Richard Kiel (Jaws)

Richard Kiel playing Jaws

Born in Detroit, Michigan, USA on 13th September 1939

Starred In The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and Moonraker (1979)

Film information

Jaws played by Richard Kiel is the third villain of The Spy Who Loved Me. Jaws is employed by Karl Stromberg to eliminate anyone who comes into contact with the microfilm containing the submarine tracking system.

Throughout the film Jaws murderers Aziz Fekkesh, Max Kalba and even a shark, although fails to kill Major Anya Amasova when Bond interferes. Jaws survives the destruction of Atlantis, who unknown to audiences at the time, returns in the next James Bond film Moonraker.

In Moonraker Jaws is first seen in the pre-credit sequence where he pushes Bond out of a plane without a parachute. Jaws doesn’t reappear in the film until Hugo Drax’s henchmen Chang is killed, and he is hired as a replacement. Jaws travels to Rio de Janeiro where he unsuccessfully attempts to kill Manuela after Bond saves the day once more. Dr Holly Goodhead and Bond have a one-to-one encounter with Jaws atop one of the cable cars travelling to Sugarloaf Mountain. Unwittingly crashing into the cable car base station after another failure, Jaws emerges from the wreckage where he first spots Dolly who becomes his unlikely girlfriend.

Following a number of unsuccessful attempts to kill Bond, the action moves to outer space when all the main players travel to Drax’s space station. After managing to subtly convince Jaws that Drax would probably have Dolly killed in the near future, Jaws changes sides and becomes an ally to Bond helping him defeat Drax.

Character information

At over 7 foot 2 inches, Jaws towers above everyone else and with a mouthful of metal teeth certainly has the image to match. Seemingly invincible, Jaws manages to survive a large number of setbacks and situations that no one else does. While only saying one line in both films, like so many of the mute villains throughout the Bond series, his sheer presence and aurora speaks volumes.

In The Spy Who Loved Me Jaws is portrayed as an intimidating, determined, unstoppable character where as this changes in his second appearance. In Moonraker Jaws is used for comic effect, appearing in all the films laughable sequences usually as his expense. The role reverse to Bond Ally proves interesting at the end of the film, and Jaws and Dollys survival is guaranteed when Colonel Scott reports picking up two survivors - a tall man and a short blonde woman.§