Life of Evel: Evel Knievel (26 page)

There were few regrets in Knievel’s extraordinary life: with the exception of a ‘couple of women’ that he would have liked to have slept with and a couple of people he would have liked to have killed, he only wished he could have gone a little faster on a few jumps and made the landings stick. He also regretted not having access to today’s modern high-tech safety equipment such as back protectors and body armour, equipment which could have saved him a great deal of pain and injury. ‘I tell ya, I don’t know what was the matter with me. I thought I was a superman. [My suits] had a little bit of padding in the knees, a little in the shoulders and a little in the elbows. When I hit that pavement at 70 or 80mph those suits just ripped. If I had to do it all over again I’d a [sic] had shoulder pads on like a quarterback wears; I’d a [sic] had hip pads on, therefore I wouldn’t have broken my left hip five times; I’d wear a better pair of gloves so my hands weren’t so scarred up and burnt. What the hell, I guess I thought I was Elvis Presley, but I’ll tell ya something; all Elvis did was stand on a stage and play a guitar. He never fell off on that pavement at no 80mph.’

Evel Knievel was effectively laid to rest on 1 April 2007. Robert Craig Knievel remained alive, if not well, but the larger-than-life character he had created was finally cast off during a baptism ceremony at the Crystal Cathedral in Orange County, California on Palm Sunday.

The reason? Knievel had found God. And as a born-again Christian, the last name he wanted to be associated with was Evel – even if the spelling did differ from the dictionary definition and all the associations that entailed.

Knievel had always voiced concerns about his alter ego, believing he had created a monster which had got out of control. Robert Craig Knievel was human, but Evel Knievel had come to be regarded as an indestructible superman whose public expected too much from him. Knievel’s concern over the insinuations his stage name gave rise to had led to him choosing the spelling ‘E-v-e-l’ rather than ‘E-v-i-l’ in the first place, and now, more than ever, he was determined to disassociate himself from the moniker that had made him and cursed him in almost equal measures. From this point on, he wished to be known by his Christian name of Robert.

In true Knievelian style, Robert Knievel did not find God in a quiet, thoughtful, introspective manner, but rather with a blinding revelation worthy of an evangelical preacher. At his baptism ceremony, he revealed to thousands of fellow worshippers at the Crystal Cathedral how God had finally entered his life during the annual Bike Week at Daytona, Florida. ‘I rose up in bed and I said “Devil, devil, you bastard you, get away from me. I cast you out of my life.” I went to the balcony of my hotel room and said, “I will take you and throw you, throw you on the beach. You will be dead, you will be gone. I don’t want you around me anymore.” I did everything I could. I just got on my knees and prayed that God would put His arms around me and never, ever, ever let me go.’

During the on-stage interview held prior to Knievel’s baptism, the frail, reformed hell-raiser took on the mantle of an evangelical preacher with all the hyperbole he had put into his own self-promotion in the 1970s. He appealed to his audience: ‘You’ve got to believe in Jesus Christ. I don’t know how many of you here have felt what I have felt. Let me see your hands – the hands of how many of you have the feeling that I have been telling you that I feel.’

As hundreds of arms were raised and many worshippers began sobbing, it was clear that Knievel had lost none of his touch for working an audience. As sunlight streamed into the cathedral through the building’s 10,000 windows and lit upon the palms and sumptuous surroundings therein, the Rev. Robert H. Schuller looked on proudly as his latest convert accepted God into his heart.

Schuller had founded the Crystal Cathedral Ministry back in 1955 and had become one of America’s most famous TV evangelists in the intervening years. As his health continued to deteriorate, Knievel had taken to watching the Cathedral Ministry’s
Hour of Power
broadcasts on television which went out to more than 100 countries across the globe. Inspired by what he saw and heard during these broadcasts, Knievel contacted Schuller with a view to being publicly baptised. Schuller initially admitted to having doubts about Knievel, given his reputation for adultery, drinking and general wild ways, but he was eventually persuaded that Knievel was a changed man and agreed to baptise him on Palm Sunday, 2007.

But there may have been another reason why Knievel was accepted; the Crystal Cathedral Ministry had been undergoing some hard times of late. The congregation’s long-time orchestra conductor had recently committed suicide in a church toilet and, according to reports in
Christianity Today,
revenues from the
Hour of Power
show had come up $3 million short in 2006. The ministry clearly needed a turnaround in fortunes and the publicity that a triumph of ‘good winning over Evel’ promised may have been too tempting to ignore.

