Evel Knievel, the seemingly indestructible and undeniably fearless motorcycle daredevil who jumped over buses, sharks and the Snake River Canyon, died today.
He was 69 and had grown frail in recent years, but he will be remembered as the spectacular stuntman who cheated death more times than anyone has a right to. Knievel lost count of the bones he broke and once spent a month in a coma, yet he always came back. Everyone thought he'd go out in a blaze of glory attempting some impossible feat. In the end, though, his body, weakened by diabetes and pulmonary fibrosis, simply gave out after a life lived far harder, if not more recklessly, than seemed possible.
"It's been coming for years, but you just don't expect it. Superman just doesn't die, right?" Billy Rundel, Knievel's friend and promoter, told the Associated Press.
No, he doesn't. But as Time magazine noted in its excellent obituary, all death could do was make Knievel stop living. Fear was the only thing that could kill him.
Read more, see some video of the man in action and tell us your favorite Evel stunt...
Knievel remains a cultural touchstone of the 1970s, a man whose face emblazoned everything from action figures to lunch boxes. There were three movies about him (a fourth was made three years ago) and a tell-all biography that painted him as a drug-abusing bully that abused his wife and kids. (Its publisher pulled the book from store shelves after Knievel threatened to sue.)
But Knievel was more than a pop-cultural phenomenon. He was an antidote to what Jimmy Carter called our "crisis of confidence." No one was more confident than Knievel, and we loved to see him tempt fate and cheat death. His 1975 jump over 14 Greyhound buses at Kings Island amusement park in Ohio remains one of the most-watched episodes of ABC's "Wide World Of Sports," which broadcast seven of his stunts. Five of them still rank among the 20 most highly rated shows in the program's history.
"They started out watching me bust my ass, and I became part of their lives," Knievel once said. "People wanted to associate with a winner, not a loser. They wanted to associate with someone who kept trying to be a winner."
Of course, we also loved to see him crash - anyone who says he didn't is lying - and no one crashed like Evel Knievel. "Anybody can jump a motorcycle," he once told Esquire magazine. "The trouble begins when you try to land it."
Who can forget Knievel's ill-fated attempt in 1974 to cross Snake River Canyon in a rocket, or the spectacular crash that smashed his pelvis when he tried to jump 13 buses in London one year later? And then there was the 1968 crash in Las Vegas, where he soared 151 feet to clear the fountains outside Caesar's Palace, only to blow the landing. That one almost killed him, and he spent a month in a coma. He retired, but it didn't last long. Knievel loved the spotlight and putting on a good show, and we loved him for it.
"No king or prince has lived a better life," he said in a May 2006
interview with The Associated Press. "You're looking at a guy who's really done it all."
It was one hell of a wild ride.
Be sure to tell us your favorite Evel stunt, and check out Evel Knievel's official website.
Five fun facts about Evil Knievel.
A look at Knievel's life after hanging up his cape and helmet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UBtaVgaw84
