If you subscribe to wingnutty 'Mandela Effect' conspiracy theories, then you might be convinced
that beloved American stuntman Evel Knievel died sometime in the 90s while performing
one of his death-defying feats.
But back down here in the real world, it's well known that Knievel died of natural causes
in Clearwater, Florida, in 2007 at the age of 69.
Professionally known as Evel Knievel but born Robert Craig Knievel, this famed entertainer
and daredevil attempted more than 75 ramp-to-ramp motorcycle jumps throughout his prolific career.
For his years of excellence pushing his body to the limit and consistently cheating death,
Knievel was inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 1999.
The world absolutely loved Evel Knievel, but especially Americans, who resonated with the
fearless madcap's ruggedness.
They loved to watch him fly through the sky, and even though it was a bit scarring to watch,
they also secretly loved to see him crash.
But even though it was always such a treat to watch him make one of his harrowing jump
attempts, most people struggled to comprehend why anyone was willing to put themselves through
all of that self-inflicted torture.
Time and time again, Knievel would land himself in the hospital, and in no time, he would
be right back on the seat of his motorbike once again to make another attempt at cheating
death.
Over his 15-year jumping career, he would not surprisingly break almost every bone in
his body.
Through all of the pain and suffering, Knievel still deeply loved doing what he was famed
for.
Famously, he was quoted as saying that aside from his professional career as an intrepid
show-off, his life was actually fairly boring.
He lived for the 'death-or-glory' lifestyle that had made him a star, but even though
risking life and limb for the sake of proving his worth as a capable daredevil was his lifeblood,
he would retire from his favorite, albeit risky, pastime some 30 years before his death.
Join Facts Verse as we reveal why he left the world of professional stuntmanship while
covering some of the fascinating details of his storied life and career.
Evel Knievel's Relatively Mundane Early Years
Knievel was born on October 17, 1938, in the town of Butte, Montana.
He was the first child of Robert E. and Anne Marie Keough Knievel, who had their second
child, Nicholas, just one year later in 1939.
His mother was of Irish ancestry, while his father's family hailed from Germany.
Robert and Ann ended up divorcing in 1949, and afterward, they both decided to move away
from Butte in search of greener pastures leaving their children behind in the care of their
paternal grandparents, Ignatius and Emma Knievel.
At age eight, Knievel went to a Joie Chitwood daredevil show, which he later credited as
the inspiration for his own life-long love affair with auto stunts.
After his sophomore year, Knievel dropped out of Butte High School and got a job working
in the copper mines as a diamond drill operator for the Anaconda Mining Company.
But even though he somewhat enjoyed that line of work, he much preferred motorbiking.
Knievel was quickly promoted to surface duty, where he would drive a huge earthmover around
for the mining company.
Knievel ended up getting himself fired, however, when he performed a wheelie with the earthmover
and accidentally drove into the city of Butte's primary power line, leaving the city in a
total blackout for several hours.
According to Knievel's webpage, he selected his iconic nickname after spending a night
in the county jail in 1956 after being arrested for reckless driving.
It was in that jail that he met a man that had the nickname of Awful Knofel.
It's a matter of personal opinion, really, but we think that Evel ended up with the superior
alias.
Knievel was the type of person that was always in search of new thrills and challenges to
conquer.
In his early days of daredeviling, he participated in local rodeos and ski jumping competitions.
In the late 50s, Knievel joined the US Army, where he put his athletic ability to the test
by joining the track team where he competed as a pole vaulter.
After being discharged from the Army, he went back home to Butte, where he met his first
wife, Linda Joan Bork.
Not long after the two got married, Knievel helped found the Butte Bombers, a semi-professional
hockey team.
To raise money for and to promote the team, he managed to convince the Czechoslovakian
Olympic ice hockey team to come out to Butte to play a warm-up game against the Bombers
to prep for the 1960 Winter Olympics.
Knievel ended up getting ejected from the game just minutes into the third period and
left the stadium in a huff.
When the Czech officials went to the box office to attempt to collect the money that the team
was promised to come out and play, the workers realized that the proceeds from the game had
been stolen.
The US Olympic Committee then had to pay them out of pocket to avoid a scandalous and potentially
politically volatile international incident.
After welcoming his first son into the world, Knievel realized that he really needed to
figure out a new way of earning morning to support his family.
So, he started the Sur-Kill Guide Service, where he promised hunters to help bag big
game animals if they paid his fee and employed his services as a skilled hunter and fisherman.
In 1961, Knievel hitchhiked to Washington DC in order to lobby for the elk in Yellowstone
to be relocated to areas where hunting was permissible.
After coming back home, he started competing in motocross with modest success.
In 1982, he ended up breaking his collarbone and shoulder in a motorbike accident, and
his doctors advised him not to race for at least half a year while he healed.
