At seven foot, two inches tall, Kevin Peter Hall played many high profile movie and television roles throughout his acting career. Despite this, his face is almost unrecognized he performed most of his parts in heavy latex costumes. He portrayed deadly aliens, friendly bigfoot, and fantasy monsters.
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Hall grew up in Pittsburgh and played basketball throughout high school. This earned him a scholarship to George Washington University in Washington DC where he studied theatrical arts. He spent a short time in Venezuela playing professional basketball but soon moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. He teamed up with a college friend, Jay Fenichel, and the duo performed several shows together, including the musical In Five and the semi-autobiographical comedy The Worst of Friends.
He started appearing in a string of semi-successful science fiction movies, some with famous or soon to be famous co-stars. After appearing as a mutant bear in Prophecy, he was the main alien enemy in Without Warning with Jack Palance and Martin Landau. Shortly afterwards he was the fantasy monster "Gorvil" in Mazes and Monsters (1980), one of Tom Hank's first movies.
He appeared as a guest star in a series of television shows from Night Court to The Dukes of Hazzard before landing the role of Dr. Elvin "El" Lincon in Misfits of Science. After Misfits was quickly cancelled, he played the role of Leyor on Star Trek: the Next Generation's episode "The Price". But it was two years after Misfits that he appeared in his two most memorable (and anonymous) roles.
In 1987 he appeared as the bigfoot Harry in Harry and the Hendersons. The movie was a hit, and people loved the character of Harry — who was played by Hall in a heavy rubber suit covered in fur. The other big movie that year was Predator, which featured Hall, again in a rubber suit, as the title alien battling Arnold Schwarzenegger.
A variety of parts followed, including a second turn in Predator 2 and a continuing role in the series 227 as Warren Merriwether. On the set of 227 he met Alaina Reed who played Rose. They soon married and had two children.
In 1990 he had started filming the television series of Harry and the Hendersons. In April of 1991 he succumbed to AIDS which he had contracted via a blood transfusion some years before.