Life of Evel: Evel Knievel (19 page)
It was in the high-power hold where Knievel claimed to have been neighbour to the notorious serial killer and cult leader Charles Manson. ‘Guess who they put in with me? The first fuckin’ guy they brought in – Charles Manson. I about shit. Right in the cell next to me. He was in there with me for 63 fuckin’ days.’ Knievel added that ‘Manson was being evaluated by a psychiatrist for the trial of Leslie Van Houghton. He was as skinny as he could be and he looked just like a rat. He never said a word to anyone and there’s no doubt in my mind that he’s insane. God made that dirty bastard – let Him deal with him.’ Then, bizarrely, in the same outburst Knievel seemed to change his mind about letting God deal with Manson and felt a more earthly form of justice would be appropriate. ‘Let’s kill him,’ he snarled. ‘Hang him by his nuts from Hollywood and Vine.’
Knievel served out the remainder of his sentence in the county jail without the privileges of a work detail, and was released on 12 April 1978 having served just four months and 22 days of his six-month sentence. But if he thought that was an end to his problems he was wrong – it was only the beginning. Despite his own initial efforts to make light of his jail sentence, few other parties viewed his disgrace in the same way and Knievel was soon to discover that many fans, sponsors and associates had turned their backs on him.
Knievel’s fan base was made up largely of young, impressionable kids, and while Evel continued preaching that they should live a good life, avoid narcotics and be God-fearing Christians most parents were happy enough to indulge their kids’ worship of Knievel, even if he didn’t quite live by the principles that he preached and even if his chosen profession was ludicrously dangerous. What they were not prepared to accept was having their children look up to a common criminal who had savagely assaulted a man, and neither were Knievel’s sponsors, including Harley-Davidson and the Ideal Toy Company who both decided he was no longer a suitable role-model to be in partnership with. They withdrew their endorsements immediately.
To Evel, such rejection must have been puzzling in the extreme. Hadn’t he done the honourable thing by seeking out vengeance on someone who had slurred himself and his family? After all, that’s how the situation would have been handled in Butte, Montana. He had said upon leaving prison, ‘I have no regrets. I feel the majority of society understands the reason for my action.’ Clearly, society did not, so what was the problem? The problem was that mainstream Americans did not think the same way or follow the same moral code as the people of Butte, the eye-for-an-eye and tooth-for-a-tooth system of the old Wild West having been long since replaced by a faith in the American judicial system. At least some of Knievel’s old friends back in Butte remained loyal and understood his actions. His long-time friend Paddy O’Boyle said, ‘If somebody tells lies about you and your family round this town, they’re gonna get a thumpin’. And that guy [Saltman] that came up here was trying to exploit Knievel’s family…and I think the guy got everything he deserved. But it’s too bad that Bob had to go to jail over that. He probably wouldn’t have here in Butte but out in California it’s a little different.’
As late as 1998 Knievel was still fuming with rage over the incident, telling the BBC that ‘There’s some people on this earth that deserve killing. They’re not good human beings. They’re worse than the rottenest apple in the barrel.’
Evel may have done what he thought was the right thing, but in doing so he had alienated most of those who had previously supported him, and it was not until 1999 that he finally admitted he had perhaps overreacted to Saltman’s ‘insults’. When asked to list some of the major lessons he had learned in his life, he cited one as being, ‘When you’re mad at someone, it’s probably best not to break his arm with a baseball bat.’
What made this financially threatening situation even worse was the fact that after six months without earning any money, Knievel had already been forced to sell off many of his more luxurious belongings just to pay bills and loans and keep his family in the manner they had become accustomed to. Of his 16 boats, Evel sold all but three speedboats and one 80-foot yacht. He also sold two of his four houses, five mink coats and piles of valuable jewellery, keeping only what he referred to as ‘the big stones’.
Harley-Davidson had been Knievel’s main sponsor and the Ideal toy sales represented the largest single source of income he had. Without their endorsements the stuntman was facing complete financial ruin as well as disgrace, so he headed for the only place he knew he could seek refuge – Las Vegas. With a typical gambler’s mentality, Evel figured he could win back his fortune in the casinos and simply ignored the possibility that gambling what little he had left would very probably land him in even deeper financial trouble.
