Life of Evel: Evel Knievel

by Stuart Barker

  Having beaten his own indoor record by twice clearing 13 vehicles at the Houston Astrodome in January 1971 in front of an incredible 99,000 people, Knievel headed to the Ontario Motor Speedway in California to perform another jump, and this one was to be filmed by Hollywood cameras as the set piece for George Hamilton’s movie of Evel’s life.

  The first working title for the film had been Color Me Lucky – a phrase Knievel was fond of painting on the fuel tanks of his motorcycles. But it seemed simpler and a lot more self-explanatory (if rather uninspiring) to just call the movie Evel Knievel. At least then no one would be in any doubt as to what the film was about.

  The Ontario gig didn’t start well with Knievel fracturing his right hand during a rough landing after clearing 13 cars. Determined to get some footage in the can for the upcoming movie, however, Evel upped the ante the following day and made a spectacular and comfortable 129-foot leap over a record 19 cars. It was the furthest he had jumped to date and would provide a perfect climactic long-distance jump for the MGM film.

  Supporting actors were lined up to appear alongside George Hamilton, most notably Sue Lyons (who had a role in the 1964 Richard Burton/Ava Gardner movie Night of the Iguana) as Knievel’s wife Linda. Filming locations were authentic as the cast and crew headed for Knievel’s hometown of Butte to shoot scenes representing Evel’s early years. As one would expect, the movie portrayed Knievel as a bit of a rebel who came good and ultimately achieved the American dream as a man with no fear, a man whose ‘death will be glorious’, as Hamilton’s closing voiceover predicts.

  Hamilton was no stranger to biopics, having already played out the life of Country and Western star Hank Williams in the 1965 movie Your Cheatin’ Heart, but he made a poor Knievel, and while the movie performed modestly well at the box office and still enjoys regular outings on various satellite channels, it’s far from being an all-time classic. It would have worked much better as a gritty, realistic portrayal of Knievel’s life, which had, even by 1971, seen many ups and downs.

  At the time, Knievel was full of praise for Hamilton’s portrayal, but he would later become bitter about the fact that he made so little money out of his own life story while Hamilton fared much better. ‘George made a lot of money on the picture and he did a great job of playing me but this guy never even said thanks. I’m the one who got him out of his pretty-boy image, but now I still think he’s a pussy.’

  Evel Knievel opened in Los Angeles on 14 July 1971 and served the purpose it was intended to. Oversimplified and over-glamorised, as screen biopics tend to be, it nevertheless entertained the kids who made up the majority of Knievel’s fans. In fairness it was typical of many of the easy-going, lightweight movies of the time and should be viewed as such.

  Evel himself had no real cause for complaint. Few people can claim to be so famous that Hollywood commissions a movie of their lives, so while he may not have made too much in hard cash from the film itself, the publicity it generated for him in general guaranteed further earnings, even if they were to be indirect.

  But it didn’t seem to matter how much Knievel earned – he always ended up spending more. Reflecting on his acquisition – and eventual loss – of great wealth, Knievel said, ‘Bobby Knievel never made me a dime…Evel Knievel made me about 60 million dollars…and Evel Knievel spent about 63 million dollars.’ His lifestyle by the early 1970s had become as outrageous as any top Hollywood star and all the trappings were flaunted shamelessly. ‘I wasn’t the richest man in the world,’ Knievel admitted, ‘but for a cycle rider from Montana I was having a damn good time. I spent more money having fun than any man alive. Aristotle Onassis didn’t know how to live. My philosophy is take one day at a time.’ And if that meant spending way beyond his means, so be it. After all, his entire philosophy was built around the premise that he’d rather live a rich man than die a rich man. ‘All the money in the world can’t buy your way into heaven and it can’t buy your way out of hell – it was meant to be spent right here and I’m going to have the best clothes, the best boots, the best diamonds, the best cars, motorcycles, booze and women on the face of this earth just as long as I keep going.’

