Hey I was wondering if anyone read Richard's Book??? If someone has was it good... also, What did Roger write in the Foreword in a nutshell..
(((( hahhahaha Funny I thought I spelled "Foreward" right!! BUT on his site www.richardkiel.com they spelled it wrong.. always go with your first thoughts on something
)))))I always loved Richard in The Longest Yard & both 007 Movies! He was one of the best villians/henchmen ever
I found this Interview with Richard!
Enjoy
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Jaws Returns: Interview with Richard Kiel
Part 1: James Bond
Most celebrities are shorter in person. Richard Kiel is not. In fact, he's even bigger in person. Most famous as the villain Jaws in two James Bond movies, I met Kiel at NATPE, the convention for the National Association of Television Program Executives. He was helping promote a Christian values talk show called Lifestyles on which he has been a frequent guest, but he was happy to talk about James Bond and his other work.
*Where is the James Bond recognition for you now?
It's really strong still. I have a website [www.richardkiel.com] with about 47,000 hits in the last nine months. I was also in Happy Gilmore. That's very popular with the young males of all ages.
*Before we talk about that, have you been approached to return to the James Bond series?
I ran into one of Mr. [Albert "Cubby"] Broccoli's daughters on my way over to Honolulu and we had a little talk about the possibilities. There are a lot of fans that would like to see Jaws come back and do a little something because the character lived and they haven't really resolved it. I think people are still hoping I'm going to come back. It's difficult because I turned into a good guy and went on the side of right. Now they have to figure out how to work that into a show.
*How do you think Jaws would handle Brosnan's James Bond?
I think Pierce is doing great as James Bond. He has that British humor and it's back to the balance of action and romance and humor. I don't think he'd have any problem with it at all. For a while there, they were going awfully serious with Timothy Dalton and it was very difficult for him to emerge as a new Bond with such a different persona that they gave him. It became more of an action movie rather than the fantasy humor combination of action, gadgets, fantasy women, sex and humor that Bond was known for. He's a really good actor as well.
*Did you get to keep the teeth?
No, of course not. Those are a valuable commodity. They'll probably end up on the hood of somebody's Jaguar as a hood ornament one day. But if they ever wanted to bring the character back, there's only one set of those teeth. I would imagine they're in a safe somewhere for safe keeping.
*How long did it take to put them in?
They just went right in like a boxer's mouthpiece but they were made out of chromium steel and they went up in the roof of your mouth and caused a little bit of gagging. So, it was kind of difficult but it gave me a stoic expression, trying to keep from throwing up.
*Did you know you were in the Goldeneye game?
Yeah. My son pointed it out to me. There was a royalty paid for that.
*He unlocked the secret character?
Actually, what he did was he went in with the telescopic sight zoomed in on the character. I had had an automobile accident and I had a cyst on my forehead which was very predominant in the Bond films. They had lifted the likeness from the film and put it on a frame, computer wires, and they had the bump on my forehead, the whole nine yards. So, he says, "Dad, it's you." I wrote a letter and the Bond people were very nice and took care of everything.
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Jaws Returns: Interview with Richard Kiel
Part 2: Happy Gilmore and roles he turned down
*So, how did Adam Sandler approach you for Happy Gilmore?
Actually, the producers did the approaching. I don't think Adam Sandler gets involved directly in casting, but it's very nice. He was a very humble guy and always enjoyed things like that. He said it was really a pleasure to have me work on the show. He was kind of a quiet, more serious guy in real life than the characters that he plays on CDs and movies
*What did they tell you about the part?
The script called for it, [a big guy.]
*Were you their first choice?
They definitely wanted me to do it. It was a very, very popular role for me, very close in popularity to the Bond [recognition,] sort of a different time era. I have hardcore young male fans who know the dialogue. When I responded to Shooter McGavin, when he says to me, "Oh, you can count too" the kids all know that I said, "Yeah, and you can count on me waiting for you in the parking lot." So little things like that. They just like that character a lot and I think they'd like to be able to be like that for a day or two. The kids picked up on a lot of the little subtleties like at the very end of the movie, you can hear the scuffling and my voice saying, "Hold still!" as I pummel him to get the gold jacket that belongs to my buddy, Happy Gilmore.
*How decide when to make appearances in movies or on television?
I've only turned down about six or eight things in my life. There wasn't so much demand. There have been some things that were just so gross, so atrocious, I just said to the producers, "Are you going to actually say these things and do these things in the movie?" They said, "Well, yeah." So I didn't want to be in it. I guess they had a few people say the same thing, because they cleaned them up. There was one that Peter Fonda ended up starring in and I probably should have tried a little harder to negotiate what was said and what was done, but at least maybe I helped set the stage for other people because the character they wanted me to play was in such bad taste -the dialogue, what he said and what was happening - it was juvenile and sick.
*Which Peter Fonda movie?
All those [bad] things were taken out eventually and it was called Freedom Fighters. Unfortunately when you write a script with all this garbage in it and then take it all out, you don't' have a whole lot because too much is depending on all of this shocking stuff. Young people like shocking stuff, but it's not really good for society to be inundated constantly with shocking stuff because pretty soon it's no longer shocking. Then we have people going in and blowing up people with automatic weapons somewhere because they're not shocked about doing it. They should be.
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Jaws Returns: Interview with Richard Kiel
Part 3: What he does today: author, biographer, public speaker
*What is your involvement with Lifestyles?
Well, first of all I'm a Christian and I've made some changes in my life as a father and husband. It's just a good, positive show. It's not so much a religious show but it has good values that they talk about and try to encourage the more positive things for people. There's so much of the other stuff out there so it's something I believe in. I'm here to help attract a little attention, get more people involved in coming over here. They're great people.
*What do you do when you're not performing?
I just finished a 542 page novel which has a lot of historical import. It's about another fighter named Cassius Clay, the white man that Mohammed Ali's father was named after and Mohammed Ali. He fought against slavery back when he was going against the times and was a very controversial character in his time like Cassius Clay the boxer. He probably did more to put an end to slavery than any other person, including Abraham Lincoln. During that era, he actually was Mary Todd Lincoln's first choice as a husband and he roomed with the Todd family and ran for president at the same time as Abraham Lincoln for the republican nomination. It intertwines with Lincoln and there's a lot of discoveries about Lincoln that are not what people think. It was rather interesting to uncover a lot of things in the process of writing this book. It's a fascinating story, I enjoyed writing it.
*Is this your first book?
I've written a number of screenplays, some of which have been produced, but this was a 25 year labor of love. It needed to be written. Other people have talked about it. It's a big project so it took a long time. I just finished that. I was gathering information and actually I expected some other people to do it, but it never happened so finally I thought, "I just have to sit down and write it." And I did.
*What's the name of the book?
It's tentatively called Flames of Destiny, but by the time it gets out there on the market, the title might be different.
*Are there movie rights attached?
Yeah, I completed three screenplays, part one, part two and final chapter. You know, it needs to come out first as a novel to be introduced to the public, so I'm just in the process of doing that now.
*Would you act in a movie version?
No. Although there was a character that Clay was involved with that was my size, it's not really pivotal. It's not that important. What's really important is the truth of what was happening at that time. A lot of things that have been sort of shoveled over in history that I found very easy to unearth are really fascinating. People need to know about it.
*Could you just live off the Bond royalties the rest of your life?
Take a look at my website. You'll find I've done about 35 movies and hosted 100 television shows in my career, and I've been semi-retired now for seven or eight years, doing mostly writing.
