Читать книгу Life of Evel: Evel Knievel - Stuart Barker - Страница 8

Very few people become so famous that they are identifiable to the mainstream public by a single name. The vast majority of people in the Western world would know exactly who Sinatra, Ali or Hitler were, but these are all surnames and the Recognisable-by-a-single-name Club becomes much more exclusive when only first names are permitted. Elvis can certainly claim membership, but so can another white-jumpsuited icon: Evel.

Perhaps it is because both names are unusual, although Elvis is genuine while Evel is merely a nickname-cum-stage name; or it may be that both men were the single-handed creators of the phenomenon they respectively gave rise to. Whatever the case, Evel could rightly lay claim to being one of the few celebrities of the late twentieth century who was recognisable by his first name without any need for further expansion or explanation. Yet how he came to have one of the most recognised stage names in showbiz is not quite so simple, and it is quite possible that the origins of it were hazy even to the man himself, given, as he was, to repeating tales with such frequency that, true or false, he certainly seemed to believe in them himself.

The most commonly repeated anecdote of how Bobby Knievel became Evel Knievel is the jail-cell theory, which holds that Bobby was being held in a Butte police cell overnight along with a man called William Knoffel. According to the legend, a police officer quipped that he had better double the guard because he was housing both ‘Awful’ Knoffel and ‘Evil’ Knievel on the same night. Contemporary newspaper reports prove that a William Knoffel did exist, and Butte police officer Morris Mulchahy has actually testified to this version of events in the documentary Evel Knievel: The Last of the Gladiators.

The problem with this theory is that Evel himself later claimed he was nicknamed ‘Evil’ at a much younger age. In Evel Ways: The Attitude of Evel Knievel, he is quoted as saying, ‘The first one to call me Evil Knievel was Nig McGrath, a friend of the family. My brother Nick and I stole his hubcaps and he hollered “You’re just a little evil Knievel.” It sort of stuck…even though I was somewhat ashamed of the name.’ (Although later in the very same book there are claims that the nickname was started by a neighbour and/or the local police due to Knievel’s bike-riding antics.) The name McGrath turned up again in Penthouse magazine but under different circumstances when Evel explained, ‘The guy that actually named me “Evil” was Nick McGrath, a baseball umpire. Every time I’d come up, even in Little League, he’d call me “Evil Knievel”.’ Whether this Nig McGrath and Nick McGrath are one and the same person (their names are repeated here as they were spelled in the respective publications) is open to debate, but the salient point is that Knievel was claiming to have been nicknamed ‘Evil’ from a young age.

One aspect of the famous name which Knievel did not contradict in his explanations was the changing of the spelling from ‘Evil’ to the less demonic ‘Evel’. He always claimed that he didn’t want any young fans to think he was a truly bad man or an evil man, or, as he once wittily suggested, ‘I didn’t like it [the spelling] the other way. It was an unnecessary evil.’ Although the change in spelling does not affect the sound of the word, it does neatly mimic the spelling of his surname, adding to the sense of alliteration, and there’s never been any harm in a self-publicist having his very own unique name to market – and eventually copyright.

However long he may have had the nickname of ‘Evil’, Bobby was never actually officially billed as ‘Evel’ in any of his shows until 1966, the year after he started performing motorcycle stunts and several years after he’d started dirt-track racing, where the name, one presumes, would have been equally beneficial in attracting attention. Indeed, another version of how he got his name relates to his time as a bike racer, as Knievel explained in the BBC documentary Touch of Evel: ‘I put together a stunt group called Bob Knievel and his Motorcycle Daredevils, Hollywood, California. My sponsor [Bob Blair of the Berliner Motor Co. who supplied Knievel’s team with bikes] said, “The nickname you have at the racetracks is Evil Knievel, why don’t you use it? It’s a better name.” So anyway, I did. I wasn’t too sure about it because I was ashamed of being called Evil.’

So it was that on 23 January 1966 the newly christened Evel Knievel and his Motorcycle Daredevils made their public debut in the grounds of Indio’s National Date Festival, where the team performed a selection of stunts, some original and some borrowed and adapted from car stunt-shows. It would presumably not have been known to Knievel that there had been a troupe of riders performing similar stunts in Britain for years. The Royal Signals Display Team – The White Helmets – was formed in 1927 as a means of demonstrating the skills of its Army dispatch riders, and their repertoire included jumping through hoops of fire, fast crossovers (where two riders race towards each other narrowly avoiding a collision) and six-bike pyramids. But while Knievel’s daredevils were not an entirely new conception, they were new to American audiences and their presentation was certainly a far cry from the officious military performances of The White Helmets.