By 1979, after the best part of a year of gambling, drinking and trying to ignore his problems, Knievel finally saw the error of his ways and declared Las Vegas ‘A city that ruins lives. A city that has a licence to steal from you. A city of sin, of rot and heartbreaking false pretences.’ Of the casinos themselves he added, ‘They rob you. It’s the worst gambling in the world. They have a licence to steal from you. People who gamble there are perfect examples of fools being born every minute.’ Upon finally realising this, Evel drove to the airport to head back to Butte. En route, he tossed away his last $5,000 gambling money and vowed never to return to Las Vegas. It goes without saying that the money could have been better spent, given Knievel’s predicament.
While he had woken up to the perils of gambling in Vegas, Evel didn’t stop gambling on the golf course, where he was spending more and more time working on his handicap of 12 as his career and reputation floundered. At least there he could ‘even the odds’ for a win more readily. One famous story has Evel turning up at a golf course first thing in the morning with two bottles of vodka. Knowing his opponent would never dream of drinking neat vodka so early in the day, Evel commenced drinking on his own, one bottle after the other, all the way round the 18 holes. By the time he neared the end of the game he appeared to be roaring drunk and was missing easy shots. With his opponent suckered in, Knievel bet big-time money on the last hole and played it perfectly, winning the cash. It was only then he revealed that he had been drinking water all along and had only feigned his drunkenness.
It was, however, one of the few occasions that Knievel had to feign drunkenness; he had been drinking heavily for years and the downward trajectory of his career had led him to seek solace in ever-increasing quantities of Wild Turkey. Knievel’s blotchy, bloated appearance betrayed the fact he had a drinking problem and he himself admitted that the late 1970s and almost all of the 1980s was a very dark period for him. ‘Yeah, I was a hard drinker. I wouldn’t pass up a bar, pal.’
While golf allowed Evel a means to relax and perhaps even earn a few thousand in bets, he also gave back to the sport he loved by playing in many pro-am charity matches. As far back as 1975 he had been awarded the ‘JFK Man of the Year Trophy’ by the PGA for his donations and personal appearances at charity events. Former president Gerald Ford presented Evel with the award.
Throughout the Seventies Knievel also hosted the ‘Evel Knievel Labor Day Golf Tournament’ in Butte to raise money for local charities. Evel would invite celebrity pals like Mickey Rooney, Leslie Nielsen and Joe Louis to attend, and used to fly them down in his Learjet before he was forced to sell it off to help pay his mounting debts. Over the years he played with some of the biggest names in golf, including Lee Trevino, Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer.
But it was Knievel who needed charity now, and, with the best will in the world, playing golf was not going to earn him enough money to stabilise his accounts. In a last-ditch attempt to cash in on his famous name, Knievel became involved in what was to be a shambolic tour of Australia, though in a strictly non-jumping role. He was set to act as compere on the ‘Evel Knievel Thrill Spectacular’ and would perform a few wheelies but would not jump, even over short and relatively safe distances – it would be left to his son Robbie to do the jumping. In truth, Knievel should have known that the public – even a new Australian one – would not be interested in seeing Knievel if he wasn’t going to be performing, but with so few options available to him he accepted the invite and flew to Australia in February of 1979.
The tour had been organised by an Australian promoter named Michael Edgley, who had experience in touring with circuses and ballets but not with stunt performers. He had arranged 50 stunt acts ranging from high-wire motorcycle teams to high-fall specialists, with Knievel being the only famous name among them. The plan was to perform 40 shows over a nine-week period, covering most of Australia, but the tour seemed doomed from the off as Knievel was clearly only interested in getting paid for the use of his name to promote the show and had no real interest in the show itself. He mysteriously refused to answer questions at his first press conference and instead disappeared to the comfort of his hotel. Things only got worse as the tour kicked off in Orange, New South Wales. After making a grand entrance and pulling a few wheelies, Knievel disappeared again, disgusted with the poor amenities at the venue and with the totally unorganised show in general, which was suffering from technical problems and a lack of equipment that had been held up in transit. After the eighth stop on the tour, Knievel had had enough and decided to quit. He told Edgley he could no longer use his name to promote the tour, which was subsequently changed to the ‘World’s Greatest Thrill Spectacular’. It limped along unnoticed as a disappointed Knievel jetted back home to the States, no closer to solving his problems.
If there was any consolation for Evel in 1979 it was the birth of his fourth child, Alicia, on 14 May. He was delighted with the arrival of his second daughter but another mouth to feed only added to his responsibilities, and it was clearly very difficult for Evel to accept that not only were his prime jumping days over, but that the only venues which he could now perform in were as small and amateurish as the ones he had started out in all those years before.
