also stood tall as bad guys in TV shows including ‘The Man From U N C L E’, ‘The Wild Wild West’ and ‘Kolchak: The Night Stalker. He had also auditioned for the role of the mean green guy in the CBS series ‘The Incredible Hulk’, a role that later went to Lou Ferrigno. Kiel also worked as a nightclub bouncer and cemetery plot salesman before landing his first acting gig as a character called Bare Knuckles in the NBC series ‘Klondike’.