Motorcycle stunt performer, born in Butte, Montana, USA. Raised by his grandparents in Butte, a copper-mining town, he began doing motorcycle stunts as a teenager. He embarked on an incredibly varied career (195665) that included professional hockey, a stint in the US Army, work in the copper mines, and eventually crime - safecracking and holdups. He went straight in 1965 and formed Evel Knievel's Motorcycle Devils. He performed many dangerous and thrilling stunts and became a hero to schoolchildren of the 1970s. After he retired, he managed the stunt career of his son, Robbie Knievel.
| Evel Knievel | |
|---|---|
| Born |
October 17, 1938 Butte, Montana |
Robert Craig "Evel" Knievel, Jr. (born October 17, 1938 in Butte, Montana) is an American stuntperson, best known for his public displays of long distance, high-altitude motorcycle jumping which often resulted in serious injuries, particularly during the 1960s.
Early life
Knievel was the first of two children born to Robert and Ann Knievel. At the age of eight, Knievel attended a Joie Chitwood Auto Daredevil Show, which he credits for his later career choice to become a motorcycle daredevil.
Knievel dropped out of high school after his sophomore year and got a job with the Anaconda Mining Company as a diamond drill operator in the copper mines. Knievel was fired when he made the earth mover pop a motorcycle-type wheelie and drove it into Butte's main power line, leaving the city without electricity for several hours. With a lot of time on his hands, Knievel began to get into more and more trouble around Butte. After one particular police chase in 1956 in which he crashed his motorcycle, Knievel was taken to jail on a charge of reckless driving.
Always looking for new thrills and challenges, Knievel participated in local professional rodeos and ski-jumping events, including winning the Northern Rocky Mountain Ski Association Class A Men's ski jumping championship in 1957. After his army stint, Knievel returned to Butte where he met, kidnapped and married his first wife, Linda Bork. Shortly after getting married, Knievel left Butte to join the Charlotte Checkers of the Eastern Hockey League, a minor professional ice hockey league. Realizing that he wasn't talented enough to make it into the National Hockey League and that the real money in sports, at the time, was in owning a team, Knievel returned to Butte and started the Butte Bombers, a semi-pro hockey team.
After the birth of his first son, Kelly, Knievel realized that he needed to come up with a new way to support his family. It is rumored that Knievel bought his first bike after breaking into the safe of the Butte courthouse.
In December 1961, Knievel, learning about the culling of elk in Yellowstone Park, decided to hitchhike from Butte to Washington, D.C., to raise awareness and to have the elk relocated to areas open to hunters.
Knievel decided to go straight after returning home from Washington.
Knievel did very well as an insurance salesman (even going as far as to sell insurance policies to several institutionalized mental patients) and wanted to be quickly rewarded for his efforts. Needing a fresh start away from Butte, Knievel moved his family to Moses Lake, Washington.
Daredevil
Not having any way to support his family, Knievel recalled the Joie Chitwood show he saw as a boy and decided that he could do a similar show using a motorcycle. Promoting the show himself, Knievel rented the venue, wrote the press releases, set up the show, sold the tickets and served as his own master of ceremonies. Despite coming up short and having his back wheel hit the box containing the rattlesnakes, Knievel managed to land safely.
Knievel realized that to make any real money he would have to hire more performers, stunt coordinators and other personnel so that he could concentrate on the jumps. Blare offered to provide the needed motorcycles, but he wanted the name changed from the Bobby Knievel and His Motorcycle Daredevils Thrill Show to Evil Knievel and His Motorcycle Daredevils.
The first show of Knievel and his daredevils was on January 3, 1966, at the National Date Festival in Indio, California. Knievel got several offers to host his show after their first performance. During the performance, Knievel attempted a new stunt where he would jump, spread eagle, over a speeding motorcycle. Knievel jumped too late and the motorcycle hit him in the groin, tossing him fifteen feet into the air.