Knievel often claims to have used 750cc Norton Commandos in these early jumps, but this must be the result of an inaccurate memory. The first Commando was not released until 1967, and since Knievel started jumping a Norton in 1966 he obviously could not have been mounted on a Commando. Early pictures of Evel’s stunt-shows clearly demonstrate him riding a Norton Scrambler with ‘knobbly’ off-road tyres, but it is difficult to ascertain exactly which model due to the grainy nature of the photographs. The most accurate description he could offer in later years when asked which model it was, was ‘It was similar to the Triumph [Triumph Bonneville, which he would later ride]. It had two cylinders; I think it was a 750.’ He may have been a great stunt rider but Knievel’s knowledge and memory for makes and models of motorcycles is questionable.

The team’s first stunt show lasted for approximately two hours during which Knievel and his motley crew smashed through burning wooden boards, performed wheelies and even jumped over small ramps which were being held up by other members of the team as they lay underneath them. At one point Knievel even parasailed behind a racing car at speed, though claims that he reached speeds of 200mph are clearly ridiculous. The show’s grand finale was to feature Evel leaping over two pick-up trucks parked tail-to-tail, a distance of about 45 feet. It was a short distance compared to what he would later achieve, but since few had seen this sort of stunt attempted before it proved a genuine crowd-pleaser.

Knievel was paid $500 for putting on his show, which didn’t go far between his team members. But even in those early days he must have realised what would become one of the biggest downfalls of his newfound career: once he’d cleared any given distance he would be forced to better it next time. No one wanted to see Knievel churning out the same old stunts in the knowledge that he was operating well within his limits. Over the next ten years Evel would have to continue pushing the envelope by jumping further and further until those two small pick-up trucks would be replaced by 14 full-size Mack trucks – and even a canyon.

Entertaining it may have been, but at this stage Knievel’s show was exactly where it belonged: in a small-town festival. It was a county-fair attraction, much as Elvis Presley’s music had been at the outset, and both men vied with coconut stalls and other fairground novelties to gain the attention of the gathered crowds. There was certainly nothing to suggest that the rough-and-ready motorcycle stuntman jumping battered old pick-up trucks would eventually capture the world’s imagination to such an extent that he would be able to single-handedly sell out the 90,000-capacity Wembley Stadium.

Significantly, Knievel had still not yet hit upon one of the most memorable aspects of his shows: his famous white jumpsuit. For his early performances he wore a much duller black leather suit with golden stars down the legs, a suit much more typical of motorcycle racers at the time. Like any entertainment act, Knievel’s would need time to become fully polished and presentable, but for the first time in his life he had finally found something he enjoyed enough to persevere with, and with each performance he would introduce new levels of showmanship and professionalism.

Television cameras were present to record what was only the Daredevils’ second-ever performance on 10 February in Barstow, California. It’s a date Knievel was unlikely to forget, it being the first time he was injured in his stunt career. It was also the one and only time he attempted the insane stunt which led to his injury.

Knievel stood facing an oncoming motorcycle being ridden at speed by one of his colleagues. With timing being the critical factor, Evel would leap up into a star-jump position, allowing the bike and rider (who was tucked down flat on the tank) to pass through safely. At least, that was the theory, and it had worked in practice every time, but on show day it all went wrong. Knievel got his timing wrong by a split second as the speeding motorcycle approached and the bike smashed into his groin, flipping him over 360 degrees and leaving him writhing on the ground. ‘The motorcycle hit me right in the balls,’ he cringed. ‘I was thrown 15 feet into the air and my body turned a couple of flips. I landed on my back on the ground. I was in no pain, but felt paralysed. Most of my ribs were cracked or broken. Someone covered me with a blanket. That was the last time I ever tried that particular stunt.’

He perhaps didn’t realise it at the time but Knievel had just added another very attractive, however morbid, addition to his show – the very real possibility that he could get a stunt wrong and suffer a spectacular injury. Getting it wrong would ensure crowds kept flocking back for more in numbers, which surely would not have been possible had Knievel always successfully pulled off his stunts. If there was no danger there would be no sustained interest. Knievel may have suffered serious injuries after being smashed in the groin, but if he was going to get paid for it he wasn’t complaining. And when pictures of his ugly mishap made it into several West Coast newspapers the following day, Evel knew he was on to something.

