Life of Evel: Evel Knievel (17 page)

The film was directed by Gordon Douglas, who had enjoyed considerable success with a string of movies dating back to 1931 and starring such big names as Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Bob Hope and Jerry Lewis. The film’s producer, Irwin Allen, had also enjoyed remarkable success, albeit more recently with smash hits like
The Poseidon Adventure
and
The Towering Inferno.

Initial interest in
Viva Knievel!
seemed encouraging as Evel was swamped by fans during filming in Los Angeles. Things eventually got so out of hand that Warner Bros. had to post a line of security guards around the perimeter of the East Los Angeles College Stadium where some of the opening scenes would take place. Allen was quoted in the local press as saying he had never seen anything like it in all the movies he had made, even when he was working with top-flight movie stars.

The movie had a rather modest budget of $5 million (compared to the $15 million spent on
The Towering Inferno
for example) and was scripted by Norman Katkov and Antonio Santilla, although Knievel claims to have had a hand in the process. It would certainly seem so, given that the movie seemed at times to serve solely as a vehicle for portraying Evel as a nice guy; one who visited kids in hospital and dished out – surprise, surprise – his own Ideal Knievel toys; and one who would always take a stand against drugs. Ideal toys also benefited from the movie tie-in by releasing a wind-up version of the film’s futuristic bike, the Strato Cycle.

His involvement in
Viva Knievel!
took up much of 1976, and when Evel wasn’t on set he’d enjoy hanging around Hollywood’s bars, mingling with the rich and famous, just as he enjoyed doing in Las Vegas. Knievel’s favourite LA bar was Filthy McNasty’s, which, like so many other bars and clubs in the city, had a neon sign outside advertising the evening’s entertainment. What distinguished it from all the others was that when Knievel was holding court the sign outside proudly announced ‘NOW – Drunk Inside – Evel Knievel’. Unlike some stars, who go to exceptional lengths to protect their privacy, Knievel announced his presence wherever he went and thrived on being the centre of attention. While filming
Viva Knievel!,
Evel stayed in the Sheraton Universal Hotel in Hollywood where he was next door to
Kojak
actor Telly Savalas, whom he considered a good friend. ‘We were room-mates for a couple of years at the Universal. We used to drink together, play golf together at the Lakeside Country Club. He was a great guy, we had a lot of fun together.’

Knievel had, in fact, spent much of the last few years living in the hotel where he could mingle with Hollywood’s finest, and, along with his hotel suite in Las Vegas, he counted the Universal as very much a home from home.

With Linda back in Butte looking after their three children as usual, Evel was free to enjoy himself in any way he saw fit, and LA offered as many temptations as Las Vegas, if not more. But the fine foods and increasing dependence on alcohol were taking their toll on the once well-built figure of Evel: he was getting fat, and by the time October rolled round he hadn’t performed a jump for a whole year. He was becoming dangerously idle. With money continuing to be a problem, Knievel announced he was going to don his jumpsuit yet again and this time it would be in Worcester, Massachusetts on 11 October 1976, but, just as he had stated back in Kings Island, he wasn’t jumping for distance, just for show.

Despite initially promising to jump 13 vans, Evel broke his word on the day, claiming there wasn’t enough room for such a leap. Instead he performed two jumps over a mere four vans, three jumps over seven vans, and one not-so-climactic jump over ten vans – a distance of just over 70 feet. The only real bonus for those watching was that Robbie Knievel, now aged 14, made his first ever public jumping appearance instead of just popping wheelies in his father’s wheel tracks. Even so, only 9,000 people turned out to see the show, a sure sign that Knievel’s popularity was on the wane and that he was losing his credibility.

Had he hung up his flared jumpsuit and cape after Kings Island he could have retired with his reputation intact, notwithstanding the lingering Snake Canyon critics. At that event he had pulled off his biggest-ever jump masterfully in front of record television audiences and a healthy live gate, and had introduced his son into the arena he himself had created. In fact, keen to forget his final few disappointing appearances after this jump, Knievel has in recent years often cited Kings Island as his last performance.