While he may have chosen to revert to his Christian name of Robert, Knievel seemed unwilling to completely disassociate himself from the name which still paid the bills and was accordingly baptised under the name Robert ‘Evel’ Knievel. He told the audience of his joy at the occasion: ‘I want to scream to the world that I am a born-again Christian and I’m so proud of it. I’m just so proud of it. Thank you, thank you.’

Following Knievel’s baptism, something of a religious frenzy broke out as hundreds of weeping worshippers spontaneously decided to re-affirm their faith or get baptised for the first time.
Christianity Today
reported that ‘between 500 and 800 people committed or re-dedicated their lives to God’ following Knievel’s baptism. Rev. Schuller told the religious magazine, ‘We started singing “Amazing Grace” and I started baptising people – baptising them as fast as I could. I had a little candy dish of water. “What’s your name?” “Okay, I baptise you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” – crying the whole time and going to the next one.’

Schuller, assisted by four other pastors, continued this for a full 30 minutes until the frenzy abated. It seemed the ailing stuntman still had the power to change people’s lives.

The ceremony marked a monumental turnaround in Knievel’s attitude towards religion and, in particular, towards televangelists. In the past he had often lambasted men such as Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker and raged, ‘Who knows what these preachers are doin’ with our money? They’re scam artists, and (it’s) all tax free. It’s the biggest scam in the world, religion.’

Yet here was Knievel accepting Jesus Christ into his life in front of TV cameras and an assembly of thousands, struggling for breath without the oxygen tube he now required at most times, but singing the praises of the Lord and asking others to join him in his ecstasy. The reason for Knievel’s about-turn was simple – he knew he had only months to live. He had to make his peace with God.

Three years previously, in 2004, Knievel had been told he had idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), a terminal and rare condition which causes scarring and thickening of the surface of the insides of the lungs. The cause of the disease remains unknown (hence the term idiopathic) but the condition progressively attacks the lungs and leads to reduced transfer of oxygen to the bloodstream. Knievel was given three years at most to live: and this time there was no hope of a last-minute, life-saving operation as there had been for his liver disease. There is no known cure for pulmonary fibrosis. Father Time had played his trump card against his old adversary, Evel Knievel.

Knievel’s condition was made even worse by the fact that he was also having to deal with diabetes, hepatitis C, the ongoing effects of his liver transplant, a hip replacement, a fused spine, and all the aches and pains from countless broken bones over the years. It seemed there was little else fate could throw at him; he was like a walking, breathing medical reference book.

Although the causes of IPF are unknown to the medical establishment, Knievel himself felt sure he knew what had brought it on in his own case. He told
Motor Cycle News
that ‘the fibrosis was caused by a drug called Interferon; it was given to me for my liver transplant to stop the transplant rejecting. Interferon caused this terrible breathing problem I have and what it has done is harden my lungs. I should never have had them use Interferon on me, they should have used a vitamin pill called Alpha Lipoic acid. It’s one of the most wonderful vitamin pills in the world and it keeps the fibrosis under control.’

Knievel was prescribed medicated lollipops to help ease the pain from his oft-broken back which was now fused in three places. His daredevil past was finally catching up with him and extracting a heavy price for the fame and wealth it had once given him. The lollipops contained the painkilling drug Phentanol and Knievel explained that ‘The amount in these suckers is 80 times stronger than morphine. I take three of these a day for pain – you can’t believe how much pain I am in all the time. I’ve had seven breaks in my back and these help me with that. But I’m going to have to live with this pain until I die.’

By late 2006 the lollipops were no longer enough and Knievel was forced to have an operation to fit an internal morphine pump in his stomach to help ease the agony in his lower back caused by so many jarring landings and fractured vertebrae. He explained, ‘This (pump) sends morphine and synthetic heroin into my back 24 hours a day. It’s awfully strong – it affects your thinking, your brain.’

Yet while his body was failing him, Knievel’s tougher-than-nails character remained. His spirit was undaunted and he faced the news of his imminent death with the same courage and bravery he had shown over so many years. Knievel was even practical about the devastating news and had the gravestone which was originally made in 1974 in case the Snake River Canyon jump went wrong brought out of storage in preparation for his dying day. The stone had been stored by a Knievel family friend, Alma Barry, for over 30 years after the canyon debacle.