But the money he earned in those early outings was pitiful, and if Knievel imagined he would one day make millions from his carnival act he was more of a visionary than he has been given credit for. The $500 the team was typically paid for a show had to be split up to six ways on occasion, and each man’s share was reduced further by the expenses incurred by travelling to and setting up each show. As Evel had already proved, the risks were extremely high for such scant rewards, but since he had no other obvious means of making cash he got straight back to stunting after being released from hospital. Knievel simply couldn’t allow the momentum to be halted; if he was going to make anything of this bizarre business he couldn’t let an inconvenience like pain stand in his way.

In his fourth appearance with the Daredevils, Knievel suffered even more serious injuries. At Missoula in Montana he attempted to leap over 13 cars, having already realised that two pick-up trucks was old news. He came up short and ploughed into a van parked at the end of the line of cars. Apart from being knocked unconscious, Knievel broke his left arm and several ribs – again. He was in bad shape and wouldn’t be up to working again for at least five months. And when Evel wasn’t working his show had lost its main attraction; gigs had to be cancelled and all of a sudden the other riders weren’t getting paid. While some performances went ahead, such as the one at Montana’s Great Falls Speedway on 21 August where Evel acted as host but could not perform, others were cancelled and Knievel’s co-riders began seeking out more consistent forms of employment. They simply couldn’t afford to hang around for months waiting for Evel to recover from injury. During those months of recuperation it must have appeared to Evel that his new career was over before it had really got started. It seemed that everything he turned his hand to would be doomed to failure.

With the benefit of hindsight, however, the disbanding of the Daredevils proved to be the best thing that could have happened as far as Evel was concerned. He had never been a team player and, since he was the main attraction anyway, he began to realise he could now perform on his own and keep all the money to himself. The shows would have to be shorter and more spectacular, even more risky, in order to keep audiences’ attention, but Evel Knievel the solo artist had finally arrived.

Wasting no time, Knievel started calling up racetrack promoters touting for gigs. He’d ask them what size crowd they usually drew then boldly promise he’d double it for them. The promoter would profit from sales of popcorn, peanuts, beer and car-parking, as well as half the gate money, while Knievel would settle for the other half of the gate money. He invariably instructed the promoters to ‘jack up your tickets by a buck or two’, and so, with minimal outlay and a percentage of the gates guaranteed, Evel Knievel hit the road.

Being a solo artist may have entailed a lot more work for Knievel but he didn’t seem to mind: it was, after all, in his own interest. So as well as performing he built all his own ramps, promoted and emceed his shows, and drove all over the western United States to whichever venue would have him.

Evel Knievel’s first-ever solo performance took place at the Naranche Memorial Drag Strip near his hometown of Butte on 30 October 1966. Undeterred by his failure to clear 13 cars in Missoula, Knievel attempted, and cleared, 14 cars on his solo debut. To the crowd present it seemed an impossible number and, given his previous failure, many were expecting blood. Knievel may have denied the more ghoulish members of the audience their kicks but he thrilled the rest of his home crowd with a feat they thought impossible. Montana had a new home-grown hero.

While his fame began spreading all over the west coast of America, Knievel was still desperately short of money, and while out on the road he and his young family were still sleeping rough under the stars, still bathing in rivers, and constantly aware that another big crash would sideline the only breadwinner in the family and make things even worse. Knievel’s existence truly was hand-to-mouth in the late 1960s.

But despite the hardships of a life on the road, the jumps continued and Evel reached another landmark in the spring of 1967 when his performances in between motorcycle races at the Ascot Park Speedway near Los Angeles were filmed for ABC’s Wide World of Sports. This was his first real chance at the big time. So long as he only performed live at small-time race meetings in front of a few thousand people then he could only ever hope to be a local hero. But with the promise of television coverage came the chance to make it as a national star, and, if he could achieve that, the riches he so desperately craved would surely follow.

The relationship between Knievel and ABC would prove extremely beneficial to both parties in the coming years, and the timing on Knievel’s part couldn’t have been better. ABC’s policy was to offer coverage of lesser-known sports, more often than not with an oddball quality, which is why Knievel’s antics slotted right into place. He was perfect fodder for the network and the link-up would ultimately inspire thousands of American kids to emulate Knievel. In one article describing the relationship between ABC and Knievel, writer Christopher Ross went as far as to say ‘it can be argued that today’s increased popularity of extreme sports can be directly traced to Knievel and Wide World of Sports.’

