One of my favorite characters from the 70's Evil Knievel died on Friday at the age of 69.
Born Robert Knievel, the onetime motorcycle salesman and owner of a minor-league hockey team, supposedly picked up his famed nickname while jailed on a reckless driving charge. His first stunt was a jump over a 20-foot-long box filled with rattlesnakes. Soon, he graduated to riding his chopper over a dozen or more cars -- and caught the attention of Joey Bishop, who brought him onto his late night talk show. On December 31st, 1967, an attempt to leap 151-feet over the fountain at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas fell short -- the spill left him in a coma for nearly a month. But his genius at having it filmed led to a lucrative deal with A-B-C, which aired the stunt. The fact that he wasn't always successful only added to his legend. Knievel knew how to draw a crowd -- his segments generated four of the 20 most-watched episodes of A-B-C's Wide World of Sports.
He drew his greatest attention for an attempted leap over Idaho's Snake River Canyon 1974 using a rocket-propelled motorcycle. While it failed, his genius at turning it into a pay-per-view and closed-circuit T-V event paid off handsomely. But a falling out with promoter Sheldon Saltman -- including Evel beating him up on the 20th Century Fox studio lot -- led to a battery conviction and million-dollar judgment. But his name still meant money -- Six Flags recently signed a deal naming a new wooden roller coaster at its Saint Louis park after him.
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