Evel Knievel

Early life

Knievel was born on October 17, 1938, in Butte, Montana, the first of two children of Robert E. and Ann Marie Keough Knievel. His surname is of German origin; his paternal great-great-grandparents immigrated to the United States from Germany. His mother was of Irish ancestry. Robert and Ann divorced in 1940, after the 1939 birth of their second child, Nicolas, known as Nic. Both parents decided to leave Butte.

Knievel and his brother were raised in Butte by their paternal grandparents, Ignatius and Emma Knievel. At the age of eight, Knievel attended a Joie Chitwood auto daredevil show, which he credited for his later career choice as a motorcycle daredevil.

Knievel was a cousin of Democratic U.S. Representative from Montana, Pat Williams (1937–2025).

Knievel left Butte High School after his sophomore year. He got a job in the copper mines as a diamond drill operator with the Anaconda Mining Company. He was promoted to surface duty, where he drove a large earth mover. Knievel was fired when he made the earth mover do a motorcycle-type wheelie and accidentally drove it into Butte's main power line, leaving the city without electricity for several hours.

Knievel's website says that he chose his nickname after spending a night in jail in 1956 after being arrested for reckless driving. In the same jail that night was a man named William Knofel, who had the nickname "Awful Knofel"; this led to Knievel being referred to as "Evel Knievel".

Seeking new thrills and challenges, Knievel participated in local professional rodeos and ski jumping events, including winning the Northern Rocky Mountain Ski Association Class A Men's ski jumping championship in 1959. During the late 1950s, Knievel joined the United States Army. His athletic ability allowed him to join the track team, where he was a pole vaulter. After his army stint, Knievel returned to Butte, where he met and married his first wife, Linda Joan Bork. Shortly after getting married, Knievel started the Butte Bombers, a semi-pro hockey team.

To help promote his team and earn some money, he convinced the Czechoslovak Olympic ice hockey team to play the Butte Bombers in a warm-up game to the 1960 Winter Olympics (to be held in California). Knievel was ejected from the game minutes into the third period and left the stadium. When the Czechoslovak officials went to the box office to collect the expense money that the team was promised, workers discovered the game receipts had been stolen. The United States Olympic Committee ended up paying the Czechoslovak team's expenses to avoid an international incident. Knievel tried out with the Charlotte Clippers of the Eastern Hockey League in 1959, but decided that a traveling team was not for him.

Career

Stunt performance

As a boy, Knievel had seen the Joie Chitwood show. He decided that he could do something similar using a motorcycle. Promoting the show himself, Knievel rented the venue, wrote the press releases, set up the show, sold the tickets, and served as his own master of ceremonies. After enticing the small crowd with a few wheelies, he proceeded to jump a 20-foot-long (6.1-meter) box of rattlesnakes and two mountain lions. Despite landing short and his back wheel hitting the box containing the rattlesnakes, Knievel managed to land safely.

Knievel realized that to make a more substantial amount of money he would need to hire more performers, stunt coordinators, and other personnel so that he could concentrate on the jumps. With little money, he went looking for a sponsor and found one in Bob Blair, owner of ZDS Motors, Inc., the West Coast distributor for Berliner Motor Corporation, a distributor for Norton Motorcycles. Blair offered to provide the needed motorcycles, but he wanted the name changed from Bobby Knievel and His Motorcycle Daredevils Thrill Show to Evil Knievel and His Motorcycle Daredevils. Knievel did not want his image to be that of a Hells Angels rider, so he convinced Blair to at least allow him to use the spelling Evel instead of Evil.

Knievel and his daredevils debuted on January 3, 1966, at the National Date Festival in Indio, California. The second booking was in Hemet, California, but was canceled due to rain. The next performance was on February 10, in Barstow, California. During the performance, Knievel attempted a new stunt in which he would jump, spread-eagled, over a speeding motorcycle. Knievel jumped too late and the motorcycle hit him in the groin, tossing him 15 feet (4.6 m) into the air. He was hospitalized as a result of his injuries. When released, he returned to Barstow to finish the performance he had started almost a month earlier.