ABC certainly helped spread the Evel word to a national audience, and he, in turn, rewarded them with five of their 20 most successful broadcasts ever. His 1975 jump over 14 Greyhound buses at King’s Island still ranks as the highest rating the channel has ever had, with an incredible 52 per cent audience share – better than Muhammad Ali and George Foreman’s rumble in the jungle and every Super Bowl ever held.

But that was all still in the future; for now, Knievel kicked off his first national television performance by successfully clearing 15 cars, breaking his own record by one. The television coverage did not go out live, however, and American audiences had to wait for another two weeks before getting their first taste of Evel Knievel on 25 March 1967.

Encouraged by his success, Knievel continued gathering momentum and moved on to clear 16 cars at the Ascot Raceway near Los Angeles before attempting the same number again at the Graham Speedway near Tacoma, Washington. This time things didn’t go quite so smoothly and Knievel lost his balance on landing and parted company with his bike, sustaining a slight concussion in the process. Just under three weeks later he returned to the same venue to see the job through successfully, proving to his audience that he was no quitter and that he would see anything through if he had given his word to do so.

This was another crucial part of the Evel Knievel phenomenon: to Knievel his word was his bond, and he could offer nothing more to anyone than that. It stemmed from his Butte upbringing where a man could only be seen as a man if he kept his word. If you say you’re going to do something in Butte, you had better do it, and it was a code that Evel lived by. Throughout his career he attempted jumps he felt he couldn’t make, even at the risk of serious injury or death, because he’d given his word he’d try. It was this strongly held belief that led Knievel to try the biggest and most outrageous stunt of his entire career some years later, and, ultimately, to his undoing.

Evel had by now abandoned his Norton in favour of another British bike, a 650cc Triumph T120 Bonneville, now one of the most revered of all classic British motorcycles. Despite his later association with Harley-Davidson, Knievel never hesitated in naming the Bonneville as his favourite bike of all time for jumping. ‘The Triumph was a much better handling motorcycle than the Harley. The XR-750 Harley had way too much torque. When it got up in the air it wanted to twist because it had so much torque. The Triumph 650 went as straight as a bullet.’ His praise for the 650cc model, however, did not extend to the 750cc version, which he rather amusingly berated as ‘…a piece of crap. It couldn’t pull a sick whore off a piss-pot with Vaseline on her.’

But, as Evel was finding out, there was more to jumping a motorcycle than simply twisting the throttle and hoping the bike went as straight as a bullet. ‘The big thing about jumping over cars on a motorcycle is to hit the take-off ramp just right. I don’t want the bike’s front wheel to hit the ramp too hard. That might throw me over the handlebars. I have to hang on tight. And then I fly through the air and hope for a safe landing. When I jump I stand or lean forward on the balls of my feet. The motorcycle has a tendency to buck and come over backwards on me so I try and lean forward to hold it down. I want to go off the take-off ramp right at the top of the power curve. If I do, the bike’ll go straight through the air. If I don’t, the motorcycle has a tendency to drift sideways and cross up. It’s just like crouching in a crouch; if you crouch too much you can’t jump very high, if you don’t crouch at all you don’t jump very high. You gotta be on the power curve.’

It is, as Evel often explained, only when the rider has left the take-off ramp that the real skill of motorcycle jumping comes into play. ‘Anyone can jump a motorcycle, the trouble comes when you try to land it. I never missed a take-off in my life. It’s like I put you in a Learjet and help you take off but then I give you the controls and say “all right, big boy, now you go ahead and land it”. That’s where you’ll have your ass knee deep in crap, boy.’

The most incredible thing about Knievel’s jumping technique was that it was all based on feel and instinct rather than being scientifically calculated in the way that modern jumpers prepare their jumps. As he openly admitted, ‘I did everything by the seat of my pants. That’s why I got hurt so much.’ One of Knievel’s former friends and helpers, Joe Delaney, recalls being amazed at Knievel’s haphazard approach to jumping. Turning up for the first time to help Knievel set up his ramps he was expecting a much more high-tech approach than what he actually witnessed. ‘He told me, “Step off 40 steps.” I said, “What for?” He said, “That’s how far I’m gonna jump. Just draw a line in the dirt.” So we did and he set his ramps up.’