The obvious next step for Knievel would have seemed to be in guiding and managing Robbie and capitalising on his famous name in whichever non-jumping way he could. With some wise investments he might even have managed to find some long-term financial security, but it was not to be.

Evel had originally intended to retire after his Snake River jump, but had carried on when the pay packet for that event had not turned out to be what he had expected. Then, after his Wembley crash, he actually did announce his retirement, albeit in a rather affected state of mind. He had once again considered packing it all in after Kings Island, but, as far as he was concerned, it was not an option available to him for one simple reason: he owed too much money and jumping was the only way he could think of to make more of it, even if his fear of dying was becoming more acute with age. ‘I don’t want to die,’ he admitted. ‘I get very nervous and afraid when I perform now and I’d like to retire. The older we get the more our way of thinking changes. No man likes to admit that he isn’t as good as he once was and it’s hard to quit any business. But when I get hurt now I don’t heal up like I used to. And I fear dying. But I can’t quit because the banks won’t let me. I borrowed a lot of money from them and I’ve got to pay them back. I’ve got a lot of obligations and investments. People went into investments with me because of my earning power. If I didn’t need to earn big money I’d retire. If I’d bought just one less Learjet or one less yacht I’d have another million or so in the bank and I wouldn’t have to keep on working.’

Knievel often referred to himself as ‘the last of the gladiators’, but he had never been more like one than he was now. Here was a man risking his life to win his freedom; his freedom from the very profession he had chosen. The fact that Knievel was also risking his life for financial freedom while gladiators fought for literal freedom mattered not – the principle, and possible outcome of death, was the same. He had fought himself into a corner he couldn’t get out of and his almost desperate confession of fear and concern is all the more touching for that. Like a prostitute trying to buy her way out of the trade, Knievel was going to have to keep on working the streets for the foreseeable future just to be able to survive.

Two weeks after his Worcester appearance the Knievel roadshow rolled into Seattle for a two-night performance in the city’s new Kingdome. Despite promising he would jump 10 buses at the indoor venue (obviously in an attempt to draw a larger audience), Evel went back on his word again and only jumped seven buses over the two nights, a decidedly unspectacular feat considering he had jumped twice that many at Kings Island just one year before. For devoted fans and those who had never seen Evel in the flesh before, it may have been enough to satisfy, but the non-risky nature of the jumps meant the media were little interested and only 15,000 people showed up at the venue, although ABC did once more cover the jump for television. Significantly, it was to be the last time Knievel would work with ABC and his last time on the network after 17 appearances over the last decade. But there were other television channels and Knievel hooked up with one of them to plan a spectacular new stunt.

Finally realising that short leaps over a handful of vans or buses were not going to be money-spinners, Knievel resorted to his earlier genius for gimmicks and came up with one of the best of his career when he announced that he would jump over a pool of live sharks. With the smash hit movie
Jaws
having been released just the year before, shark fever was still consuming the States, just as it was the rest of the world, and Knievel once again showed his marketing genius by cashing in on the fact, even though the sharks in question were relatively harmless lemon sharks rather than the Great White featured in the movie (of which there are none in captivity). While lemon sharks have been known to attack people on rare occasions, the 14 specimens flown in from Marathon in Florida were so heavily sedated that they probably wouldn’t have noticed if Knievel and his Harley-Davidson had plummeted straight into their tank. As one wry observer pointed out, the sharks were probably more scared and in more danger than Knievel was.

Still, it was a great gimmick which offered plenty of headline-grabbing potential and Knievel’s new television allies, the CBS network, didn’t miss a chance for advance publicity. The jump was to take place inside the Chicago International Amphitheater, which claimed to house the world’s largest saltwater pool, and it would mark Knievel’s first live show on prime-time television as the first in a string of episodes called
Evel Knievel’s Death Defiers.
Each week, various performers would attempt bizarre and often dangerous stunts in the first part of the show as support acts to Knievel’s headlining performance. On paper at least, the show appeared to offer the perfect way for Knievel to stay in the limelight by performing oddities and novelty jumps without having to take the huge risks inherent with long-distance jumping.