Knievel's daredevil show broke up after the Barstow performance because injuries prevented him from performing. After recovering, Knievel started traveling from small town to small town as a solo act. To get ahead of other motorcycle stunt people who were jumping animals or pools of water, Knievel started jumping cars. He began adding more and more cars to his jumps when he would return to the same venue to get people to come out and see him again. Knievel had not had a serious injury since the Barstow performance, but on June 19 in Missoula, Montana, he attempted to jump twelve cars and a cargo van. The distance he had for takeoff did not allow him to get up enough speed. His back wheel hit the top of the van while his front wheel hit the top of the landing ramp. Knievel ended up with a severely broken arm and several broken ribs. The crash and subsequent stay in the hospital were a publicity windfall.

Feature movies: Evel Knievel and Viva Knievel!

A 1971 biopic film, Evel Knievel, fictionalized Knievel's life and exploits. Knievel, portrayed by George Hamilton, calls himself "the last gladiator in the new Rome"; this was a nod to a January 1970 Esquire magazine article about the stunt rider, whose author, David Lyle, declared, "Evel Knievel [...] may be the last great gladiator." (Later, Knievel titled his 1988 self-produced documentary Last of the Gladiators.) A higher end B-movie, Evel Knievel was a minor hit, taking in $4 million in rentals (equivalent to approximately $31,799,507 in 2025) against a $450,000 budget.

Knievel played himself in the 1977 American action film Viva Knievel!, directed by Gordon Douglas and co-starring Gene Kelly and Lauren Hutton, with an ensemble supporting cast including Red Buttons, Leslie Nielsen, Cameron Mitchell, Frank Gifford, Dabney Coleman and Marjoe Gortner. The film premiered in June 1977, three months later Knievel and his associates attacked promoter Shelly Saltman with an aluminum baseball bat on September 21, 1977.

With Knievel losing most of his sponsorship and marketing deals as a result of the bad publicity, Viva Knievel became much less commercially attractive, only opening in four further international markets after Knievel's conviction. In addition, the wholesome image of Knievel the movie promoted and the plot point concerning Knievel's promoter being corrupt seemed ill-judged in the light of the events that saw Knievel imprisoned.

Motorcycles

Knievel briefly used a Honda 250cc motorcycle to jump a crate of rattlesnakes and two mountain lions, his first known jump. Knievel then used a Norton Motorcycle Company 750cc for only one year, 1966. Between 1967 and 1968, Knievel jumped using the Triumph Bonneville T120 (with a 650cc engine). Knievel used the Triumph at the Caesars Palace crash on New Year's Eve 1967. When Knievel returned to jumping after the crash, he used Triumph for the remainder of 1968.

Attempting his jumps on motorcycles whose suspensions were designed primarily for street riding or flat track racing was a major factor in Knievel's many disastrous landings. The terrific forces these machines passed on to his body are well illustrated in the slow-motion footage of his Caesars' landing.

Between December 1969 and April 1970, Knievel used the Laverda American Eagle 750 cc motorcycle. On December 12, 1970, Knievel would switch to the Harley-Davidson XR-750, the motorcycle with which he is best known for jumping. Knievel would use the XR-750 in association with Harley-Davidson until 1977. However, after his 1977 conviction for the assault of Shelly Saltman, Harley-Davidson withdrew its sponsorship of Knievel.

On September 8, 1974, Knievel attempted to jump the Snake River Canyon on a rocket-propelled motorcycle designed by former NASA engineer Robert Truax, dubbed the Skycycle X-2. The State of Idaho registered the X-2 as an airplane rather than a motorcycle.

At the tail end of his career, while helping launch the career of his son, Robbie, Knievel returned to the Triumph T120. However, he used the bike only for wheelies and did not jump after retiring from the XR-750.

In 1997, Knievel signed with the California Motorcycle Company to release a limited Evel Knievel Motorcycle. The motorcycle was not built to jump but was rather a V-twin cruiser motorcycle intended to compete with Harley-Davidson street bikes. Knievel promoted the motorcycle at his various public appearances. After the company closed in 2003, Knievel returned to riding modern street Harley-Davidson motorcycles at his public appearances.

Robbie sold limited-edition motorcycles from his company, Knievel Motorcycles Manufacturing Inc. Although two of the motorcycles refer to Evel (the Legend Series Evel Commemorative and the Snake River Canyon motorcycle), Evel did not ride Robbie's bikes.

Leather jumpsuits

Throughout his daredevil career, Knievel was known for his leather jumpsuits that were compared to the jumpsuits worn by Elvis Presley. When Knievel began jumping, he used a black and yellow jumpsuit. When he switched to the Triumph motorcycle, his jumpsuit changed to a white suit with stripes down the legs and sleeves. In interviews, he said the reason for the switch was because he saw how Liberace had become not just a performer, but the epitome of what a showman should be, and Knievel sought to create his variation of that showmanship in his jumps. Two variations of the white suit appeared (one with three stars across the chest and one with the three stars on his right chest). The latter was worn at the Caesars Palace jump.