Worried about financially supporting his family, Knievel worked as an insurance salesman while
he recovered from his injuries.
He was an excellent salesman, but the Combined Insurance Company of America, the company
he worked for, refused to promote him to the office of vice-president as he was hoping,
so he quit.
He then relocated his family to the town of Moses Lake in Washington, where he opened
a Honda Motorcycle dealership.
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From Petty Criminal To Renowned Stuntman
Evel Knievel always had a bit of a bad streak in him.
At the age of 13, he stole his first motorcycle, a Harley- Davidson.
A few years later, his grandmom bought him a new Triumph.
One of his favorite pastimes, when he was young, was throwing rocks at prostitutes and
attempting to outrun their short-tempered pimps.
Eventually, after the whole insurance salesman thing fell through, Knievel realized that
his main passion in life was motorcycles.
While working in Washington at the Honda dealership, he would offer anyone a $100 discount if they
could beat him in an arm-wrestling match.
That's about the time when he realized that he could take his daredevil-antics to the
next level by turning it into a full-fledged career.
To stimulate business for the Honda dealership he owned, Knievel performed his first motorcycle
stunt in his late twenties.
The stunt involved him jumping rows of parked cars, a cougar in a cage, and a box of rattlesnakes
who probably thought he was a maniac.
From 1965 to 1968, he performed with a troupe called Evel Knievel's Motorcycle Daredevils.
But from then on, he chose to pursue a solo career.
Donning his signature star-spangled red, white, and blue Jumpsuit, Knievel would make more
than 300 jumps throughout his career, and it's claimed that he broke almost every bone
in his body.
Although, in truth, he was documented as breaking 35 bones for his antics, which still ended
up being a Guinness-Certified World Record.
In 1968, he performed his most famous stunt when he leaped over the fountains at Caesars
Palace in Las Vegas.
He ended up botching the landing, however, leaving him comatose for a month with a fractured
skull.
Some of his other well-publicized stunts included jumping over 50 cars at the Los Angeles Coliseum
in 1973, a failed attempt to leap over the Snake River Canyon in Idaho while riding a
rocket-propelled motorcycle that he dubbed the Sky-Cycle in 1974, clearing 13 buses at
Wembley Stadium in London in 1975 and this notorious last jump in 1976.
Evel Knievel's Last Jump And Retirement
Knievel's final jump in 1976 was a Jaws-inspired gimmick that ended up coining the phrase 'Jump
The Shark' – although the Fonz from Happy Days also deserves some credit for that as
well.
The phrase would go on to be synonymous with saying that someone's best days were behind
them.
Knievel's career had already been on the decline when he attempted to leap over what was promoted
as 'the world's largest indoor saltwater pool', which was filled with what was billed as 'man-eating
killer sharks'.
The jump took place at the Chicago International Amphitheatre on January 31, 1977.
Even though the show's promoters did their best to hype up the supposed danger of the
jump, at the end of the day, the distance that he had to clear was only 64 feet, and
for Knievel, that wasn't much of a challenge – and even the sharks weren't much of threat.
Jerry Clay, the man that supplied the sharks for the event, told the press that if Knievel
were to fall in, he would likely just scare the animals right out of the pool, and the
sharks that he provided were, in fact, lemon and blue sharks, not anything like the Great
White beast that was seen in the film Jaws.
During rehearsal for the jump, Knievel ended up losing control of his motorcycle, crashing
into a cameraman.
He broke both of his arms but was far more upset with the fact that he had damaged the
eye of the cameraman, Thomas Geren.
It was later that year that Henry Winkler, aka Fonzie, performed a similar trick on Happy
Days, albeit while on waterskis, thus cementing that infamous phrase 'jumping the shark',
in America's cultural lexicon.
After the failed shark-jumping attempt, Knievel retired from major performances and would
only make limited appearances later on at smaller venues while trying to help launch
his son, Robbie's career.
The Chicago botched jump attempt would be something that would leave Evel feeling the
embarrassment and regret up until his death in 2007.
And while he earned over $60 million dollars throughout his career as a stuntman, he was
quoted as saying that he spent $61 million, leaving him with an enormous amount of debt
that would plague him for years.
But more than anything, the number one reason why Evel Knievel quit the profession that
he virtually lived and breathed for so many years was the fact that he had become increasingly
cautious as time went on – especially after his horrific crash at Wembley Stadium in 1975.
Knievel deeply loved his four children and didn't want them to have to see their father
prematurely in a coffin.
Anyway, that about wraps up this video.
Are you a fan of high-flying, death-defying stunts like the ones that Evel Knievel was
famous for?
Or do you think that he must have had a few screws loose to live his life in the seemingly
reckless way that he did?
Let us know in the comments down below.
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