Evel Knievel is Dead!!!

[BangShiftChad]

A sad day in the CarJunkieTv world my friends. Evel Knievel has died at the age of 69. He was plagued with health problems for several years, but continued to be the premier stunt showman of our times. I still remember watching him on tv every chance I got as a kid, which is probably one of the reasons my mom never wanted me to have a motorcycle as a child.
What's your favorite EK stunt?

[KeithTurk]

Re: Evel Knievel is Dead!!!

The palace.... wow.. bummer...

Today he's so totally eclipsed... but in his day on the scooters of his time... he will always be the Biggest and best ...

K

[1FastMopar]

Re: Evel Knievel is Dead!!!

I remember sitting in front of the TV with my dad on many of occasions to watch him jump everything from buses, cars, rivers, you name it! My dad always said he carried his balls around in a wheelbarrow. I can't tell you how many times I yelled his name as I was about to emulate him in some stupid stunt as a kid.. He was probably responsible for many of stitches I got.

I will always remember him.. He sure didn't take the easy road through life.. I hope he is finally at peace.. God speed, Evel...

[HillbillySailor]

Re: Evel Knievel is Dead!!!

A sad day indeed. I remember watching him try to jump a pool of sharks. If I remember right, he got hurt real bad doing it too. Like 1FastMopar, I also tried to emulate him. I remember running into the side of the car while performing a "stunt" once. Dad tore my ass up for it too...

[Scott Liggett]

Re: Evel Knievel is Dead!!!

I used to have his stunt van with his action figure and motorcycle. Remember my Dad didn't want to buy it because he thought he was a arrogant a-hole. He met Evel in Vegas in the early 70's. I didn't care. I still thought he was the coolest.

[ethelkilledfred]

Re: Evel Knievel is Dead!!!



Iconic daredevil Evel Knievel dies at 69
By MITCH STACY, Associated Press Writer
7 minutes ago



Evel Knievel, the red-white-and-blue-spangled motorcycle daredevil whose jumps over crazy obstacles including Greyhound buses, live sharks and Idaho's Snake River Canyon made him an international icon in the 1970s, died Friday. He was 69.

Knievel's death was confirmed by his granddaughter, Krysten Knievel. He had been in failing health for years, suffering from diabetes and pulmonary fibrosis, an incurable condition that scarred his lungs.

Knievel had undergone a liver transplant in 1999 after nearly dying of hepatitis C, likely contracted through a blood transfusion after one of his bone-shattering spills.

Longtime friend and promoter Billy Rundel said Knievel had trouble breathing at his Clearwater condominium and died before an ambulance could get him to a hospital.

"It's been coming for years, but you just don't expect it. Superman just doesn't die, right?" Rundel said.

Immortalized in the Washington's Smithsonian Institution as "America's Legendary Daredevil," Knievel was best known for a failed 1974 attempt to jump Snake River Canyon on a rocket-powered cycle and a spectacular crash at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. He suffered nearly 40 broken bones before he retired in 1980.

"I think he lived 20 years longer than most people would have" after so many injuries, said his son Kelly Knievel, 47. "I think he willed himself into an extra five or six years."

Though Knievel dropped off the pop culture radar in the '80s, the image of the high-flying motorcyclist clad in patriotic, star-studded colors was never erased from public consciousness. He 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.

Knievel made a good living selling his autographs and endorsing products. Thousands came to Butte, Mont., every year as his legend was celebrated during the "Evel Knievel Days" festival, which Rundel organizes.

"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."

For the tall, thin daredevil, the limelight was always comfortable, the gab glib. 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 had a knack for outrageous yarns: "Made $60 million, spent 61. ...Lost $250,000 at blackjack once. ... Had $3 million in the bank, though."

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.

In 1966 he began touring alone, barnstorming the West 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, successfully completed the same jump in April 1989.

In the years after the Caesar's crash, the fee for Evel'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 close to the swirling river below.

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 his son, Robbie.