Knievel’s Triumph Bonneville was slightly customised to meet his unique demands, but it was still far from being an ideal tool for the job; unlike the modern motocross bikes, which are lightweight, have massive suspension travel and heaps of power. Like the motorcycle racers who have no need for road-going gear, Evel ditched the lights, mudguards and numberplates and fitted a racing engine and racing exhaust to help increase the bike’s standard top speed of around 110mph. Less necessary and more for show was the drogue parachute, which was fitted in the rearseat unit; it was designed to slow him down after big jumps but, as he proved when he had no parachute, this was not a major problem anyway unless his landing area was extremely confined. However, the flurry of the chute as it opened added to the drama and further created the impression that Knievel was pushing motorcycle technology to the limit.

Throughout 1967 Knievel toured and performed wherever he could secure a booking, and by the year’s end he had pulled off more than eight major jumps. Notable performances included a leap on 24 September over 16 Chevrolets in front of 4,000 demolition-derby race-goers at the Evergreen Speedway in Monroe, Washington. Knievel actually approached the jump too fast and overshot his landing ramp, though he somehow managed to keep the bike upright despite a heavy landing and steered it to safety. He did, however, suffer a compression fracture to his lower spine on landing and had to be administered with painkilling injections.

As successful as Knievel’s assorted dates were becoming, he was realising by now that it was going to take something extra special to drum up the level of public interest he dreamed of. Jumping rows of cars could only look impressive for so long – there had to be something else, something bigger, better and more spectacular. Knievel had been aware since his first jump when he leaped over snakes and mountain lions that what lay between his ramps was just as important as how far apart they were. ‘Right then,’ he told the press after his 1965 debut, ‘I knew I could pull a big crowd by jumping over weird stuff.’ It was a lesson well learned and one which would stand him in good stead throughout his career. The problem lay in dreaming up novelty obstacles that would be just possible to jump while retaining precisely the right amount of risk and danger, while convincing an audience that they could not be jumped. This balance between the possible and the impossible was another key element in Knievel’s unique brand of entertainment.

It’s easy to imagine Knievel, wherever he went from 1965 onwards, keeping one business eye on anything of note which could possibly be jumped on a motorcycle, just as an artist never stops searching for scenes to paint and a songwriter always has one ear open for potential melodies, lyrics and song titles. It’s even easier to imagine him dreaming up more and more crazy ideas during his regular drinking binges, and this was, in fact, how his most famous stunt of all originated in 1966.

Somewhat the worse for wear, Knievel had been boozing it up in a bar called Moose’s Place in Kalispell, Montana with his friend Chuck Shelton. Shelton spotted a calendar on the wall of the bar with a picture of the Grand Canyon on it and told Knievel he should try jumping that. Anyone other than Knievel would have laughed off the idea for the joke it was intended as, and, at least initially, that’s what Evel did. But gradually, through a haze of alcohol, the laughing stopped and Knievel began to realise he might just be on to something big. Very big. ‘The more I studied on it, and the more Montana Marys I put back, the narrower that durned [sic] hole in the ground seemed to get. People talk about the Generation Gap and the Missile Gap, but I suddenly saw that the real gap was right there in the heart of the Golden West. And I knew I could bridge the bastard.’ As an afterthought he added, ‘Ah well, what the hell? I always liked drinking and jumping.’

The Montana Marys Knievel was consuming on that particular evening have become as much part of his legend as his jumps, but the actual contents of Evel’s favourite drink have long been a source of speculation. Some claimed it was a near lethal combination of beer, tomato juice, Wild Turkey and vodka, while others suggested a touch of engine oil added to his beer was the magic ingredient. Like most things surrounding Knievel, the facts have been misinterpreted, distorted and exaggerated, and Evel was, more often than not, prepared to play along – or at least not deny any of his legend. However, he did finally put an end to the speculation surrounding the contents of a Montana Mary in 1998 when he disappointed many by confessing it was ‘…just beer and tomato juice [a drink favoured by Butte miners]. The stuff about Wild Turkey and vodka in it is just crap.’

