Life of Evel: Evel Knievel (22 page)

No revival of any period is an instant phenomenon and it is rarely caused by a singular event. So it was with the resurgence of 1970s culture in the 1990s. Certainly, the widespread availability of satellite television played its part by running endless replays of cheap-to-buy 1970s TV shows like
Starsky & Hutch
and
Kojak.
With compact discs having almost completely taken over from vinyl and music cassettes, music fans restocked their collections by buying old favourites on CD, leading to a massive increase in sales of 1970s music. Abba started selling again, the Grease soundtrack was a great memory for many, and Elvis’s 1970s Las Vegas performances became more popular than they were first time around. Countless Seventies compilation CDs were released and swallowed up by a nostalgic music-buying public.

The grunge music of the early Nineties owed a lot to 1970s fashion too: long hair – which had been largely abandoned by mainstream culture in the Eighties – became ‘cool’ again, as did ripped and even flared denims. Guitar-based groups fought back against the electro-pop of the 1980s and even Hollywood cashed in on the gradual revival of Seventies culture. Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 cult favourite
Pulp Fiction
completely revived the flagging career of Seventies icon John Travolta, while in 1997
Boogie Nights
reintroduced macho Seventies star Burt Reynolds back to the big-time in a movie set in this revived decade.

The kids who had grown up in the Seventies were the thirty-somethings who were now calling the shots as fashion designers, DJs, artists and television gurus. Naturally, they had been influenced by Seventies music, movies and fashion, and while they might have allowed some of their Seventies heroes to slip from their minds, they had never quite forgotten them altogether.

As stars like Travolta and Reynolds re-emerged, the public began to wonder what had become of their other Seventies heroes. More and more ‘Where are they now?’ features appeared in lifestyle magazines and more and more stars of the decade were rediscovered and fêted by the media once more, to be ridiculed or idolised in equal measure. Some fortunate-few celebrities had managed to retain their ‘cool’ with audiences over the decades (Tom Jones being one rather inexplicable example), while others were seen as a product of their time, and, as time moved on, they had lost the appeal they once held and were remembered only as jokes or has-beens.

Throughout the 1980s, Knievel had definitely fallen into the latter category. He was seen as a relic of the macho Seventies and was no longer regarded as cool. More effeminate make-up-wearing male actors and singers had stepped in to become the pin-ups of the Eighties, and the hairy-chested medallion-man image was most definitely out.

But the 1990s was another decade, and it was within this new nostalgic climate that Knievel made the greatest comeback of his life. After more than a decade spent in a drunken wilderness, he slowly found his name was beginning to mean something again and he started receiving offers to capitalise on it. Initially the offers were fairly low-key and quite often degrading. The Little Caesar’s pizza company, for example, hit upon an idea for a television ad-campaign with the premise being that because their pizzas were so cheap and no expense was wasted on the consumer they could only afford third-rate celebrities to advertise them. Evel fitted the bill perfectly, and, dressed in his once-famous white suit, he performed a few easy manoeuvres on his motorcycle for two different adverts, both of which ended with a crashing noise off-screen, proving yet again that the collective public consciousness had remembered Knievel for his crashes more than his successes.

The adverts may have been degrading in a sense but Knievel was not yet in a position to be picky about job offers. The slots at least got him back on to television and also earned him some cash for his ‘third-rate’ celebrity status. Further, they alerted other companies to his presence, companies which were keen to cash in on Seventies nostalgia, and he soon found himself touting everything from breath mints to electric wheelchairs, and motel chains to gambling machines. But there were other offers which allowed Knievel to carry off a little more dignity, one of which was an invite to appear at the Grand Hotel in New York in 1994 for a screening of a video called
Evel Knievel’s Greatest Hits.
Evel received a stunning reception from a mixed-age audience during a question-and-answer session and he was besieged with requests for autographs after the show from fans of all ages. His fame was on the ascent again.

