Evel Knievel, motorcycle daredevil
CLEARWATER, Fla. - Evel Knievel, 69, the red-white-and-blue-spangled motorcycle daredevil whose jumps over Idaho's Snake River Canyon and other obstacles made him an international icon in the 1970s, died yesterday.
CLEARWATER, Fla. - Evel Knievel, 69, the red-white-and-blue-spangled motorcycle daredevil whose jumps over Idaho's Snake River Canyon and other obstacles made him an international icon in the 1970s, died yesterday.
Mr. Knievel's death was confirmed by a granddaughter, Krysten Knievel. He had been in failing health for years. He 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. He also suffered two strokes in recent years.
Immortalized in Washington's Smithsonian Institution as "America's Legendary Daredevil," Robert "Evel" Knievel was best known for a failed 1974 attempt to jump Snake River Canyon on a rocket-powered cycle and for 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."
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 Mr. Knievel's trademarked image in a popular West music video.
Mr. Knievel made a good living selling his autographs and endorsing products. Thousands went to Butte, Mont., every year as his legend was celebrated during the "Evel Knievel Days" festival.
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 Mr. 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 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.
Photos, more links at Evel Knievel's Web site via