Of course, even a daredevil wildly drunk on Montana Marys would realise that the massive, gaping chasm that was the Grand Canyon could never be jumped by any standard motorcycle. It was, after all, two miles wide at the spot Knievel was considering jumping and was as much as 5,700 feet deep in places. But that in itself was not enough to put Knievel off and he started making preliminary plans which would one day allow him to tackle the ultimate stunt. He initially conceptualised the building of a giant take-off ramp, 200 feet high and 740 feet long, which would allow him to tackle the canyon in the same way he tackled any other jump but on a much, much grander scale. He would have a custom bike built specially for the stunt, featuring a jet engine, wings and a parachute. Knievel even went as far as to claim he had made scientific calculations (for once) that would allow the bike to bridge the chasm. The bike was to be 13 feet long and weigh in at almost 1,000 kilos and, according to his calculations, it would reach a top speed of 250mph and would accelerate to 158mph in just 3.7 seconds. The total cost of building the ramp and bike he estimated at $1 million.

The whole idea seemed nothing short of ridiculous but, if nothing else, it gave Knievel something more to talk about and he announced these plans on national US television in late 1967, saying, ‘I’m going to try and jump across the Grand Canyon but I may have to parachute off the bike before reaching the other side. I know how to parachute and I can “track” with my body. If I bail off the bike, I’ll just aim my body toward the opposite rim of the canyon, open my parachute and land there.’ To those who scoffed at the idea and claimed Evel was just a publicity seeker, he added, ‘Before I even make the jump I may show these sceptics I mean business by riding a motorcycle across the Grand Canyon on a cable. I’ll be just like a tightrope walker in a circus, but I won’t have a safety net to catch me. That’d show those sceptics.’

In actual fact, the sceptics did have the last laugh as Knievel never did manage to jump the Grand Canyon, nor did he ride over it on a cable. Despite gaining preliminary permission from the Department of the Interior (who owned the land where Knievel proposed to take off from) to make the jump, this was later withdrawn when it was realised that Knievel was actually serious about the attempt. He had already announced a tentative jump date of 4 July 1968 but permission was withdrawn just a few months beforehand. For the time being, Knievel was grounded, at least as far as flying over the Grand Canyon went. But the seeds for jumping a canyon had been sewn; Knievel had promised his public he would see it through and the idea refused to go away. It would change shape and, eventually, location but it did not go away. One day, Knievel vowed, he would jump a canyon, some darned canyon, if only to prove the doubters wrong.

Unable to realise his ultimate dream for the time being, Knievel looked elsewhere for a means of breaking out of the rut that was jumping over cars. He finally found his location at the newly opened Caesar’s Palace casino and hotel resort, which was situated, somewhat appropriately, in the gambling capital of the world – Las Vegas. It was here, he decided, that he would take the gamble that would ultimately lead to worldwide fame and fortune or, equally likely, his own death.

Knievel was in Vegas for a middleweight title fight when he first clapped eyes on the spectacular fountains in front of Caesar’s grand entranceway. They gushed intermittently high up into the dry Vegas air and Evel realised straight away that they were perfectly suited to his needs: he vowed there and then to jump them. But even though he had built up a big-enough reputation to command national media coverage when he announced his jump, it wasn’t so easy gaining permission from the casino’s owners.

It is worth pointing out that Evel Knievel was a notorious yarn teller and it was often difficult to separate whole truths from half-truths, and half-truths from complete fantasy, when listening to his animated and entertaining speech. Over the course of almost 40 years he repeated and exaggerated the same tales to the point where he appeared to believe even the furthest-fetched stories himself. Knievel didn’t become the legend he is by telling modest, mundane anecdotes about himself; his larger-than-life character was very much part of the reason why he attained such fame, and his enthusiastic and often over-the-top story-telling went a long way to creating that character. Knievel himself may well have had the last laugh by telling tongue-in-cheek stories and fooling many into believing them. Indeed, it was once a running joke that in 20 minutes Knievel could tell enough yarns about his early life to keep a reporter busy for 20 years just checking them out. His famed rhetoric was exemplified in his explanation of how he gained permission to jump the Caesar’s fountains.

The day after the aforementioned Vegas title fight, Knievel called Caesar’s founder and executive director Jay Sarno, claiming to be a certain Frank Quinn from Life magazine. Knievel took up the story from both men’s points of view:

Knievel: Do you know Eval Neval?

Sarno: Eval Neval? Who the hell’s he?

Knievel: He’s the guy who’s gonna jump the Grand Canyon, says he’s gonna jump over your hotel.