It is never easy for a celebrity to lose their fame – or wealth – and for a man as proud as Knievel to lose both was the worst thing he could have imagined. But a novelty act like his was always going to be a short-lived career, and, in truth, he did extremely well to stretch it out for as long as he did. Had he invested his millions wisely, he would still have been an extremely wealthy man who could have lived out his retirement on the golf course. Instead, he was constantly and desperately searching for a way, any way, in which to make more money. Still unable to dream up a suitable alternative to jumping, he resorted to squeezing his increasing girth back into the white jumpsuit which had always been his own version of Superman’s costume; a costume which could transform him from an ordinary man in the street to a superhero. He was going to jump again.
Evel’s last jumps have not been well documented, such was the lack of interest in him after his jail sentence. He had been given a second chance by his American public after disappointing at Snake River, but, having blown that with the failed shark jump and his arrogant attitude towards the penal system, he wasn’t about to get a third one. By all accounts (or rather, the few that exist), Evel took to making small, easy jumps in small venues with few ticket sales, a humiliating experience and one which did not earn him much money. Having lost his Harley-Davidson contract, Evel reverted to riding Triumphs again, but by now no one really cared. It was 1980, the beginning of a new decade, and people seemed eager to put the Seventies behind them as quickly as they could. That meant abandoning the icons of that decade, of which Evel Knievel was undoubtedly one. The chest-beating, chauvinist macho male with the medallion and anti-feminist outlook was no longer acceptable and certainly no longer looked up to. Knievel had simply become old-fashioned, and with his movie-star looks gone he was just too old, broken in body as well as spirit. ‘I was a gladiator and I couldn’t fight any more. My arms were broke, my legs were broke, and my heart was broke. I still wanted to be in the arena; I wanted to be a player and when that’s taken away from you when you’ve been so used to it, it’s very hard.’
So ignored were his last jumps that his very last performance is still argued over and Knievel himself, operating as he was through a haze of alcohol at the time, struggled to remember the exact details. He believed it was in Miami sometime during 1980 alongside Robbie, where the father-and-son team performed short crisscross jumps together (Evel jumped in one direction as Robbie jumped in the other), but other sources suggest it was in Pittsburgh. The very fact that the venue for his final jump is disputed proves how far the once mighty Knievel had fallen. His career, which had been one of the most publicised of the 1970s, ended not with one final spectacular performance or with a touching and emotional press conference, but with a whimper followed by total silence. It was a sad exit by anyone’s standards, but Evel Knievel’s motorcycle-jumping career was finally over.
He toured briefly with Robbie in 1981 to help promote his son’s career but never again performed himself, and, with the touchy relationship between the two becoming more pronounced as Evel faced up to his son ‘stealing’ his fame, he got out of the motorcycle-jumping business once and for all after the ’81 tour.
Robbie ‘Kaptain’ Knievel would go on to better all of his father’s records, both in terms of total distance cleared and obstacles jumped, but there were two crucial differences between their careers. The first was that Robbie used a proper motocross bike which was much more suited to jumping and allowed him to easily out-distance his father’s jumps (his 223-foot jump in Vegas in 1998 was almost 100 feet more than Evel ever managed), which were performed on heavy, unwieldy Harley-Davidsons, Triumphs and American Eagles. The other, even more important, difference was that Robbie was not the originator of the profession of motorcycle jumping and was not blessed with the charisma of his father. People always remember firsts: the first man to run a four-minute mile; the first man on the moon; the first man to climb Everest. They are not nearly so interested in those who follow in the footsteps of originators – those who stand on the shoulders of giants. By the time Robbie was into his stride as a motorcycle jumper the novelty had passed and audiences were no longer interested in variations – however impressive – of the same theme. Had Robbie been as loud, brash and inventive as his father, he may have attracted more publicity, but as it was he not only replicated his father’s jumps but he also used many of the same quotes which Evel had been churning out since 1965, and even took to calling himself ‘the last of the gladiators’, just as Evel had. He wore an almost identical suit to Evel’s, signed his autographs with ‘Lucky Landings’ (a variation on Evel’s ‘Happy Landings’), and even billed himself as ‘Evel Knievel II’ on occasion. He was, to all intents and purposes, a less entertaining clone of his more famous father and the public, by and large, were not interested. Robbie himself even admitted that ‘My dad was flamboyant and I’m not like that. He created his own sport and you can’t take that away from him. Back then, there was Elvis, Muhammad Ali and my dad.’ Now there was only Robbie.