What shocked those who remembered him from the Seventies more than anything else was Evel’s appearance. He was old, had thinning grey hair and wore spectacles on a chain like their own grandfathers did. His hands were gnarled, scarred and swollen from arthritis, and his limp seemed even more pronounced with age. He even claimed he had mild Alzheimer’s and needed to use Post-it notes everywhere to remind him what to do. The Evel Knievel with the movie-star looks had been replaced by a frail old man who looked much older than his 55 years. But the fact remained that he was incredibly lucky to be alive at all. As he said, ‘I knew Elvis, I knew Frank Sinatra, I used to drink with Lee Marvin. Funny, if you had been asked back then to place your money on who would still be alive today, it wouldn’t be the stuntman you put your money on, would it? You wouldn’t have put your money on me.’

Much of his shocking appearance was due to the abuse he had put himself through with alcohol in the late 1970s and throughout the darkest days of the Eighties, but recovering from the amount of injuries Evel had had also takes its toll on the body and often causes premature greying of the hair. Besides his physical injuries, Knievel had by now also contracted Type II (or late-onset) diabetes, a common but chronic condition. The cause of diabetes is still not known but can be contributed to hereditary factors in about 50 per cent of cases. Obesity is another often-cited cause, but while Knievel had certainly added weight over the years he could never have been described as obese. Diabetes can be well controlled if the patient follows a healthy diet, exercises well, does not smoke and does not overindulge in alcohol. While Knievel only smoked cigars occasionally, his battered body would not allow him to exercise to any great extent and his passion for alcohol had always been likely to lead to complications. For Evel, accustomed as he was to dealing with medical problems, diabetes was just another illness he had to deal with, and he was far more interested in retaining his status as a major star than he was in worrying about a pesky disease.

For a superstar to become a legend often necessitates a period away from the public eye; a time for the public to reassess their career and appreciate how talented and/or charismatic the individual was in the first place to achieve their fame. There is no finer example of this than the actor Sean Connery. For a period in the 1970s and early 1980s, Connery could not detach himself from the James Bond tag and was consequently almost forgotten about as he made a string of below-par movies. It was only in the mid to late 1980s when he had gone through his own wilderness years that he reappeared and became bigger than ever with roles in films like
The Name of the Rose
and
The Untouchables.
With his powerful presence in these roles, the public suddenly remembered why they had so admired Connery in the first place and realised how much they had missed him while he was ‘gone’. Once firmly back in the public eye, Connery found himself a bigger star than ever.

Knievel found himself in a similar situation: his public had grown tired of him in the Seventies and had temporarily forgotten about him, but now, with a slight jog of the memory, they were more than happy to accept him back again. The span of years that had passed since his earlier fame only served to exaggerate his legend.

But Evel still proved he had an uncanny knack of falling foul of the law, and in 1994, just as it looked like he was getting his life back on track, he found himself in trouble again. This time it was for allegedly beating Krystal. The pair were staying at the Comfort Inn motel in Sunnyvale, California on the night of 9 October when a night porter overheard a violent argument coming from Knievel’s room and called the police. Upon arrival, the police found Knievel had left but Krystal was still in the room and had bruises on her face and neck. While the police were questioning Krystal, Evel called from a nearby topless bar, the Brass Rail, and two police cars were immediately sent to apprehend him. He was arrested quietly and without fuss and was taken to the Santa Clara County Jail. His beloved 1984 Aston Martin Lagonda Sedan was also impounded there as a matter of routine – a routine which would lead to even more trouble for Knievel.

Upon searching the car, again as a matter of routine, police found a veritable arsenal of guns and knives in the boot, including a .44 calibre handgun with laser sights and two clips of ammunition, a loaded .38 calibre revolver, a stun gun and an array of knives. Knievel had long had a fascination for guns and it’s a fascination that stayed with him to the end. He always slept with a Smith & Wesson .357 under his pillow at night and carried a Magnum .357 in his golf bag, in case there were any arguments over high stakes owed. He also kept a Dirty Harry-style Magnum .44 in his car at all times. When asked why he felt the need to arm himself practically everywhere he went, Knievel replied, ‘Do you know how many murders and car-jacks we have in this country? I don’t go on any trip without a Goddamned shotgun and a pistol with me. If I killed somebody, I’d rather have 12 people judge me on a jury than have six people carry me in a coffin to my grave. That’s the way it is.’