  Over the years, some of those cars included five Rolls-Royces, three Ferrari Spyder convertibles, three Cadillac pickups, a 1971 Ferrari Berlinetta Boxer, a 1984 Aston Martin Lagonda Sedan, a custom-built Sparks III convertible, a $129,000 white and gold Stutz convertible (which Evel claimed was the only one of its kind in the world and which featured 24-carat-gold plating inside as well as genuine sable carpeting both inside and in the boot), and another Stutz which he claimed was originally built for Prince Charles. He also claimed to have an Aston Martin which was made for Charles. Evel had apparently stunned the Stutz salesman who sold him the convertible by presenting him with a personal cheque inlaid with genuine gold embossments. It came from a series of cheque books which alone cost Evel $7,000 a year. And as well as his street cars he also owned three bona fide Indianapolis-style racing cars and up to 30 motorcycles at any one time. Knievel’s list of cars changes every time he recites it, but all the cars he did actually have were hung with the #1 Montana Governor’s licence plate in various forms, including ‘1-Evel’, ‘1-1’, and ‘Stutz 1’.

  Knievel’s most famous mode of transport, however, was the massive liveried truck and trailer unit with which he used to go on tour. It was custom-built by Kenworth of Kansas City, Missouri at a cost of $100,000 and Knievel claimed it was the longest vehicle of its kind in the world. It featured a 14-speed automatic transmission and housed Evel’s office, dressing room and lounge. It also boasted a colour TV, stereo, air-conditioning unit, heating and Olympia beer on tap. The trailer unit carried all of Evel’s bikes and eight tons of ramps and equipment.

  Knievel’s motorised luxuries were not restricted to road-going vehicles; he had a fleet of yachts and boats which would have shamed a small country’s navy. Moored in 300 yards of docking space in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where he also bought a home, Knievel’s boats were all called Evel Eye 1 – a play on the ‘evil eye’ design which fishermen have long painted on their boats to ward off evil spirits. The fleet consisted of 11 boats, ranging from an 87-foot Broward to a 120-foot Fed ship complete with its own helicopter and landing pad, two motorcycles, two jet skis, two speedboats and a crew of seven. The Broward and the Fed boats alone cost him $5 million but there were many smaller craft including yachts and speedboats. By 1999, however, Knievel rued the day he ever started buying boats due to the vast amounts of money he was forced to spend on their upkeep. ‘I’d never have another one…there’s only one thing you can spend more money on than a ship and that’s a woman. They’re both bottomless pits you keep pouring money into. I’ll give you a lesson in life. If it flies, floats or fucks – lease it. Don’t be an idiot!’

  When he had to take to the air, Evel was not short of private transport either. Having started out owning a small fixed-wing Cessna aircraft earlier in his career, he eventually bought two private Learjets and a helicopter, which, like his boats, were all emblazoned with the famous Knievel logos. Rumour has it that Knievel bought a second Learjet just so he could fly alongside the other and admire his name on its side. If he was close enough to read his name, however, he presumably would not have lived to tell the tale.

  While he was actually pictured with his Learjets and helicopter, Knievel’s later boast that he had owned 14 aeroplanes including a Golden Eagle, a Beech Duke, a King Air and a Bonanza seems rather far-fetched, as does his claim to have bought 16 aeroplanes in one day. He even boasted that he’d met the Shah of Iran – one of the world’s richest men – who apparently told him, ‘You bought more planes in one day than I’ve bought.’

  Even more incredible is Knievel’s claim that he flew around a million miles at the controls of his planes despite the fact that he never had a pilot’s licence. ‘I don’t need a licence to fly an airplane,’ he once bragged. ‘I fly one any damn place I feel like it. The FAA [Federal Aviation Administration
] can’t stop me from flying an airplane. I’m not going to violate nothing. What’s a licence mean? How are they going to stop me from flying around in the air up there? I mean, that’s silly. I can fly a 747 – there isn’t anything I can’t fly…Evel Knievel is capable of herding an airplane round the sky.’

  Knievel did admit to employing pilots so his boasts of being able to fly anything must once more be taken with a pinch of salt, certainly if the testimony of his favoured pilot, the dubiously named Watcha McCollum, is anything to go by. When asked by a reporter if Evel helped fly the planes, McCollum responded, ‘No, he just sits. In the helicopter I took the dual controls out so he couldn’t even play with it.’