Knievel's daredevil show broke up after the Barstow performance because Knievel's injuries prevented him from performing. After recovering, Knievel started traveling from small town to small town as a solo act. To get ahead of other motorcycle stuntmen who were jumping animals or pools of water, Knievel started jumping cars. Knievel hadn't had a serious injury since the Barstow perfomance, but on June 19 in Missoula, Montana, he attempted to jump twelve cars and a cargo van. Knievel ended up with a severely broken arm and several broken ribs. On May 30, 1967, Knievel successfully cleared sixteen cars in Gardena, California. Again coming up short, Knievel crashed, breaking his left wrist, right knee and two ribs.
Knievel finally got some national exposure when actor Joey Bishop had him on as a guest of The Joey Bishop Show.
Caesar's Palace
While in Las Vegas, Nevada, to watch Dick Tiger fight a middleweight title fight, Knievel first saw the fountains at Caesar's Palace and decided to jump them. To get an audience with the casino's CEO Jay Sarno, Knievel created a fictitious corporation called Evel Knievel Enterprises and three fictitious lawyers to make phone calls to Sarno. Knievel also placed phone calls to Sarno claiming to be from ABC-TV and Sports Illustrated inquiring about the jump. Sarno finally agreed to meet Knievel and the deal was set for Knievel to jump the fountains on December 31, 1967. After the deal was set, Knievel tried to get ABC to air the event live on Wide World of Sports. ABC declined, but said that if Knievel had the jump filmed and it was as spectacular as he said it would be, they would consider using it later.
Knievel used his own money to have actor/director John Derek produce a film of the Caesar's jump. On the morning of the jump, Knievel stopped in the casino and placed a single $100 dollar bet on the blackjack table, which he lost, stopped by the bar and got a shot of Wild Turkey and then headed outside where he was joined by several members of the Caesar's staff, as well as two scantily clad showgirls. After doing his normal pre-jump show and a few warm up approaches, Knievel began his real approach. The sudden loss of power on the takeoff caused Knievel to come up short and land on the safety ramp which was supported by a van. As a result of the crash, Knievel received a crushed pelvis and femur, fractures to his hip, wrist and both ankles and a concussion that kept him in a coma for 29 days.
After his crash and recovery, Knievel was more famous than ever. Ironically, when Knievel finally achieved the fame and possible fortune that he always wanted, his doctors were telling him that he may never walk without crutches again, let alone ride and jump motorcycles. To keep his name in the news, Knievel started describing his biggest stunt ever, a motorcycle jump across the Grand Canyon. Just five months after his near fatal crash, Knievel performed another jump. On May 25, 1968, in Scottsdale, Arizona, Knievel crashed while attempting to jump fifteen Mustangs. Knievel ended up breaking his right leg and foot as a result of the crash.
On August 3, 1968, Knievel returned to jumping, making more money than ever before. Everything was going great for Knievel (aside, of course, from the fact that seemingly every stunt he attempted resulted in serious bodily harm), and he was making successful jumps almost weekly until October 13, in Carson City, Nevada. During his recovery, Knievel had the X-1 Skycycle built by NASA aeronautical engineer Doug Malewicki to promote his Grand Canyon jump. Knievel also had all the trucks he used to go from one jump to the next painted to promote the Grand Canyon jump.
Marketing the image
Knievel sought to make more money off of his image. No longer satisfied with just receiving free motorcycles to jump with, Knievel wanted to be paid to use and promote a company's brand of motorcycles. After Triumph, the motorcycle that he had been jumping with, refused to meet his demands, Knievel started to propose the idea to other manufacturers. American Eagle Motorcycles was the first company to sign Knievel to an endorsement deal. At approximately the same time, Fanfare Films started production of The Evel Knievel Story, a 1971 movie starring George Hamilton as Knievel.
Starting in 1972, Ideal started to release a line of Evel Knievel toys, including one of the most popular boy's toys of the 1970s, the Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle. One of the first motorcycle toys, it appealed to both boys and their fathers, propelling the Evel Knievel toy line as it revitalized the depressed toy industry, and eventually grossed over $350 million, of which Knievel received approx.
Knievel kept up his pursuit of getting the United States government to allow him to jump the Grand Canyon.
ABC's Wide World of Sports started showing Knievel's jumps on television with regularity. His huge fame caused him to start traveling with a bodyguard, Boots Curtis, a long time Knievel friend.