Many of his records have been broken by daredevil motorcyclist Bubba Blackwell.

Knievel also dabbled in movies and TV, starring as himself in "Viva Knievel" and with Lindsay Wagner in an episode of the 1980s 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.

"The phrase one-of-a-kind is often used, but it probably applies best to Bobby Knievel," said U.S. Rep. Pat Williams, D-Mont., who grew up with Knievel. "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."

Outstanding in track and field, ski jumping and ice hockey at Butte High School, Knievel 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 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.

At various times and in different interviews, Knievel claimed to have been a swindler, a card thief, a safe cracker, a holdup man.

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

Robbie Knievel followed in his father's footsteps as a daredevil, jumping 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.

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.



Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

[etbird]

Re: Evel Knievel is Dead!!!

What a showman. Evel was the man!

[mcat]

Re: Evel Knievel is Dead!!!

he was definitely the man.. when i was 7 he did a jump at an amusement park here in Cincinnati kings island.. the place was a mad house.. he made the jump ..buses. i dont remember how many..
my favorite is when he crashed at wemblie(sp?) stadium.. he was told by all the engineers that it could not be done, the laws of physics say you will not make the speed needed to clear the jump.. he said "all these people paid good hard earned money to see me jump, and im going to try"! worse crash ever .. when asked why he did it , he said "i thought if i had the best jump of my life i might make it"..
they dont make them like that any more
RIP Evil

[Bigbuds1]

Re: Evel Knievel is Dead!!!

R.I.P. EK

[etbird]

Re: Evel Knievel is Dead!!!

he was definitely the man.. when i was 7 he did a jump at an amusement park here in Cincinnati kings island.. the place was a mad house.. he made the jump ..buses. i dont remember how many..
my favorite is when he crashed at wemblie(sp?) stadium.. he was told by all the engineers that it could not be done, the laws of physics say you will not make the speed needed to clear the jump.. he said "all these people paid good hard earned money to see me jump, and im going to try"! worse crash ever .. when asked why he did it , he said "i thought if i had the best jump of my life i might make it"..
they dont make them like that any more
RIP Evil

Yes I saw that jump just before I moved to Fl. I was 15 years old.

[Freiburger]

Re: Evel Knievel is Dead!!!

Evel was a hero to me for his dedication to his fans over his personal wellbeing, in a very dramatic way. Total commitment.

Here's my favorite story about him. Some time in the 80s, a guy wrote an unauthorized biography about Evel and said a bunch of things that Kneivel didn't like. So Evel got on a plane from Montana, jumped the fence at Universal Studios, found the guy's office, and broke both his legs with a baseball bat.

Illegal, rash, and scary to me as a journalist. But at the same time, I liked it better than a lawsuit. We need a little frontier justice here and there.

DF

[1FastMopar]

Re: Evel Knievel is Dead!!!

Evel was a hero to me for his dedication to his fans over his personal wellbeing, in a very dramatic way. Total commitment.

Here's my favorite story about him. Some time in the 80s, a guy wrote an unauthorized biography about Evel and said a bunch of thinks that Kneivel didn't like. So Evel got on a plane from Montana, jumped the fence at Universal Studios, found the guy's office, and broke both his legs with a baseball bat.

Illegal, rash, and scary to me as a journalist. But at the same time, I liked it better than a lawsuit. We need a little frontier justice here and there.

DF

I remember that!!! :o For all his greatness, he was a madman, thats for sure, but I did idolize him as a kid, though...

[doughboy2]

Re: Evel Knievel is Dead!!!

Super hero. I had a matching helmet riding my Honda 50. Jumping my mom's Cutlass wasn't such a good idea though.

[KeithTurk]

Re: Evel Knievel is Dead!!!

Now that is a GREAT story about the man...

K

[fabricatordave]

Re: Evel Knievel is Dead!!!

allways be a hero in my book .passion for what he did with out regard for himself. i was same way as just about any kid in that era, tried to jump stuff ,.usually went wrong and had all the toys stunt cycle was best