Despite the more lax attitude to animal rights that existed in the 1970s, there were still certain groups opposed to the jump on the grounds that it was cruel to the sharks – and the evidence supported their fears. Although 14 sharks were captured in Florida for the jump, one died in transit and several others were close to death by the time of the show. Never one to let the facts get in the way of the hype, Knievel boasted that he was going to jump over the world’s largest saltwater tank which would be filled with deadly, man-eating sharks. In reality, the leap would only measure 90 feet, which was far shorter than Knievel was capable of jumping, and the sharks were so drugged and unwell that they represented little more danger than a tank of goldfish.

But jumping a motorcycle always carries a risk, no matter how safe the leap appears and how experienced the rider is. In this case it was the unforeseen danger of a slippery landing ramp that caused Evel problems. He had decided to make a practice jump on the afternoon before the live special because ‘the jump was so dangerous I couldn’t bring myself to do it cold turkey’. While he easily sailed over the tank of water, Knievel landed on his front wheel, slipped on the upward-reaching ski-jump ramp and smashed into 29-year-old Mobile Television Services cameraman Thomas Green. It was the first time in his career that a bystander had been involved in one of Knievel’s many crashes, and initial reports indicated it was serious. Word started to spread that Green had lost an eye in the incident and those rumours have now entered the Knievel legend and have become accepted as fact, even though contemporary newspaper reports stated that Green was only ‘treated for minor injuries at the hospital and released’.

Knievel himself was not so lucky. He had broken his right forearm and left collarbone and suffered serious bruising. Speaking from the Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago, he insisted the jump was doomed to failure in such an enclosed environment. ‘I knew when I saw it all squeezed together that it wasn’t going to work. When we put it all together, the ramp, the tank and the ski slope, it was too cramped.’ And while he claimed the landing ramp was also too steep to be safe he took full responsibility for his failure, claiming, ‘…the pressure started to build up in me’.

Knievel had originally intended to make the jump at either the Kingdome in Seattle or the Astrodome in Houston, both of which were larger but too cost-prohibitive, given that a tank would have needed to be built in either venue. The crash obviously ruled out Knievel’s headlining performance on his new television show, but at least he had taken the precaution of having his practice run filmed should anything go wrong. ‘I asked for camera coverage because I knew it wouldn’t work and at least they’d have something on film.’

Unfortunately that something was not enough and both the live and television audiences were grossly disappointed that the star of the show was lying in a hospital bed instead of being out there entertaining them. Knievel spoke to cameras from his hospital bed and the practice crash was shown repeatedly as part of the show, but it was not enough to guarantee the show’s future. Apart from Evel’s absence – which had prompted the 3,000-strong live audience to boo loudly – the show was panned by critics who felt that any live show which risked televising someone being seriously injured or killed was in the utmost bad taste, and all plans for the series were cancelled after critics voted the pilot episode the worst programme of the year.

The shark jump was to be Knievel’s last high-profile performance, and while he would continue churning out the odd performance over the next few years, none was spectacular enough to merit any kind of media hype or attention.

Sadly for Knievel, who desperately needed to find a less risky profession as the years caught up with him, his film,
Viva Knievel!,
bombed at the box office when it was released in Los Angeles on 13 July 1977. For Knievel it led to a lasting resentment of Hollywood, which he described as ‘…that place on earth that God will insert the tube if he ever decides to cleanse the world by giving it an enema’. The other two Knievel movies were, unsurprisingly, cancelled and Knievel never worked in films again, although he did go on to star as himself in an episode of the massively popular series
The Bionic Woman
in November 1977.

Knievel was becoming little more than a carnival act, living off his famous name and performing well within his capabilities. But while he was as good as washed up professionally, he was still capable of making worldwide headline news; though this time for all the wrong reasons.