From the archives: Evel Knievel, 1938-2007

This article was originally published in Newsday on December 1, 2007

Evel Knievel, the motorcycle daredevil who spent a lifetime doing things you should not try at home, died Friday at his condominium in Clearwater, Fla., after years of failing health. He was 69.

Knievel had been suffering from diabetes and pulmonary fibrosis since undergoing liver transplant surgery in 1999, when he was near death with hepatitis C. That condition apparently was the result of a blood transfusion following a crash in one of his countless public stunts, which made him a household name in the 1970s.

His breakneck legacy lived on and, only four days ago, a settlement was announced in Knievel's federal lawsuit against rapper Kanye West for the use of Knievel's trademarked image in a West music video. On Monday, Robbie Maddison, a touring daredevil from Australia, said he would risk his life to try jumping a motorcycle over 300 feet at a Melbourne racetrack in emulation of his childhood hero, Knievel.

Given national visibility on ABC's "Wide World of Sports," in some ways a forerunner to high-risk athletic fare now known as "extreme sports," Knievel attempted death-defying leaps over Greyhound buses, live sharks and - most famously - his spectacularly unsuccessful 1974 jump over Idaho's Snake River Canyon on a rocket-powered cycle, which established him as a household name.

He often incurred serious injury in his wild efforts, with an estimated 40 broken bones before retirement in the early 1980s. But his marketing appeal, complete with outrageous stars-and-stripes attire, eventually landed him in the Smithsonian Institution as "America's Legendary Daredevil."

For years, he staged an "Evel Knievel Days" Festival in his native Butte, Mont., selling autographs and Knievel-endorsed products. "They started out watching me bust my ass and I became part of their lives," he said of his large following. "People wanted to associate with a winner, not a loser. They wanted to associate with someone who kept trying as a winner."

Robert Craig Knievel Jr. was born Oct. 17, 1938, in Butte, the first of two children whose parents soon divorced and left their two young sons in the care of paternal grandparents. Knievel said he was drawn to motorcycle stunts after attending a Joie Chitwood Auto Daredevil Show when he was 8, but didn't begin his stunt career until 1965, when he was 27. A high school dropout, he drifted from job to job as a diamond miner, minor-league hockey player, hunting-service owner, insurance salesman and motorcycle dealer.

He was a pole vaulter and hockey player in high school and won regional championships in ski jumping. He also boasted he had been a card thief, safecracker and holdup man. It was during a stay in jail for reckless driving, when he was 18, that he picked up the nickname "Evel," from the night jailer who had tagged the man in the next cell, William Knofel, "Awful" Knofel.

Knievel's first widely seen motorcycle jump, over the fountains in front of Las Vegas' Caesars Palace in 1968, led to a crash landing that put Knievel in the hospital with a coma for a month. Yet his performance fee leaped to $1 million for a try over 13 buses in London - he broke his pelvis - then to $6 million for the Snake River Canyon try.

He jumped 14 Greyhound buses in Ohio in 1975, then suffered a concussion and two broken arms trying to leap a tank full of live sharks in Chicago the next year, prompting him to turn to smaller exhibitions around the country with his son, Robbie.

He starred as himself in movies and on TV, sold more than $300 million worth of Evel Knievel toys and claimed to have "made $60 million, spent 61 ... lost $250,000 at blackjack ... had $3 million in the bank, though."

Knievel married Linda Joan Bork in 1959 and had four children - Kelly, Robbie, Tracey and Alicia. He and Bork separated in the 1990s and he was briefly married to long-time partner Krystal Kennedy, but remained with Kennedy after their divorce.

Great leaps forward

JAN. 3, 1966: The first official show for Knievel occurs at the National Date Festival in Indio, Calif.

JAN. 1, 1968: Jumped 151 feet over the fountains at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

FEB. 27-28, 1971: World-record breaking jump over 19 Dodge cars at the Ontario, Calif., Motor Speedway.

SEPT. 8, 1974: Attempts, but fails, to use rocket-powered motorcycle to jump the Snake River Canyon in Idaho.

MAY 26, 1975: In front of 90,000 people he jumps over 13 buses, but crashes at England's Wembley Stadium.

OCT. 25, 1975: Jumps 14 Greyhound buses at Kings Island, Ohio.

MARCH 1, 1981: Knievel's last documented jump takes place at the Miami-Hollywood Speedway.