When Knievel switched to the Laverda motorcycle in 1969, he switched his leathers to an All American Themed red-white-and-blue jumpsuit with an "X" across the chest. Later, Knievel adjusted the blue stripes to a V-shape (the first version of the V-shape was also used in the 1971 film's final jump). For the remainder of his career, variants of the V-shaped white-starred jumpsuit would be a constant, including a special nylon/canvas flight suit that matched his white leathers for the X-2 jump. Each variant would become more elaborate, including the addition of the red-white-blue cape and the Elvis-styled belt buckle with his initials, "EK". In 1975, Knievel premiered the blue leathers with red stars on the white stripes for the Wembley jump.

Core values

Evel Knievel took great pride in his core values. Throughout his career and later life, he would repeatedly talk about the importance of "keeping his word". He stated that, although he knew he might not successfully make a jump or even survive the canyon jump, he followed through with each stunt because he gave his word that he would.

In Last of the Gladiators, Knievel discussed the crash of a 1970 Pepsi-Cola sponsored jump in Yakima, Washington. Knievel knew the jump was very questionable, but stated, "I went ahead and did it anyway. When you give your word to somebody that you're going to do something, you've gotta do it." In the 1971 biopic, George Hamilton (as Knievel) emphasizes in the opening monologue that a man does not go back on his word.

Knievel would regularly share his anti-drug message, one of his core values. Knievel would preach an anti-drug message to children and adults before each of his stunts.

Knievel regularly spoke out against the Hells Angels due to their alleged involvement in the drug trade.

In the film Viva Knievel!, Knievel plays a fictionalized version of himself who foils a drug lord's attempt to smuggle narcotics into the United States.

Knievel was a proponent of motorcycle helmet safety. He constantly encouraged his fans to wear motorcycle helmets. The Bell Star helmet he used in the Caesars Palace jump is credited for having saved Knievel's life after he fell off the motorcycle and struck his head on the ground. (Following the Caesars Palace crash, each of Knievel's full-face helmets bore the slogan, "Color Me Lucky.") Knievel once offered a cash reward for anyone who witnessed him stunting on a motorcycle without a helmet.

In 1987, Knievel supported a mandatory helmet bill in the State of California. During the Assembly Transportation Committee meeting, Knievel was introduced as "the best walking commercial for a helmet law." Evel claimed the main reason he was still alive and walking was that he wore a helmet.

Marketing image

Knievel sought to make more money from his image. He was no longer satisfied with just receiving free motorcycles to jump with. Knievel wanted to be paid to use and promote a company's brand of motorcycles. After Triumph, the British motorcycle brand he had been jumping with, refused to meet his demands (it was part of the bankrupt BSA group that was merged with Norton in 1972), Knievel started to propose the idea to other manufacturers. American Eagle Motorcycles, the brand under which Italian Laverda machines were sold in the US, was the first company to sign Knievel to an endorsement deal. Knievel then used the new lightweight racing motorcycle Harley-Davidson XR-750 from December 1970 until his final jump in January 1977.

At approximately the same time, Fanfare Films started production on the George Hamilton biopic (Evel Knievel). Two other films about Knievel, a television pilot made in 1974 starring Sam Elliott, and a made-for-TV film in 2004 starring George Eads, were produced in later years. In 1974, Knievel and Amherst Records released at the Sound City Studios the self-titled album Evel Knievel, which included a press conference, an anti-drug talk for his young fans, and four other tracks.

In 1972, Knievel appeared in the motorcycle safety film "Not So Easy", together with Easy Rider Peter Fonda.

Knievel kept up his pursuit of the United States government to allow him to jump the Grand Canyon. To push his case, he hired famed San Francisco defense attorney Melvin Belli to fight the legal battle for obtaining government permission. ABC's Wide World of Sports started showing Knievel's jumps on television regularly. His popularity, especially with young boys, was ever-increasing. He became a hero to a generation of young boys. A. J. Foyt made Knievel part of his pit crew for the Indianapolis 500 in 1970. Evel Knievel's huge fame caused him to start traveling with bodyguards, who became life-long friends.

