People who search for richard kiel diane rogers are usually trying to learn about the marriage behind one of the most recognizable faces in James Bond history. Kiel, the towering actor who played the steel-toothed villain Jaws, was married to Diane Rogers for close to forty years, and she survived him when he died in 2014. This article brings together what news reports, obituaries, and family statements actually confirm, and it also points out where online sources disagree or simply make things up.
Quick Facts
| Detail | What is publicly reported |
|---|---|
| Full name | Richard Dawson Kiel |
| Born | September 13, 1939, in Detroit, Michigan |
| Died | September 10, 2014, at Saint Agnes Medical Center in Fresno, California |
| Best-known role | Jaws in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and Moonraker (1979) |
| Spouse at the time of his death | Diane Rogers |
| Start of the marriage | Most often reported as 1974; the exact date is not publicly confirmed |
| Children | Four: Richard, Christopher, Jennifer, and Bennett |
Who Richard Kiel Was Before and After Jaws
Kiel grew up in Detroit and moved with his family to Los Angeles County as a child, where he later finished high school. According to a biography on the Bond fan site MI6-HQ, he became a full-time actor around 1960 after working as a nightclub bouncer, a cemetery plot salesman, and a night school math instructor. His early screen work included low-budget science fiction films, a memorable alien role in the Twilight Zone episode “To Serve Man,” and a recurring part as a henchman on The Wild Wild West.
Worldwide fame arrived when he was cast as Jaws opposite Roger Moore’s James Bond. The character was reportedly meant to die at the end of the first film, but audiences liked him so much that he returned in Moonraker. Kiel later played the tough but polite Mr. Larson in the 1996 comedy Happy Gilmore and voiced the villain Vlad in Disney’s Tangled in 2010. His great height came from a growth hormone condition, which Wikipedia calls gigantism and some biographies call acromegaly, a closely related condition.
Who Is Diane Rogers?
Diane Rogers has kept a very low public profile, and that is worth respecting. The major obituaries describe her simply as Kiel’s wife of nearly forty years, and none of the large news outlets describe her as an actress. Details such as her age, hometown, background, or career have not been publicly confirmed by any reliable source, so any website that offers them with great confidence should be treated with caution.
What the record does show about richard kiel diane rogers as a couple is that the family stayed close and private. Kiel’s agent of more than thirty-five years, Steve Stevens, publicly called him a terrific husband and father, and the family’s own statement after his death said that family was the most important part of his life.
Richard Kiel Diane Rogers Marriage Timeline
Kiel’s first marriage was to Faye Daniels and began in 1960, and the Wikipedia infobox says it ended in 1973. Several summaries, including Google’s knowledge panel, place the start of his marriage to Diane in 1974, which fits neatly with the “nearly forty years” described in obituaries. Wikipedia’s written text, however, reads as though he married Diane just one year after the first wedding, which would mean 1961, and that does not match the length of the marriage or the infobox dates.
The confusion gets worse on low-quality biography sites, where some pages swap the two wives and even invent wrong years for each marriage. Because the exact wedding date and place have never been publicly confirmed, the safest statement is that the marriage began in the mid-1970s and lasted until Kiel’s death.
A Height Difference That Became a Running Joke
Wikipedia lists Diane as 5 ft 1 in, which is more than two feet shorter than her husband, and it says she once joked that the two of them see eye to eye on many things. The couple’s size difference even reached the Bond set. According to MI6-HQ, filmmakers doubted that audiences would accept a romance between Jaws and Dolly, played by the much smaller actress Blanche Ravalec, until Kiel pointed out that his own wife was about the same height as her.
A widely syndicated obituary adds that Kiel had dreaded the original idea of pairing Jaws with a woman close to seven and a half feet tall. The two stories fit together well, and the richard kiel diane rogers height gap remains one of the most charming details fans remember about the pair.
Family Life, Faith, and Later Years
Reports about the family of richard kiel diane rogers disagree on the number of grandchildren. An obituary and the Television Academy mention six, while Wikipedia says nine, and no family statement settles the question. Kiel was injured in a serious vehicle accident in 1992, which some sources call a car crash and others a truck accident, and the injury affected his balance for the rest of his life. Later he used a scooter or wheelchair, and according to Reuters his agent said he stepped back from acting but stayed active on the autograph circuit for Bond fans.
Kiel was also open about his faith. A syndicated obituary says that the death of a co-star deeply affected him and that he turned to God to recover from alcoholism, and other biographies describe him as a born-again Christian. When he died, his family wrote that his last days were spent surrounded by family and close friends.
What Online Sources Get Wrong
Anyone searching richard kiel diane rogers will find pages that mix fact with fiction. One low-quality site claims that Diane Rogers and Kiel were both actors in The Spy Who Loved Me and that she played the character Anya Amasova. That claim is false, because the role of Anya Amasova was played by Barbara Bach, and no reliable report credits Diane with a Bond role.
Another common problem is that the number of children changes from page to page. Google’s knowledge panel lists three children, while obituaries and the Television Academy name four. Pages that copy from one another also repeat the same mistakes, so a claim that appears on many sites is not automatically true.
FAQ
How did Richard Kiel die? No official cause of death was released. The hospital cited patient confidentiality, his son said he had been recovering from surgery for a broken thigh bone, and his agent said only that the cause was natural. Claims about a heart attack or a reaction to anesthesia on other sites are not verified.
Did Kiel have children from his first marriage? Public reports list only the four children from his second marriage. Nothing reliable has been published about any children from his first marriage.
What was Richard Kiel’s net worth? Content sites give estimates ranging from about $500,000 to $2 million, but none of them explain how they reached those numbers, so his net worth is not publicly confirmed.
Did Kiel write any books? Yes. He published the autobiography Making It Big in the Movies in 2002 and co-wrote Kentucky Lion, a biography of the abolitionist Cassius Marcellus Clay, with Pamela Wallace in 2007.
Why was he dropped from the Incredible Hulk role? He filmed part of the 1977 pilot, but the producers decided they wanted a more muscular actor than a merely tall one, and Lou Ferrigno took the part.
How tall was Richard Kiel? Most news outlets said 7 ft 2 in, while the MI6-HQ biography gives 7 ft 1.5 in and Wikipedia’s infobox lists 7 ft 3 in, so his exact height varies by source.
Conclusion
The story of richard kiel diane rogers is best understood as a long and private marriage behind a very public career. Kiel became famous as a movie villain, yet the people who knew him described a gentle, family-centered man, and Diane Rogers remained at the center of that family for about four decades. Anything beyond the confirmed basics deserves a careful look before it is shared.
Disclaimer
This article is for general information only and is based on publicly available news reports, obituaries, and official statements available at the time of writing. Details about private individuals, including dates, family numbers, and health matters, may be incomplete or may change if new information is released. Readers should verify important facts with trusted primary sources, and nothing here is intended to replace professional, legal, or medical advice.
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