Evel Knievel Dies

Evel Knievel, the legendary stuntman, has died, aged 69. As well as th well known motorcycle stunts, Knievel had quite a chequered record:

Born Robert Craig Knievel in Butte Montana, he was a champion skier and a lifelong golfer. Less positively, he was also a bank robber and, at one time, an alcoholic.

His supremely colourful CV also included jobs as a diamond drill operator, hunting guide, insurance salesman and motorcycle dealer.

Here's one obituary of Evel Knievel:

Evel Knievel, the American motorcycle stunt rider who has died aged 69, combined a considerable talent for self-promotion with a hazardous capacity for bravery; among the several world records he held was that for the most bones broken by one person, 433.

Tall, blonde and nearly handsome, in the 1970s Knievel appealed to America's love of excess, and to her need to be convinced that she had not gone soft, that the pioneer spirit still thrived. That Knievel was more like a Mississippi riverboat card-sharp than Davy Crockett seemed to matter little, and he won both fame and fortune, the former lasting rather longer than the latter.

Knievel made more than 300 jumps in his career, but two in particular stuck in the public's mind; it was no coincidence that they were also his two most heavily hyped stunts.

In September 1974, he attempted to jump the mile-wide caynon of the Snake River, Idaho, on a rocket-powered motorcycle. Once airborne, he seemed to lack the necessary momentum to reach his target, but the matter was settled when his emergency parachute opened prematurely and he floated 600 feet back down to earth.

Knievel's fee for the jump was £4 million — a sum he made very public — although it was rumoured that in fact he only received five per cent of the money. Then in May 1976 at Wembley Stadium, Knievel, watched by 50,000 people, successfully leapt his motorcycle over 13 double-decker buses.

As often happened, he crashed on landing, but despite having sustained multiple fractures he staggered to the microphone and vowed to retire there and then. But he did not.

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This is fascinating:

He married his childhood sweetheart Linda Bork in 1959. She fell for his romantic nature after he kidnapped her three times.

If you want a more American view of Knievel, here's the LA Times:

Evel Knievel, the flamboyant motorcycle stuntman whose thrilling triumphs and spectacular failures enshrined him as America's consummate daredevil, died Friday in Clearwater, Fla. He was 69.

Knievel, who survived at least 38 broken bones, multiple concussions and countless abrasions acquired in daring jumps that ended in unplanned crashes, had been in failing health for years, including suffering from diabetes and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, an incurable condition that scarred his lungs.

And the AP wire report:

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. He also suffered two strokes in recent years.

Longtime friend and promoter Billy Rundle 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?" Rundle 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.

And a full wire report: