Life of Evel: Evel Knievel (27 page)

And still the tributes and honours kept rolling in. The same month saw the opening of
Evel Knievel: the Rock Opera
at the Bootleg Theatre in Los Angeles to rave reviews. Steven Mikula of the
LA Weekly
said
‘Evel Knievel
is directed with such over-the-top gusto by Keythe Farley and brought to such gaudy life by an energetic ensemble and design team that we forgive its flaws’, while the
Los Angeles Times
called the show ‘a daring jump into theatre’. Buoyed by the positive reviews of the premier, composer Jef Bek said he hoped to eventually take the show to Las Vegas and beyond. It seemed there was nothing – even an opera – that the Evel Knievel brand couldn’t be successfully applied to.

Remaining in the limelight even as his health continued to deteriorate (Knievel had by now outlived the life expectancy he was quoted three years previously), in November Knievel reached an undisclosed out-of-court settlement with rapper Kanye West after months of wrangling over the music video West had made to accompany his 2006 song ‘Touch the Sky’. In the video, which also starred Pamela Anderson, West re-created Knievel’s Snake River Canyon leap and played a character called Evel Kanyevel. Knievel claimed the ‘vulgar and offensive’ images contained in the video damaged his reputation and breached his copyrighted image while also ‘promoting filth to the world’. The ‘filth’ referred to was presumably the bad language in the dialogue half way through the video, but since most stations dubbed this out, it was usually offensive only by suggestion. However, after West visited Knievel at his condo in Clearwater on 27 November, the ailing daredevil changed his opinion of the 29-year-old rapper and said ‘I thought he was a wonderful guy and quite a gentleman.’

The pair, who agreed not to discuss the settlement in public, were pictured standing together by Knievel’s fireplace. Dressed all in black, Knievel looked frail and gaunt but no one could have guessed that this would be the last public image of the most famous daredevil in history. Sadly, it was: three days after the picture was taken, Evel Knievel died.

On Friday 30 November 2007, Evel Knievel’s granddaughter, Krysten Knievel, broke the news that her grandfather had finally lost his long-running battle with his greatest opponent – death. He had cheated it on countless occasions, tempted it on just as many and, in his latter years, grimly struggled against its stealthy, ever-tightening grip on him, but in the end, the world was saddened to hear that the man they had thought of when they were kids as an indestructible, real-life superhero was in fact mortal like themselves. The opening lines of the official statement read:

Friday, November 30 marked the end of what will forever be remembered as the longest and most courageous battle between one man, a man we all know as the world’s greatest daredevil, and death. Robert Craig ‘Evel’ Knievel died in Clearwater, Florida, finally succumbing after nearly a three-year bout with the terminal lung disease, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. He was 69.

In the end, Knievel’s death was not ‘glorious’ as George Hamilton predicted in his 1971 movie of Evel’s life. He did not crash and burn in a blaze of glory or smash himself to pieces on a canyon wall in front of a TV audience of thousands; he simply ran out of breath and collapsed on the floor of the modest condominium in Clearwater, Florida that he called home. His son Kelly explained: ‘He got up Friday morning and he couldn’t breathe very well…they called the paramedics…they barely got him to the hospital before he died.’

Long-time friend and promoter Bill Rundle later corrected this statement by revealing that Evel had actually slipped away en route to the local hospital and was pronounced dead upon arrival. ‘It’s been coming for years,’ he said ‘but you just don’t expect it. Superman just doesn’t die, right?’

It
had
been coming for years and if there was any comfort to be found for family and friends in their loss it was that, at last, the man they idolised and cared about was finally released from the constant pain he had been suffering from for so long. His faith intact and his peace made with God, Evel Knievel had taken his final leap – from this world to the next, and had broken free from the pain which had crippled him.

Kelly paid tribute to his father’s brave battle against disease. ‘I think he lived 20 years longer than most people would have,’ he said. ‘I think he willed himself into an extra five or six years.’

As the news spread, tributes began flooding in from family, famous friends and millions of fans who realised that, with Knievel’s passing, a part of their childhood was now gone forever.

Richard Hammond, presenter of the BBC’s hugely popular show
Top Gear,
had travelled to America in the summer of 2007 to make what became the last documentary on a man he clearly idolised. ‘He was a legend,’ Hammond said. ‘And that’s just a fact. He was my hero as a kid and still is today.’ Hammond didn’t envisage Knievel resting with the angels on fluffy clouds in the traditional manner however. After learning of his death he said, ‘Good luck, Evel. Don’t rest in peace though; wheelie through those pearly gates on a star-spangled Harley, grab a beer and tell St Peter he’s a pussy. Bless you.’

Other tributes came from actor Matthew McConaughey, 2006 MotoGP world champion Nicky Hayden, former world heavy-weight boxing champion Joe Frazier, and, in particular, from proponents of almost every discipline of the Xtreme sports community who had taken Knievel to their hearts as the granddaddy of the lifestyle they all enjoyed.

One man who did not appear to be saddened by the news was former aide and arch enemy, Sheldon Saltman. The day after Knievel passed away, Saltman announced he would still be coming after the Knievel estate for the damages owed after Knievel broke his arm with a baseball bat following the publication of his book
Evel Knievel on Tour.
Now 76 years old, Saltman also argued that, if interest was added to the original $12.75 million in damages he was awarded but never received, he is now owed more than $100 million. ‘We are going hot and heavy after his estate,’ Saltman told
The Associated Press
after Knievel died. ‘What he tried to do to me and how it hurt my family, I’m owed that.’

While Knievel boasted that he’d made over $10 million in the last few years of his life, it seems unlikely that his estate is worth anything like the $100 million Saltman is claiming. Knievel had once said that he’d ‘rather die’ than pay Saltman a single dollar in damages and, in the end, that’s just what he did. How his estate will deal with the claim, only time will tell.

As Knievel’s body was returned to his beloved home town of Butte, the richest hill on earth, at around 7.30 pm on 9 December, a massive firework display lit up the cold winter sky in celebration of his life. Butte’s favourite son was back home and, this time, to stay. When the fire in the sky eventually fell silent, the explosive cacophony was replaced by the sound of thousands of car horns being honked as, all over Butte, drivers blared their own tribute to the man who had put their town on the international map.

The day of the funeral dawned cold and grey, flickers of snow drifting down onto Butte’s once mean streets. From before 7 am, crowds had been queuing outside the 17,000-seat Civic Centre, waiting for it to open so that they could file past Knievel’s open coffin and pay their last respects. When the centre did open, they filed past for three-and-a-half hours non-stop. Knievel was, appropriately, laid to rest wearing a white leather jacket with blue and red flashes; a last echo of the famous star-spangled jumpsuits that were familiar the world over.

Inside the building, the stage had been set for Evel’s last farewell. A giant screen looking down on his coffin played out many of his greatest moments while pictures of Knievel in his heyday graced easels which were placed around the front of the hall. Star-spangled banners were hung and draped everywhere and his iconic white, red and blue truck was even on display as strains of Frank Sinatra singing ‘My Way’ broke the hushed atmosphere of the Civic Centre. The words could have been written for Knievel.

Rev. Robert Schuller, who had baptised Knievel back in April, led the service, which began at 11 am, in front of an estimated 3,000 people, while Evel’s daughter Tracey McCloud read passages from Romans 10:9–11 and Revelation 21:4–7. Knievel’s granddaughter, who had announced his passing to the world ten days previously, sang ‘Amazing Grace’ in tribute.

Amongst the thousands in attendance were Hollywood actor Matthew McConaughey, who had become a friend after hosting a History Channel documentary on Knievel. He told the mourners, ‘Where he’s forever saddled, hands on the bars, revving the rpms, flying up the ramp, in that spot, in flight, he’s forever in flight now. You know what? He doesn’t have to come back down. He doesn’t have to land. Doesn’t have to. He’s in that spot of grace for the rest of time, in flight, so here’s to Evel Knievel…just keep flying.’

With the rivalry between them finally over, Robbie Knievel touchingly and finally admitted, ‘I am not the greatest daredevil in the world – I am the son of the greatest daredevil in the world.’

As the service drew to an end, a lone piper played ‘Amazing Grace’ at the head of the procession as Knievel’s coffin was carried out of the building. The casket was then placed in a hearse which carried the legendary stuntman’s body on a six-mile route that Knievel had led massed ride-outs on during the Evel Knievel Days festival. The route had already been officially named ‘Knievel’s Loop’, taking in, as it did, many parts of the town which had connections with his life. But few braved the cold and snow to line the sidewalks as Knievel undertook his last journey on earth. There were still some, it seemed, in Butte, Montana, who viewed Evel Knievel in a less than gracious light.

Evel’s body was finally laid to rest in the Mountain View Cemetery in Butte on 10 December 2007, with only close family and friends in attendance. Those present at the graveside wore either biker jackets or hooded duffle coats to stave off the biting winter wind. Knievel now lies close to the beloved grandparents who raised him as their own after his own parents walked out on him as a child. The headstone which will forever mark his final resting place features an engraving of Knievel pulling a wheelie, his cape billowing in the slipstream behind him, just as an entire generation remembered the man. The words which he himself chose to be carved into the stone read:

Robert Craig Knievel
‘Evel’
Butte, Montana Words to Live For: ‘Faith, Health, Endurance, Love, Work,
Honorability, Dream, Believe in Jesus Christ.’

Rev. Schuller had noted with great pleasure during the funeral service that Knievel’s last words were Christian ones. ‘Heaven will rejoice that he wrote the last words to his life,’ he said ‘and was standing next to You when he wrote them: “Believe in Jesus Christ.”’ His Evel ways were over.

But while Evel Knievel’s body may have been laid to rest, his spirit could now soar free. It was a body its owner had shown scant regard for in life. Knievel battered, beat and abused his body for most of its 69 years, treating it just like a motorcycle which could be fixed with steel rods, plates and screws. Yet it was held together by an indomitable spirit, and that is a much harder thing to kill. Knievel’s spirit will live on in many ways. It will live on in every child or adult who refuses to be beaten down; who insists on getting back up to try again. It will exist in those who shrug off pain and grit their teeth in the face of adversity, and in those who spit in the eye of authority and refuse to be told what they can and can’t do by increasingly nanny states. The spirit of Evel Knievel lives on in motorcycle racers, snow boarders, bungee jumpers, sky divers, skateboarders, base jumpers, stunt men, freestyle motocrossers; anyone and everyone who believes that taking risks and feeling adrenalin surging through their veins is the only way to feel truly alive. His spirit is in the wind that whistles through the visor of an open crash helmet, in the glint in the eye of a rebellious teenager who flips a finger at petty officialdom, in the rasp of an exhaust as a kid fires up a motorcycle for the first time. In short, it is everywhere, and as long as mankind continues to push boundaries, take chances, and venture into the unknown, it will never die – despite the best efforts of our governments to protect us from ourselves.

Bill Rundle perhaps summed up Evel Knievel’s contribution to motorcycling better than most when he said, ‘I think that whatever anybody does in the future, there will never be another Evel Knievel. What he did for motorcycling can never be matched again.’

Bill Davidson, of Harley-Davidson, echoed Rundle’s thoughts. ‘Evel was a living legend,’ he said. ‘There won’t be another. There are a lot of daredevils and a lot of stunt people out there but there was something about Evel – he was the breakthrough, the inventor.’

As far back as the 1970s, Evel Knievel had his own version of heaven all planned out, just the way he wanted it to be. ‘I want to go to my own kind of heaven,’ he said. ‘It’s got a canyon I can jump across safely; it’s got a golf course I can par every day, buses I can jump easily. It’s got draft beer that doesn’t make you fat. It’s got a lot of beautiful girls running around and none of them will be the jealous type; and my kids will stay small all of their lives and won’t talk back to me. There’s no state tax, no federal tax and no politicians. Now that’s my kind of heaven.’

While he may not have achieved his long-held dream of dying in bed at 100 years old with a beautiful woman in his arms, he got half way there: his long-time partner Krystal Kennedy was with him to the very end, although that end came 31 years earlier than he wished. After cheating death so many times in such an extraordinary career, Evel Knievel was ultimately very much aware that dying is the only thing that unites all of humanity – the one path that we all must follow. And he sure as hell wasn’t afraid of it. As he said ‘If I die then I’d just be getting somewhere quicker than you’re going and I’ll wait for ya – that’s all. I’ll sit there and have a cool beer and wait for ya.’