Daredevil Evel Knievel dead at 69

CLEARWATER, Fla. (AP) — Evel Knievel is dead.

That sentence probably should have been written in 1968, when Knievel crashed his motorcycle spectacularly as he jumped the fountains at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas and wound up in a coma.

It probably should have been written in 1974, when his rocket-powered cycle failed as he tried to jump the Snake River Canyon and he almost landed in the raging water. Or the numerous other times when, while trying to jump something bigger than ever, he splattered.

Instead, it was written Friday. Natural causes. Age 69.

“It’s been coming for years, but you just don’t expect it. Superman just doesn’t die, right?” said longtime friend and promoter Billy Rundel. He’s the organizer of the annual Evel Knievel Days festival in the daredevil’s Butte, Mont., hometown. “I lost a good friend and a guy who was like a father to me. I’m just glad he doesn’t have to suffer anymore.”

Rundel said Knievel had trouble breathing at his Clearwater condominium Friday and died before an ambulance could get him to a hospital. Knievel had been in failing health for years, suffering from diabetes and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, an incurable condition that scarred his lungs. He had undergone a liver transplant in 1999 after nearly dying of hepatitis C, likely contracted through a blood transfusion after one of his many spills.

Knievel’s son, Kelly, 47, said he had visited his father in Clearwater for Thanksgiving.

“I think he lived 20 years longer than most people would have,” Kelly Knievel said. “I think he willed himself into an extra five or six years.”

Immortalized in the Washington’s Smithsonian Institution as “America’s Legendary Daredevil,” Knievel suffered nearly 40 broken bones before he retired in 1980.

For the tall, thin daredevil, the limelight was always comfortable, the gab glib. Always, he welcomed the challenge whether in sports, at work or play. To Knievel, there always were mountains to climb, feats to conquer.

“No king or prince has lived a better life,” he said in a May 2006 interview with The Associated Press. “You’re looking at a guy who’s really done it all. And there are things I wish I had done better, not only for me but for the ones I loved.”

He garbed himself in red, white and blue and had a knack for outrageous yarns: “Made $60 million, spent 61. …Lost $250,000 at blackjack once. … Had $3 million in the bank, though.”

Although he dropped off the pop culture radar in the ’80s, Knievel always had fans and enjoyed a resurgence in popularity in recent years. His death came just two days after it was announced that he and rapper Kanye West had settled a federal lawsuit over the use of Knievel’s trademarked image in a popular West music video.

In later years he still made a good living selling his autographs and endorsing products. Thousands came to Butte every year as his legend was celebrated during Evel Knievel Days.

“They started out watching me bust my ass, and I became part of their lives,” Knievel said. “People wanted to associate with a winner, not a loser. They wanted to associate with someone who kept trying to be a winner.”

He began his daredevil career in 1965 when he formed a troupe called Evel Knievel’s Motorcycle Daredevils, a touring show in which he performed stunts such as riding through fire walls, jumping over live rattlesnakes and mountain lions and being towed at 200 mph behind dragster race cars.

 
Evel Knievel died of natural causes Friday after 69 years, which is probably twice as long as it should have taken him.
AP
 
In 1966 he began touring alone, barnstorming the Western states and doing everything from driving the trucks, erecting the ramps and promoting the shows. In the beginning he charged $500 for a jump over two cars parked between ramps.

He steadily increased the length of the jumps until, on New Year’s Day 1968, he was nearly killed when he jumped 151 feet across the fountains in front of Caesar’s Palace. He cleared the fountains but the crash landing put him in the hospital in a coma for a month.

His son, Robbie Knievel, followed in his father’s daredevil footsteps and successfully completed the same jump in April 1989.

In the years after the Caesar’s crash, the fee for the elder Knievel’s performances increased to $1 million for his jump over 13 buses at Wembley Stadium in London — the crash landing broke his pelvis — to more than $6 million for the Sept. 8, 1974, attempt to clear the Snake River Canyon in Idaho in a rocket-powered “Skycycle.” The money came from ticket sales, paid sponsors and ABC’s “Wide World of Sports.”

The parachute malfunctioned and deployed after takeoff. Strong winds blew the cycle into the canyon, landing him perilously close to the water.

On Oct. 25, 1975, he jumped 14 Greyhound buses at Kings Island in Ohio.

Knievel decided to retire after a jump in the winter of 1976 in which he was again seriously injured. He suffered a concussion and broke both arms in an attempt to jump a tank full of live sharks in the Chicago Amphitheater. He continued to do smaller exhibitions around the country with Robbie, who did his best to imitate his dad.

Robbie Knievel jumped a moving locomotive in a 200-foot, ramp-to-ramp motorcycle stunt on live television in 2000. He also jumped a 200-foot-wide chasm of the Grand Canyon. His cell phone voicemail was full and he could not be reached for comment Friday.

Evel Knievel also dabbled in movies and TV, starring as himself in Viva Knievel and with Lindsey Wagner in an episode of the 1970s TV series Bionic Woman. George Hamilton and Sam Elliott each played Knievel in movies about his life.

Evel Knievel toys accounted for more than $300 million in sales for Ideal and other companies in the 1970s and ’80s.

Born Robert Craig Knievel in the copper mining town of Butte on Oct. 17, 1938, Knievel was raised by his grandparents. He traced his career choice back to the time he saw Joey Chitwood’s Auto Daredevil Show at age 8.

Outstanding in track and field, ski jumping and ice hockey at Butte High School, he went on to win the Northern Rocky Mountain Ski Association Class A Men’s ski jumping championship in 1957 and played with the Charlotte Clippers of the Eastern Hockey League in 1959.

He also formed the Butte Bombers semiprofessional hockey team, acting as owner, manager, coach and player.

Knievel also worked in the Montana copper mines, served in the U.S. Army, ran his own hunting guide service, sold insurance and ran Honda motorcycle dealerships. As a motorcycle dealer, he drummed up business by offering $100 off the price of a motorcycle to customers who could beat him at arm wrestling.

U.S. Rep. Pat Williams, D-Mont., grew up with Knievel in Butte.

“The phrase one-of-a-kind is often used, but it probably applies best to Bobby Knievel,” Williams said Friday. “He was an amazing athlete…He was sharp as a tack, one of the smartest people I’ve ever known and finally, as the world knows, no one had more guts than Bobby. He was simply unafraid of anything.”

At various times and in different interviews, Knievel claimed to have been a swindler, a card thief, a safe cracker, a holdup man. Last April, Knievel announced that he had given up his sinful ways and was baptized during the Rev. Robert H. Schuller’s “Hour of Power” service at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, Calif.

Knievel married hometown girlfriend, Linda Joan Bork, in 1959. They separated in the early 1990s. They had four children, Kelly, Robbie, Tracey and Alicia.

Knievel lived with his longtime partner, Krystal Kennedy-Knievel, splitting his time between their Clearwater condo and Butte. They married in 1999 and divorced a few years later but remained together. Knievel had 10 grandchildren and a great-grandchild.

A funeral service is planned for 11 a.m. Dec. 10 at the 7,500-seat Butte Civic Center in Montana.

Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Source Sports Illustrated