There are no details at this time about the cause of death, but the Associated Press has confirmed that actor Richard Kiel has passed away in Fresno, California. Kiel was 74 years old.

The 7-foot-2-inch Kiel was best known as Jaws, the enormously strong, metal-teethed adversary of James Bond in 1977’s The Spy Who Loved Me and 1979’s Moonraker, but his career in film and television spanned dozens of movies over the course of 50 years, and his work ran the gamut from major Hollywood productions (he played one of the prisoners-turned-footballers in the original 1974 version of The Longest Yard) to hilariously terrible Z-grade schlock (including the title role in the unfrozen-caveman movie Eegah, which was the target of a hilarious episode of Mystery Science Theater 3ooo). Children of the ’90s would recognize him from Happy Gilmore, where he memorably hounded Christopher McDonald’s Shooter McGavin:

But Kiel will be best remembered for Jaws, who remains one of the franchise’s most iconic characters. Jaws was unique among Bond villains for getting his own love interest, who convinces him to help Bond at the end of Moonraker. Of course, earlier in the film, Jaws had tried to murder Bond on top of a tram in Rio de Janeiro, but 007’s too cool a dude to hold a grudge.

In 2009, Kiel told Den Of Geek about how he convinced the producers to give him the part of Jaws:

“Then he said that they’d already interviewed David Prowse who was in the suit for Darth Vader and that made me feel it wasn’t an acting role. A little voice inside of me said, ‘Richard, how much do you love the Bond series? Make it work.’ So I took a chance and said to Mr Broccoli, ‘Whomever you cast, whether it’s me or somebody else, I think it needs to be an actor because a character who kills people with his teeth could become over the top quite easily. If I were to play the role I’d give him some human characteristics, perseverance, frustration, those kind of things.’”

Kiel was right, both about the part of Jaws and what he could bring to it. Jaws’ surprising sweetness was precisely what made him such a memorable character, and that unique combination of menace and humanity was what made Kiel such a valuable screen presence for decades. He will be missed, but he’ll be remembered, particularly any time there’s a new movie character with ultra-sharp metal teeth.