Snake River Canyon
By 1971, Knievel realized that the United States government would never allow him to jump the Grand Canyon. To keep his fans interested, Knievel considered several other stunts that might match the publicity that would have been generated by jumping the canyon. While flying back to Butte from a performance tour, Knievel looked out the window and saw the Snake River Canyon. After finding a location near Twin Falls, Idaho that was both wide enough, deep enough and on private property, Knievel leased 300 acres (1.2 km²) for $35,000 to stage his jump.
On January 7 and January 8, 1971, Knievel set the record by selling over 100,000 tickets to back-to-back performances at the Houston Astrodome. On May 10, Knievel crashed while attempting to jump 13 Pepsi delivery trucks. Knievel broke his collarbone, suffered a compound fracture of his right arm and broke both legs.
Knievel continued to jump and promote his Labor Day assault on the Snake River Canyon. Knievel ended up getting thrown off and run over by his motorcycle, a Harley-Davidson. Knievel ended up with a broken back and a concussion.
ABC Sports was unwilling to pay the price Knievel wanted for the canyon jump, so he ended up hiring Bob Arum's company, Top Rank Productions, to put the event on pay-per-view cable. Arum partnered with Invest West Sports, Sheldon Saltman's company, in order to secure from Invest West Sports two things: 1.) the necessary financing for the jump and 2.) the services of Sheldon Saltman, long recognized as one of America's premier public relations and promotion men, to do publicity so that Knievel could concentrate on his jumps. Knievel said that there would be no more tests and that he would go ahead with the scheduled jump on September 8, 1974. Knievel survived the jump with only minor injuries.
Retirement(s)
On May 31, 1975, in front of 90,000 people in Wembley Stadium in London, England, Knievel crashed while trying to land a jump over thirteen single decker city buses. After the crash, despite breaking his pelvis, Knievel addressed the audience and announced his retirement. After recuperating, Knievel decided that he spoke too soon and that he would keep jumping. On October 26, 1975, Knievel successfully jumped fourteen Greyhound buses at Kings Island, Ohio.
Knievel made several television appearances, including a guest spot on The Bionic Woman where he played himself. On January 31, 1977, during a dress rehearsal for a CBS special on live daredevil stunts at the Chicago International Amphitheatre, Knievel crashed, breaking both arms and his collarbone.
While healing from his injuries, the book Evel Knievel on Tour was released. Authored by Knievel's promoter for the Snake River Canyon jump, Sheldon Saltman, the book painted a less than perfect picture of Knievel's character and alleged that he abused his wife and kids and that he used drugs. Knievel, with both arms still in casts, flew to California to confront Saltman, a VP at Twentieth Century Fox. Outside the studio commissary, one of Knievel's friends grabbed Shelly and held him, while Knievel attacked him with an aluminum baseball bat, declaring, "I'm going to kill you!" According to a witness to the attack, Knievel struck repeated blows at Saltman's head, with Saltman blocking the blows with his left arm. In addition, Sheldon Saltman's book was pulled from the shelves by the publisher after Knievel threatened to sue. Saltman later produced documents in both criminal and civil court that proved that, although Knievel claimed to have been insulted by statements in Saltman's book, he and his lawyers had actually been given editorial access to the book and had approved and signed off on every word prior to its publication. On October 14, 1977, Knievel pleaded guilty to battery and was sentenced to three years probation and six months in the county jail, during which he publicly flaunted his brief incarceration for the press as just one more publicity stunt.
With no income, Knievel eventually had to declare bankruptcy. In 1981, Saltman was awarded a $13 million judgement against Knievel in a civil trial but never received money from Knievel's estate. In 1983, the IRS determined that Knievel failed to pay $1.6 million in taxes on earnings from his jumps. Knievel's wife, Linda, left him and returned home to Butte.
Knievel made several attempts to reconcile with his estranged son, Robbie, even appearing with him at a couple of jumps. In 1994, in Sunnyvale, California, during a domestic disturbance call, police found several firearms in Knievel's car.
On July 27, 2006, on The Adam Carolla Show, Knievel said that he has idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, and requires oxygen 24 hours a day.
On July 28, 2006, at Evel Knievel Days in Butte, Robbie jumped 180 feet in a tribute to his father.
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