  Yet Knievel insists he once had a close call while flying his Cessna into the Continental Divide Raceway near Denver, Colorado on his way to a jump. He was aiming to land on the drag strip just 50 yards away from where thousands of spectators were already seated in a grandstand, but he hit a marker flagpole as he banked the plane round. ‘I knocked a wingtip tank off going into Denver, to the racetrack there. My men forgot to take the flagpole down. I had a big twin Cessna. Knocked the wingtip tank right off. But I landed it, got out, did my wheelies, made the jump, jumped back in and took off again. Flew it right out of the racetrack and had 30,000 people standing right on the hill. They were afraid to come down on the track!’

  Transport aside, in one of his most ostentatious displays of wealth, Knievel was once photographed literally shovelling heaps of cash into his own personal bank vault in Butte. The heavy vault doors had the initials ‘EK’ etched into them alongside an engraving of Evel pulling a wheelie on his motorcycle. On the inner door was the inscription ‘Evel Knievel National Bank: Absolutely NO LOANS’.

  But his money never stayed in the vault for too long. Knievel took great pride in blowing it as quickly as possible and sneered at rich celebrities who didn’t enjoy their wealth. Speaking of the hugely successful country singer Garth Brooks he once said, ‘I saw him on TV one time, he says, “I made so much money I couldn’t spend it all.” Garth…I wanna tell you something: you travel with me for 30 days, I’ll bust you so quick it ain’t even funny.’

  Of course, the ultimate status symbol for any wealthy man is his house, and, naturally, Knievel didn’t skimp on his own purpose-built $200,000 mansion in Butte. Built overlooking the sixteenth fairway of Butte Country Club, Knievel’s house was set in 9.8 acres of land and featured a private putting green, a six-car garage, a helicopter landing-pad, an art gallery, stables and a lighted outdoor horse-riding arena.

  Clothes were another way in which Knievel liked to flaunt his wealth, and even in an era as gaudy and shameless as the 1970s he still managed to stand out. As far back as 1969, Parade magazine had declared Evel Knievel and Liberace the best-dressed men in America, but as fashion became more outrageous in the Seventies, so did Knievel’s wardrobe. Chequered trousers, impossibly large collars (‘I looked like the flying nun’), satin jackets, snakeskin boots and $750 shirts were all favourites in the Knievel wardrobe, which he once boasted was ‘better than most retail stores’. Only in the politically incorrect Seventies could he have got away with wearing a thigh-length coat made from chinchilla fur, or a silver mink coat worth $8,000, while lighting his cigars with $100 bills. Evel was not ashamed of being rich.

  To complement his outlandish clothes, Knievel draped himself in expensive jewellery, never being seen without his diamond-encrusted ‘EK’ ring, his jewel-tipped walking cane and two medallions round his neck fashioned from solid gold $20 pieces. Other items included a 13-carat diamond ring shaped like a motorcycle, a 12-carat diamond ring and a 33-carat diamond watch, all of which he claimed were an insurance against hurting himself since no one would insure him as a daredevil. But his most extravagant jewellery purchase was the Papal Cross, which he bought and insured for $2 million. The diamond- and emerald-encrusted cross, accompanied by a ring, was given to the United Nations by Pope Paul VI to be sold for charity to help alleviate human suffering. When it came up for auction Knievel bought both items, keeping the cross for himself and giving the ring to Linda.

  Looking back on his frivolous spending (he claimed he got through $100,000 every month on expenses and payments on his possessions alone), Knievel had no regrets. ‘I didn’t manage my money any better than any other kid who makes it real fast. I’m not ashamed of it – I’ve had a ball. If I were to drop dead tomorrow I’ve lived every minute of my life. Money to me is like Monopoly money…Money’s made to spend. You’ve got to spend, spend, spend. I enjoy life to the fullest. I like the idiots who put all their money in the banks, you know why? So I can borrow it. Who the hell wants a lot of money? I’d hate to get hurt and have a doctor tell me that I only had a few hours to live when I had five or six million in the bank.’

  By the early 1970s Evel said he wasn’t jumping for any less than $7,000 a time, a far cry from the $500 he’d been charging for shows just a few years before, but he was still getting through his money quicker than he could earn it, although that was all part of the plan. ‘I hope the day I die I’ll have spent all the money I earned. My greatest fear is for some guy who didn’t have the guts to carry my shoes across the street to marry into my family and then inherit all my money.’