Sarno: I heard about that nut, he ain’t gonna jump nothin’ around here. I gotta go, goodbye.

The following day, Knievel called Sarno again, this time posing as a reporter:

Knievel: Hi, this is Larson with Sports Illustrated. You ever heard of Evel Neevle?

Sarno: Evel Neevle? Who the hell’s this Evel Neevle?

Knievel: He’s the guy that’s going to jump the Grand…

Sarno: Oh yes, some guy called me yesterday about that guy. I don’t know, something around here…something’s going on. I don’t know. Call back.

Two days later, Knievel called again, this time impersonating a friend who worked for the ABC television network.

Knievel: This is Dennis Lewen from ABC’s Wide World of Sports. Do you know Evel Knievel?

Sarno: Eval Neval, Evel Neevle, Evel Knievel? Who is this crazy guy? Everybody’s calling me up about him. I think we’ve got a deal with him, I don’t know, call back.

With the ball rolling, Knievel then sent his fictitious business partners to work. Because he admired the Jewish community for their financial skills, Knievel had created three fictitious Jewish businessmen to head up his company, ‘Evel Knievel Enterprises’, the idea being that the list of names on his headed stationery would look impressive and persuade people to take him more seriously.

The president was named as H. Carl Forbes, the vice president was Mike Rosenstein and the secretary and treasurer listed as Carl Goldberg. Knievel himself did a very fine, if stereotyped, Jewish/ American accent and claimed he often called people up, on his own behalf, in this accent pretending to be any one of the three fictitious businessmen. With Sarno at least now aware of who Evel Knievel was, it was time for the killer punch and this time Knievel called impersonating Rosenstein:

Knievel: Hello, this is Rosenstein.

Sarno: Who?

Knievel: Rosenstein.

Sarno: Who the hell do you represent?

Knievel: Evel Knievel. He’s going to be in your office this afternoon about two o’clock to see you about this big jump. He’s gonna make you famous. Nobody ever heard of this Caesar’s Palace.

With the meeting set up, Knievel finished the story. ‘So I go to this Sarno, knock on his door, the secretary lets me into these big executive offices; she ran to the back [office] door and says, “It’s him, it’s him.” He comes running out of his office and says, “Kid, where you been? I been looking all over for you!”’

It’s an unlikely scenario and would depend on an extremely switched-on businessman like Sarno being fooled no less than four times, but it is indicative of the way Knievel worked, which was very much along the same lines as ex-carnival huckster Colonel Tom Parker who became a multi-millionaire representing Elvis Presley by promoting him in a similarly unorthodox but effective fashion. Knievel never took the obvious approach when it came to promoting himself, and in an era before PR executives and massive marketing agencies became all too commonplace his imagination and flair for self-promotion served him well.

However, Knievel actually gained permission to jump the fountains at Caesar’s, and he bartered a deal with Sarno which would see him performing three leaps there: on New Year’s Eve 1967 and on 3 and 6 January 1968. Promotional posters were placed all over Las Vegas inviting the public to see Knievel, who was already billing himself as ‘The King of Stuntmen’. By leaping over what the promotional posters billed as the ‘highest fountains in the world’, Knievel was claiming a world-record attempt and the posters even boasted that ‘a two-hundred-yard elevated takeoff runway ramp’ was ‘now under construction’.

The pre-jump publicity campaign was enough to rouse interest among Vegas regulars who would never dream of showing up at a small-time county fair, and crowd estimates on the evening of 31 December reached 25,000 – a figure which would later prompt Evel to boast that ‘Frank Sinatra couldn’t draw that crowd if he jumped naked off the hotel roof.’

With the ramp in place, the rear suspension on his Triumph Bonneville stiffened and special cams, pistons and valve springs fitted to give faster acceleration and a higher top speed, Knievel readied himself for his 2 p.m. matinée performance with what had, by now, become his standard preparatory routine: a few shots of Wild Turkey bourbon and a quick prayer. He was confident to the point that even a bad omen en route to his waiting motorcycle didn’t dampen his spirits. ‘The one thing I remember was coming downstairs [from his hotel room] for the jump. I’d had my good-luck shot of Wild Turkey, like always, and was walking past the tables and stopped at the roulette and bet $100 on red. It was black. I thought nothing of it, just put my helmet under my arm and kept walking.’

