( CNN ) -- You could n't really call him a `` Bond villain '' in the grander context of Dr. No , Auric Goldfinger , Hugo Drax or that annoyingly resilient cat-fancier Ernst Stavros Blofeld . Those guys were schemers , planners , twisted visionaries of mass apocalypse whose Big Ideas were to be played out at humanity 's expense . They thought they were so much smarter than the rest of us that it made it easier to invest our collective hope that James Bond would ultimately ruin their parties . But Jaws ? We could never get as worked up about him any more than you get upset about a lower-level employee called upon do to a dirty job , even if the employee is over 7 feet tall and has the chromium grill of a compact car for teeth . In the fantasy universe of henchmen and human tool-kits , Jaws was the uberstooge , an angel of death who could n't soar far or fast enough to deliver the coup de grace to 007 . It 's not that we ( necessarily ) rooted for Jaws any more than we really wanted Wile E. Coyote to catch the Road Runner . Wait , maybe we did . Jaws often resembled that poor scrawny desert wretch whenever he fell ( literally ) short of his quarry . In any case , we had so much fun watching him chase Roger Moore 's plummy-voiced version of Bond in 1977 's `` The Spy Who Loved Me '' that we cheered upon first seeing him return in 1979 's `` Moonraker . '' Imagine how Goldfinger 's henchman Oddjob would have been received if his hat had n't gotten caught in that electrified grill . Monstrous as Jaws was , there was something deep inside that made us feel a little sorry for him when having all that muscle and menace and grillwork did him little good . ( I mean , c'mon , man , you can take down a real shark by yourself , but ca n't do away with a smarty-pants secret agent smaller than you ? ) The man who played the role , Richard Kiel , died Wednesday in Los Angeles at 74 . And it 's no surprise to learn , from an interview he did in 2009 , that he insisted on making him less a walking prop and more like a person with such `` human characteristics '' as `` frustration '' and `` perseverance . '' There was more of the latter than the former in Kiel 's post-Bond career . He embraced his Jaws-inspired notoriety with abiding grace and generosity . He continued to act , became a born-again Christian after a bout with alcoholism and even co-wrote a biography of the Kentucky abolitionist Cassius Clay for whom the Louisville-born Muhammad Ali was originally named . With Kiel 's passing , you suddenly realize how inimitable Jaws was . Is there anybody like him in movies now ? Beyond , maybe , the pro wrestling circuit , is there anybody like him anywhere ?
Gene Seymour : Jaws was n't standard , a standard villain . He was no Dr. No or Hugo Drax . We wanted him to be them . But was more a low - level villain : scary , not hateful , he says . He says late actor , Richard Burton , who played him , said he tried to make him more human . Seymour : His passing makes you realize how singular his villain was ; no one else like him .