  In July of 1971, Evel hit the road again to raise more capital. His four-night stint at Madison Square Garden in New York was designed to promote his forthcoming movie but the event was significant for another reason: it marked the public debut of Knievel’s son Robbie as a motorcycling performer. Robbie may only have ridden round the stadium holding the American flag aloft but he was still just nine years old. It marked the start of a career which would not only better Evel’s in terms of distances and obstacles jumped, but would also lead to some severe animosity between father and son, as Evel became jealous of Robbie’s success when his own star began to wane.

  Knievel senior cleared nine cars and a van each evening at Madison Square before moving on to perform three more successful shows in Buffalo, New York, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and in Philadelphia itself. All performances went off without a hitch and it was only after he had cleared 16 cars in Massachusetts that his luck ran out on a slippery landing ramp, causing him to crash. He was unhurt and moved on to Portland to better his own indoor jumping record by clearing 12 cars and two vans, although the force of the landing smashed Knievel’s left hand into such a mess that a reporter reputedly vomited upon seeing it.

  Knievel kicked off his 1972 jumping season with an appearance at the Tucson Dragway in Arizona where he showed a surprisingly caring side to his tough-guy image. After learning that a woman suffering from an undiagnosed disease wished to meet him, Knievel visited Linda Hudman in the University of Arizona Medical Center. On leaving the hospital, Evel asked doctors if it was possible to allow Hudman to attend the jump on a stretcher as long as medical personnel were present. When the doctors agreed, Evel paid for an ambulance and crew and gave Hudman the best seat (or rather, stretcher) in the house to watch him jump, made sure she was taken care of all day and kissed her farewell upon his departure. He could be kind when he wanted to be.

  From Tucson it was off to the Chicago International Amphitheater before making a return to San Francisco’s Cow Palace, scene of his run-in with the Hell’s Angels in 1970 and a venue which seemed to be cursed for Knievel. Spectators who could see the landing area from their seats could have been forgiven for thinking Knievel was completely insane to even attempt the jump. Facing him from the top of his ski-jump-style ramp, which stretched right to the top of the stadium seating, were two massive concrete support pillars. To avoid hitting them, Knievel would have to steer his Harley-Davidson sharply to the left or right immediately upon landing or face smashing into either one – or both – of them.

  During the first night’s show, Evel sped down his three-foot-wide ramp, soared over 12 cars and appeared to negotiate the pillars with relative ease, but on the second night it all went wrong. Having added three more car
s to the line-up, Knievel also needed to add some speed on to his take-off and that extra speed led to such a hard landing that he was thrown from his bike, which then slammed hard into the concrete pillars, spinning and grinding its way out of the arena amid a shower of sparks. Knievel himself was lucky to miss the pillars and the wildly spinning bike, and he only suffered a broken ankle and bruising to his hand and ribs. It could have been much, much worse. Just three weeks later he was back for more, and, all too predictably, he crashed again, this time breaking a collarbone at the State Fairgrounds Coliseum in Detroit.

  It was the sheer regularity of Knievel’s injuries and his complete willingness to accept them without complaint which set him aside from any other sportsman, no matter how dangerous their chosen sport. In dangerous sports like motorcycle racing, competitors can expect to suffer several crashes during a season, but more often than not they escape unhurt. In an unlucky year they may break an arm or a leg, but with the amount of mileage they cover at racing speeds the amount of crashes per mile is relatively low. Of course, fatalities do occur but they are relatively rare, at least when the races are held on modern, purpose-built racetracks and not on closed public-road circuits like the Isle of Man TT.

  Knievel, on the other hand, was spending just seconds on his bike each time he jumped and yet he managed to crash with alarming regularity. There were periods when he seemed to stand no better than a 50/50 chance of escaping from a jump uninjured, and yet he always came back for more, knowing full well that any one of his jumps could prove fatal. Fellow motorcycle jumper and stuntman Gary Davis – who would stand in for Knievel in the 1977 movie Viva Knievel! and go on to become stunt co-ordinator for Hollywood blockbusters like Terminator 2: Judgment Day – summed up Knievel’s special type of courage: ‘He was certainly the most courageous jumper among all of us. If I had had as many bad wrecks as he had I would not…absolutely not, have continued jumping motorcycles. He always came back; he always said he would and he always came back.’