Knievel, Evel (1938—)

A familiar sight on television in the late 1960s and 1970s, colorful motorcycle stuntman Evel Knievel thrilled and delighted record crowds across the country and the world. With reckless abandon, Knievel attempted monumental motorcycle stunts that almost always ended with broken bones and serious injuries.

Robert Craig Knievel was born in Butte, Montana, on October 17, 1938. At age eight, Knievel witnessed the stunt show of Joey Chitwood's Auto Daredevils and a dream was born. It was also at this early age that Knievel began a sordid series of entanglements with the law that would continue for many years. An incredible athlete, Knievel won the Northern Rocky Mountain Ski Association Class A state ski jumping championship in 1957 and played professional ice hockey in North Carolina before starting, managing, and playing for his own semiprofessional ice hockey team, the Butte Bombers.

In the early 1960s, Knievel worked for a while as a hunting guide with his own Sur-Kill Guide Service. After he discovered that elk were being senselessly slaughtered in Yellowstone National Park, he hitchhiked to Washington, D.C. to save them, and his efforts helped stopped this needless killing. After a motorcycle accident, insurance sales became the next career for Knievel; in just one week, he sold a record 271 policies. This didn't last long, however, and soon Knievel was back on the wrong side of the law—this time as safecracker and con man. Knievel finally left this life of crime and opened a Honda dealership in Washington.

Knievel's road to national stardom began in 1965, with the creation of Evel Knievel's Motorcycle Daredevils. Members of the team began slowly leaving until it was finally just Evel. He continued going it alone, supervising every aspect of the stunt show, until he made the big time in 1968, on New Year's Day, leaping over the fountains in front of Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, a distance of 141 feet. Though the jump was successful, the landing was not, and Knievel spent 30 days in a coma. He followed this with other record-breaking jumps—at the Los Angeles Coliseum and the ill-fated attempt at jumping the Snake River Canyon in 1974 in Idaho on his ''Skycycle.'' In 1975, Knievel took his show overseas to Wembley Stadium in London, where he broke his pelvis in an attempt to leap 13 double decker buses in front of a crowd of 90,000. Not to be outdone, his next leap took place at King's Island in Ohio in 1975, where he jumped 14 greyhound buses on ABC's Wide World of Sports. His last jump was a total disaster, and he was seriously injured as he tried to leap a tank of live sharks in the Chicago Amphitheater in 1976.

Knievel's stunt career propelled him to celebrity status enjoyed usually by only movie stars and mainstream athletes. The Evel Knievel Stuntcycle became a popular toy, and other products with his likeness and name sold in the millions. He appeared on an episode of the Bionic Woman (1976) as himself and starred in Viva Knievel (1977), again as himself. George Hamilton starred in a motion picture about Knievel, entitled Evel Knievel (1971). Knievel provided excitement and escape for the country at a troubling time in the early 1970s, on the heels of Watergate and the Vietnam War. His red, white, and blue jumpsuit was an obvious play for patriotism, as he captivated the minds of old and young alike. He managed to thrill and excite, providing a form of entertainment to take the nation's mind of its woes, thus endearing himself to Americans as a courageous folk hero.

—Jay Parrent

Further Reading:

Collins, Ace. Evel Knievel: An American Hero. New York, St.Martin's Press, 1999.

Scalzo, Joe. Evel Knievel and other Daredevils. New York, Grosset and Dunlap, 1974.