At 16 and 5ft 7ins tall, Gary Tiplady thought he'd stopped growing. But by 20, a medical condition saw him shoot up to 7ft 3ins. He tells Lindsay Jennings how he has forged a successful career out of his disability.

I'VE just walked into Gary Tiplady's living room. He is standing in a white shirt, black trousers and red braces and he's strangling our photographer, Dave. "Come on in," says Gary, turning around to reveal a terrifying set of metal gnashers. "I don't bite."

He releases Dave, who is none the worse for a bit of friendly strangling in the name of acting out a part. Gary is a lookalike of Jaws, the iconic baddie from the James Bond films, although when he puts those metal teeth in he doesn't need to do much acting.

"These teeth are an exact copy of the one's Richard Kiel wore in the two Bond films," says Gary, 45, of Walkerville, near Newcastle. "They were actually made at Pinewood Studios."

He takes a seat and promptly removes the teeth which cost £2,000. Do they hurt? I ask.

"You know when women go shopping and they take their shoes off?" he says. "Well that's how I feel when I take my teeth out. And sometimes they catch on my lips."

Gary has forged a successful career out of looking like Jaws and is in demand across the world to appear at James Bond-themed parties as well as opening shops and nightclubs. Lately, he has begun to diversify into acting and has appeared in a couple of movies as himself. He's just finished filming an advert for a mint company where he had to dress up as a giant Yeti. It took five hours just to put on the make-up, but it was great fun, he says, and it certainly beats his old job, working 60-hour weeks as a hotel chef.

Gary weighed in at a hefty 16lbs when he was born and went straight into six-month-old baby clothes. His mother was only 5ft 1ins and his dad about 5ft 6ins.

"When I was first born I was a massive baby but I slowed down and people caught up with me," says Gary, who has mercifully left his metal teeth out. "I excelled at cross country at school, I was a fitness fanatic and when I was 16 I was about 5ft 6ins. But when I got to 17/18 I started to grow again."

Gary was bullied at school prior to his growth spurt. But by the time he hit 19 and was working as a chef at Gleneagles he was getting more and more attention over his size.

"Everything was growing. My feet went from a size seven to 16 and I needed new uniforms every few weeks," he recalls. "When I got to 20, I was over seven feet tall. My aprons and my sleeves weren't long enough and I would burn my arms. Everything was starting to build up.

"When I started learning how to drive the car wasn't big enough and my knees were under my chin. I passed my test in a Datsun Sunny.

"People were taking the p***, and asking me questions all the time and kids can be cruel, saying things like 'look at the size of your chin'.

"Sometimes I used to look at myself in the mirror and think 'why have I grown like this'?"

Gary took up boxing but had to stop training when he began suffering from migraines. Concerned by his growth spurt, he returned to Newcastle and saw a consultant at the Royal Victoria Infirmary who diagnosed acreomedli or 'gigantism', where the pituitary gland produces an excess of growth hormone.

"If I hadn't have gone to the doctor I would have just carried on growing until I died," he says. "If they don't get to it quick enough you can also go blind because of the pressure it puts on the optic nerve."

Gary had to have an operation to remove a tumour on his pituitary gland, but surgeons struggled to remove it all, so he endured another operation and then radiotherapy.

He returned to life as a chef after his operations, but soon began thinking of an alternative career. He had already flirted with fame, appearing on television for his hobby - sculptures out of lard, which is an entirely different story. But then people began comparing him with Richard Kiel.

"People used to say to me 'are you that bad guy from James Bond?' I didn't know who they were talking about," he admits. "I ended up appearing on the show Robinson's People and they had Kenny Baker on who played R2D2 from Star Wars. He was talking about his career and how he'd used his disability to his advantage and I thought I could do the same".

His first job was at a party in London. He earned £200 for standing next to lookalikes of Roger Moore and Shirley Bassey.

Ten years later and he has worked across the world. He has broadened his appeal, becoming a lookalike for Lurch from The Addams Family and, more importantly to him, branched into acting. He recently had a lead role in the French film, Le Boulet, which came with his own suite in a hotel and first class travel.

"I was sitting there thinking 'I'm in my own chair, with my name on it'. I kept thinking I'm just a lad from Walkerville," he laughs.

But, despite his burgeoning film career, he still faces problems with his size. People continue to stare, although these days he can't be sure if it's because of his disability or because he's gaining widespread fame.

If he takes a train trip he can't fit in the toilets, nor can he fit in plane seats. "Although sometimes I can get an upgrade to first class," he concedes. Hotel beds are often too small and he has problems going up and down most stairs because they're not wide enough to accommodate his size 16s.

At his home, a trip to the bathroom reveals the bath is bigger than most, made by a specialist company, and the mirror above the sink is at Gary's eye level. Even on tip-toe I can barely see the top of my head.

Gary's clothes are made to measure by outsize companies, which is where he gets his shoes. He follows a moderate diet and tries to eat healthily.

He will take drugs to stop his growth hormone levels rising for the rest of his life and has developed the bone disease osteoporosis. "I'm actually still growing but the drug is repressing it," he says.

But at least he has fiancee Helen to support him. She met Gary through friends and the couple are looking forward to their wedding in May.

"I didn't even know what he did when I started seeing him, not until we got serious," she says. "He's a lot happier now."

I get up to leave and my hand disappears in Gary's as we shake hands.

He still has a couple of ambitions, he adds, as we walk to the door. He would love to get a job back at Gleneagles as a celebrity, not a chef, and he wants to write a book of his experiences. It has the working title of 'Giant of the North'.

But most of all he just wants to appear in films as himself, Gary Tiplady. "Jaws is OK, but more acting would be great," he says.