Knievel had always harboured a rather unhealthy fantasy of killing someone and made no attempt to disguise the fact. ‘I’ve done everything in the world I’ve ever wanted to do except kill somebody. There are a couple of guys I know who need shooting. They represent the rectum of humanity.’

Unfortunately for Knievel, the Santa Clara police didn’t quite see things the same way, and matters were only made worse by the fact that Knievel was an ex-con and as such was not permitted to carry firearms. He had already been fined $120 back in August for having a loaded handgun on the passenger seat of his car while driving in Helena, Montana, and it now looked increasingly likely that Evel’s semi-comeback was going to be remarkably short-lived and he would be sent back to county jail. As matters transpired, Krystal played down the assault, blamed herself for starting it and refused to press charges. Evel did, in time, confess to beating Krystal. When asked what lessons he had learned looking back upon his life, he responded, ‘Loving someone doesn’t mean that you can love her for six days [of the week] and then beat the crap out of her on the seventh.’

Even so, Krystal stood by her man when he appeared before Santa Clara County Superior Court in September 1995 to face weapons charges. He was sentenced to 200 hours of community service, which entailed lecturing to kids on the importance of wearing crash helmets, something which, in fairness, he had been doing for some time and which he did appear to be passionate about. ‘I always said I’d pay $1,000 to anyone who ever saw me making a jump or doing a wheelie without a helmet in public. There was a time when I took some heat from the motorcycle groups opposing mandatory helmet laws. I will always campaign for those laws. Senator Floyd credits my testimony before the California Transportation Department for the eventual passage [passing] of California’s helmet law.’ Knievel was, however, quite happy to ride round the streets of Butte some years later without a helmet for television cameras, while filming the documentary
Evel Knievel’s Great Ride.

Evel continued endorsing products, even at the expense of his credibility, because he desperately needed money and he desperately wanted to become mainstream famous again. In 1995 he was the perfect choice to endorse a pain-relieving product called ‘The Stimulator’ – a heat-generating device intended to warm muscles and soothe pain. While there was no medical evidence to suggest the product worked, Knievel tried his best to convince television audiences that he swore and lived by it. He also promoted a spin-off product called ‘Evel Knievel’s Pain-relieving Gel’, but in the same year Knievel discovered he had something much worse than arthritis to worry about: he had contracted hepatitis C, a potentially fatal disease which he believes he contracted during one of his many blood transfusions.

His condition was discovered during tests for another condition that he had brought about himself with alcohol abuse. Evel had passed out several times with massive haemorrhages in his neck, which resulted in excessive blood loss, and he was repeatedly rushed to Morton Plant Hospital in Clearwater, Florida. After one particularly serious incident he said, ‘I thought I was going to bleed to death. The veins in my throat literally exploded.’ He confessed, ‘The drinking got me – I had a bleeding oesophagus [part of the alimentary canal which links the pharynx to the stomach] from drinking too much – I had to quit. I almost died from drinking.’

While treating Evel for a bleeding oesophagus, a Dr Barsilo ran several blood tests and discovered his celebrity patient had contracted hepatitis C, the most deadly of the hepatitis viruses. The disease was ravaging Knievel’s liver, which was already severely damaged from drinking. Dr Barsilo gave Evel five years to live.

Hepatitis C (as opposed to the A and B strains) was only discovered in 1989 but affects an estimated 170 million people worldwide, with 3.9 million sufferers in the United States alone. Like the AIDS virus it can be contracted through sexual contact or needle sharing among intravenous drug users, but in Knievel’s case it was determined that he was infected with the virus during a blood transfusion operation. His liver failure, while being partly due to his hepatitis, was also brought on by years of alcohol abuse for which he only had himself to blame.

It seemed terribly ironic that a man who had stared death in the face on so many occasions, and had come so close to dying but always fought back, was now facing his toughest challenge of all from a debilitating, silent killer, which no amount of bravery or determination would overcome. The only thing that could save Knievel now was a new liver. In the short term, Evel was treated with Ribavirin tablets (to boost his immune system) which he took three times a week, but the looming possibility that his liver would eventually fail him, and thereby kill him, must have played on his mind considerably.