Despite his worsening health problems, Knievel had stubbornly remained in the public eye. In January of 2005 he had once again become embroiled in the US judicial system, this time attempting to sue an American website which had published a picture of him with Krystal and another young lady and added the caption ‘You’re never too old to be a pimp.’ Knievel claimed the caption damaged his image but the US Appeals court did not agree, the judge ruling that, in the context of its usage, the term had lost its derogatory meaning. He even went so far as to say that it was probably intended as a compliment. Knievel made some noises about appealing but in the end, the matter simply died away.

When the fourth annual Evel Knievel Days festival rolled around in July of the same year, Knievel was so ill that Krystal refused to ride pillion with him during the event. Knievel, still showing a sense of humour, grunted that he would ‘ride with a naked blow-up doll instead’.

Krystal’s fears were well founded however. During a gentle ride-out a few months previously, Evel had been forced to flag down a passing motorist for help in turning his bike which was now clearly too heavy for him to manoeuvre unassisted.

It is doubtful if Knievel was cheered up much by the first showings of the made-for-TV movie,
Evel Knievel,
in the same year. The film proved to be every bit as lightweight as George Hamilton’s 1971 effort of the same name, and was soon relegated to late night showings on obscure satellite channels. The gritty, true-to-life biopic of Knievel’s life that
Pure Evel
promised to be remained unmade.

Knievel was by now being fed a constant supply of oxygen through a tube to keep him alive. Even with this aid his breathing was still laboured and he was constantly trying to clear his throat as the pressurised gas dried it out. ‘The most precious commodity in the world is pure oxygen,’ he bemoaned, ‘and I can’t even get enough of that any more.’ The once famous Knievel swagger had been reduced to a shuffling gait as the sad figure pulled the life-giving canister of oxygen around behind him like a ball and chain. It was a sorry sight to see the man who so many kids had once thought of as superhuman shuffling around in short steps and gasping for every breath. And things were only going to get worse.

In June of 2007, Knievel was hospitalised after suffering from a second stroke. His son Robbie decided to go ahead with a jump over $40 billion in fake cash (for reasons best known to the jump’s promoters) in Wilmington, Delaware, but he was clearly anxious about his father’s health, as he explained to the American TV channel Fox prior to the jump. ‘My dad’s not doing good – he just had another stroke yesterday,’ he said. ‘He’s in the hospital and they’re doing some MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scans. That’s his second stroke and he’s got pulmonary fibrosis. He’s had a hip replacement and 15 or 17 major operations where they cut him open to put steel in him or take it out of him. I’m just going to keep on continuing to keep the name Knievel the most famous on two wheels. I’m like the last of the last.’

After so many years of feuding, father and son were finally on speaking terms in the twilight of Evel’s life, but Robbie still had to choose his conversations carefully to avoid his father’s wrath. ‘He doesn’t have long to live now,’ he admitted. ‘I tell him all the time that I just want us to have a father-son relationship. I don’t want to talk business.’

Robbie also admitted to
USA Today
that following in his famous father’s footsteps as he had done was always going to be difficult. ‘He never wanted anyone to surpass him,’ he said. ‘For years, it seemed like my dad was pushing me off, like I was his competitor. He just never wanted to move over. I could never fill his shoes anyway. It’s like being Elvis’ daughter or Muhammad Ali’s son.’

Evel attended the sixth annual Evel Knievel Days festival in Butte in July of 2007, though he was clearly in extremely poor health. The festival included the usual stunt displays, live bands and general partying over three days, with the highlight as ever being an appearance by the man himself. As things turned out, it would prove to be Knievel’s last public appearance in his home town.

Knievel had accepted his prognosis manfully and, while he admitted to having some regrets while reflecting on the incredible life he had led, he seemed ready to make his final leap into the unknown. He told
Motor Cycle News,
‘I’ve done things that I’m not proud of that I wish I could erase from the scorecard. But I’ll tell you, it’s been a good ride. It’s been a good ride, but I’m done. I’m absolutely done…done with life I mean.’

In September it was announced that a $7 million Evel Knievel roller coaster would be built in St Louis. David Roemer of Six Flags St Louis – the company behind the venture – said his fun park’s eighth roller coaster would be a tribute to the ‘king of adrenaline’ and would open in 2008. The coaster, which will reach heights of 82 feet and speeds of up to 50 miles per hour, is intended to give passengers some idea of the thrills and adrenalin experienced by Knievel during one of his jumps.