Between 1972 and 1977, Ideal Toy Company released a series of Evel Knievel-related merchandise, designed initially by Joseph M. Burck of Marvin Glass and Associates. During the six years the toys were manufactured, Ideal claimed to have sold more than $125 million worth of Knievel toys. The toys included the original 1972 figures, which offered various outfits and accessories. In 1973, Ideal released the Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle. After the release of the Stunt Cycle, the Knievel toys were the best-selling item for Ideal.

Marriages and children

Knievel was married twice. He and his wife Linda were married for 38 years. During their marriage, the couple had four children, including Robbie. Throughout Kelly's and Robbie's adolescence, they performed at Knievel's stunt shows. Into adulthood, Robbie continued to perform as a professional motorcycle daredevil. After Evel's death, Kelly has overseen the Knievel legacy, including developing Knievel-related products and assisting Harley-Davidson to develop a museum exhibit. Knievel's courtship and marriage to Linda was the theme of the biopic 1971 film Evel Knievel. Linda and Evel were divorced in 1997 in San Jose, California.

A municipal judge ordered Evel to stand trial for a weapons possession charge in 1994. Knievel was arrested in October at a Sunnyvale go-go bar on suspicion of battering his girlfriend, 25-year-old Krystal Kennedy of Florida. Sunnyvale police later discovered two handguns and some ammunition in the trunk of his car. The battering charge was dropped when Kennedy declined to cooperate.

In 1999, Knievel married his girlfriend, Krystal Kennedy of Clearwater, Florida, whom he began dating in 1992. The wedding was held on November 19, 1999, on a special platform built on the fountains at Caesars Palace on the Las Vegas Strip (site of Evel's jump New Year's Eve 1967). Long-time friend Engelbert Humperdinck sent a recorded tribute to the couple.

The couple was married for two years, divorcing in 2001. Following the divorce, Krystal Knievel was granted a restraining order against him. However, Krystal and Evel would work out their differences, living together until Knievel's death. According to the investment magazine, Registered Rep., Knievel left his entire estate to Krystal.

Post-daredevil years

During the 1980s, Knievel drove around the country in a recreational vehicle, selling works of art allegedly painted by him. After several years of obscurity, Knievel made a significant marketing comeback in the 1990s, representing Maxim Casino, Little Caesars, Harley-Davidson and other firms.

In 1999, Knievel celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Snake River Canyon jump at the Twin Falls mall. His memorabilia was then stored at Kent Knigge's farm in Filer, Idaho, seven miles west of Twin Falls. During the same year, Knievel was inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame.

Knievel once dreamed of housing all of his career memorabilia in an Evel Knievel Museum to be located in his home state of Montana. Those dreams were unfulfilled, and his artifacts are spread throughout transportation museums and private collections around the world. Knievel's original blueprints and handwritten notes about his desired museum were most recently displayed at the former Route 66 Vintage Iron Motorcycle Museum in downtown Miami, Oklahoma. The Route 66 site also once housed Evel's Snake River Canyon Jump Mission Control Super Van. While Knievel's original dream of having all his significant memorabilia being centralized would go unfulfilled, a few public museums were opened in his honor, including the Evel Knievel Museum in Topeka, Kansas, which has the official approval of the Knievel estate.

On October 9, 2005, Knievel promoted his last public "motorcycle ride" at the Milwaukee Harley-Davidson dealership. The ride was to benefit victims of Hurricane Katrina. Although he was originally scheduled to lead a benefit ride through Milwaukee, Knievel never rode the motorcycle because he suffered a mild (non-debilitating) stroke before the appearance and limited his visit to a signing session.

In 2003, Knievel signed over exclusive rights to Los Angeles composer Jef Bek, authorizing the production of a rock opera based on Knievel's life. Directed by Bat Boy co-creator Keythe Farley, the production opened in Los Angeles in September 2007 to some positive reviews.

Knievel had partnered with Six Flags St. Louis to name a new wooden coaster after "America's Legendary Daredevil". The amusement park in Eureka, Missouri, outside of St. Louis, Missouri, opened the ride on June 20, 2008. The Evel Knievel Roller Coaster operated for three seasons before being renamed American Thunder in 2011.

Death

Knievel died in Clearwater, Florida, on November 30, 2007, aged 69. He had been suffering from diabetes and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis for many years. A longtime friend reported that Knievel had trouble breathing while at his residence in Clearwater and died on the way to the hospital. The friend said, "It's been coming for years but you just don't expect it. Superman just doesn't die, right?"