As he appeared outside the entrance to the hotel to the cheers of the crowd, Knievel waved and soaked up the applause before donning his helmet and mounting his motorcycle. Under normal circumstances, Evel would perform a few practice runs by heading straight for the take-off ramp before veering off left or right at the last second. At Caesar’s, however, there simply wasn’t the space to allow for such a luxury and Knievel would effectively be flying blind. All he could do was dump the clutch on the Triumph, hope his rear wheel would hook up and grip the wooden runway, then kick his way up through the gears to gain whatever speed he felt he needed. If he dropped the clutch too harshly when setting off his back wheel could easily lose traction and spin up, and if he fluffed just one gear change he could easily fail to gain the required momentum. There could be no stopping at speed halfway up a ramp to have another run. Apart from possible rider error, there was also the danger of component failure – and that risk was much more pronounced in Knievel’s era than it is now. British bikes in particular, like Knievel’s Triumph, were renowned for spouting oil leaks back in the 1960s, and that was only one potentially lethal hazard. Another very real danger was the possibility of a chain snapping under the strain of the launch, leaving Evel with no drive and the threat of the chain becoming entangled in his rear wheel, which would almost inevitably cause a crash. Or the engine could develop a misfire for any number of reasons, again leaving Knievel down on power and unable to clear the distance. His throttle could stick open as he sped down the runway, meaning he would be travelling way too fast and would overshoot his landing ramp, again putting him in great personal danger. And those were just the problems he faced on the take-off. Other problems, like a rear wheel collapsing on landing (which would actually happen during a 1970 jump in Seattle), or the rear suspension bottoming out and spitting him off (which happened many times), or even brake failure, were all to be considered. Motorcycle jumping, especially in Knievel’s pioneering days, was extremely dangerous.

But it was danger which had drawn 25,000 people out onto the streets of Las Vegas and Knievel wasn’t about to have any second thoughts and disappoint the biggest audience he had ever attracted. It was make-or-break time and Evel knew it. His reputation and career would stand or fall on this one jump alone. There could be no backing out, even if his nerves were screaming, his palms sweating and his heart racing.

With Knievel and his mechanics satisfied that the bike was set up as well as it could be and sounding as it should as he revved it in neutral, Knievel finally decided the crowd had waited long enough and kicked the Triumph into gear. He gunned the bike down the runway, revving it out to maximum revs in each gear until he reached 90mph. It was the highest speed he could achieve in the distance he had to work with but he still had no more idea than anyone watching if it would be enough to carry him to safety. Still, Evel’s run was looking good. He seemed to have the speed and his launch looked perfect; he even had the measure of the bike in mid-air, purposefully dropping its tail in search of a smooth rear-wheel landing. He sailed through the spray of the ornate fountains, travelling what seemed an impossible distance for anything without wings, and the Las Vegas revellers gawped in disbelief at what they were seeing. He had done it. This crazy kid had actually gone through with what he’d promised, and hell, did it look impressive. As man and machine descended back down towards the landing ramp things still looked good; it still looked like Knievel was going to pull off the apparently impossible. Then his worst nightmare happened.

Just one foot further and Evel may well have got away with it. He’d travelled a distance of 141 feet – way further than he’d ever managed before – but he landed just inches short and his rear wheel smashed into the safety deck which guarded the lethal edge of his landing ramp to prevent him from being decapitated in the event of him falling short.

The term ‘rag doll’ is over-used when describing a rider being thrown from a motorcycle either in racing or stunt riding, but there is no other way to describe how Knievel’s body was slammed and battered down the Tarmac when the impact of the landing threw him off the bike, tearing its handlebars from his grasp. He was thrown over the front of the motorcycle and landed first on his back before tumbling at great speed end over end, limbs flailing helplessly as his head took an equally brutal battering from the Las Vegas asphalt. The crowd, who split seconds earlier were expecting victory, looked on in horror.

Some reports said that Evel actually slid further than he had jumped, and the only thing which eventually stopped him from tumbling even further was a decorative brick wall which he slammed into while still carrying speed. What happened next was nothing short of chaos. The crowd went hysterical, screaming and wailing, convinced they had just witnessed a man killing himself right in front of their eyes. Smoke poured from the twisted metal of the once-immaculate Triumph as medical crews, hangers-on and rubberneckers surged round Knievel’s battered and apparently lifeless body. General panic reigned until Knievel was removed by ambulance to the nearby Sunrise Hospital. It would be 29 days before he woke up again, but when he did, he would be a star.