In one of his last interviews, Knievel told Maxim magazine:

You can't ask a guy like me why I performed. I really wanted to fly through the air. I was a daredevil, a performer. I loved the thrill, the money, the whole macho thing. All those things made me Evel Knievel. Sure, I was scared. You gotta be an ass not to be scared. But I beat the hell out of death. [...] You're in the air for four seconds, you're part of the machine and then if you make a mistake midair, you say to yourself, "Oh, boy. I'm gonna crash" and there's nothing you can do to stop it, not at all.

Knievel was buried at Mountain View Cemetery in his hometown of Butte, Montana, on December 10, 2007, following a funeral at the 7,500-seat Butte Civic Center presided over by Robert H. Schuller with actor Matthew McConaughey giving the eulogy. Before the Monday service, fireworks exploded in the Butte night sky as pallbearers carried Knievel's casket into the center.

Posthumous recognition

On July 10, 2010, a special temporary exhibit entitled True Evel: The Amazing Story of Evel Knievel was opened at the Harley-Davidson Museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The exhibit was opened in collaboration with Harley-Davidson Motorcycles and Evel's oldest son, Kelly. Among the various artifacts from Knievel's life, the exhibit included his "Shark Jump" Harley-Davidson XR-750, the Skycycle X-2, a blue jumpsuit from late in his career without any sponsor patches, and his trademark red-white-and-blue jumpsuit complete with his helmet and walking stick. Evel Knievel merchandising, personal artifacts, and X-rays from his injuries were also exhibited. In December 2010, a traveling version of the exhibit began a one-year tour of the United Kingdom and Europe.

On September 16, 2016, professional stuntman Eddie Braun successfully jumped the Snake River Canyon in a replica of Knievel's Snake River rocket. Braun cited Knievel as an inspiration and wanted to show that Knievel's jump would have been successful had the parachute not been deployed too early. Braun stated that he was "finishing out [the] dream" of his hero, Knievel.

In 2017, the Evel Knievel Museum, a 13,000 square foot (1,200 square meters) museum honoring Knievel was opened in Topeka, Kansas, by co-founders Lathan McKay and Mike Patterson. The museum features his motorcycles, leathers, helmets, wardrobe, and jewelry along with various displays and a virtual reality motorcycle jump.

On July 8, 2018, Travis Pastrana from Nitro Circus paid tribute to Evel on History Channel live event, "Evel Live", with three of Evel's most famous record-breaking Las Vegas jumps in one night. He was riding a Roland Sands Design–prepared 450-pound Indian Scout FTR750, and dressed in a full Evel Knievel getup, down to wearing vintage-style-appearing dress boots from Bates, the manufacturer that had made Evel's.

On November 16, 2023, the New York Times crossword, created by Paolo Pasco, paid homage to Knievel with a themed crossword which included clues such as "Description of this puzzle's subject" (DAREDEVIL) and "Acting dangerously, like this puzzle's subject" (LIVING ON THE EDGE). Upon completion of the puzzle through the NYT Games app or website, solvers were rewarded with a short animation of a person on a motorcycle leaping through the squares of the crossword over three buses.

Television commercials

In November 2010, General Motors premiered a television commercial featuring footage of Knievel's Wembley Stadium crash in 1975, followed by Knievel getting onto his feet. The ad focused on GM's restructuring and emphasized the belief that "we all fall down".

On July 18, 2012, Audi of America recreated Knievel's Snake River jump in a promotional commercial for the Audi RS5. The commercial depicts the RS5 being driven by a professional driver and jumping the canyon off a jump ramp.

Portrayal in film

Evel Knievel (1971), a biographical film directed by Marvin J. Chomsky and starring George Hamilton as Knievel.

Viva Knievel! (1977), a fictional story directed by Gordon Douglas and starring Evel Knievel as himself.

Evel Knievel (2004), a biographical television film directed by John Badham and starring George Eads as Knievel.

Richard Hammond Meets Evel Knievel (2007), a television documentary film directed by Nigel Simpkiss.

I Am Evel Knievel (2014), a documentary directed by Derik Murray and David Ray.

Being Evel (2015), a documentary directed by Daniel Junge.

Evel, an upcoming biographical limited series written by Etan Frankel and starring Milo Ventimiglia as Knievel, was searching for a TV network as of 2020.