Evel Knievel - "Absolute Evel" 2005

[Music] he seems almost superhuman time after time he cheats death fame brings him incredible wealth his rock star status provides an endless parade of women oh my god fame and fortune come at a high price [Music] the love between a father and son strained by a lifetime of conflict and his fall from glory comes hard and fast [Music] still he remains the greatest daredevil in history my name is evil knavel i'm a professional daredevil i underwent 14 major [Music] the ship's going down in every adversity there's an equivalency to benefit if you just look for it the last of the gladiators the all-time king of the daredevils if i'd had died they'd have said well the daredevil died evil knievel that was his grand finale but excuse me i didn't i'm still alive in the mid-60s a young motorcycle rider from butte montana roared onto the american scene on a sweet ride much like this one his name was robert craig knievel but you know him as evil knievel in a few short years he became a unique one-man super phenomenon a modern-day gladiator facing death just to take us on a thrill ride years of fame and fortune were a far cry from his early days [Music] first thing i ever remember was i got on a little tricycle when i was a little kid and peddled it over the texas avenue bridge and a man in a car stopped to put me in his car and put my tricycle in his trunk and took me back to miami that's what i used to call my grandparents was [Music] when i was a little boy i'd go through reno on the way to oakland or san francisco where my dad lived and i'd stop seeing my mother never really got along with my mother and i think i know why my dad didn't she was a very overbearing person and i'd go on to california and be with my dad but he had a family of his own and it was tough and i i'd always go back to but to be with my grandparents and spend the rest of the summer playing baseball football whatever we were doing i was on the track team i was a ski jumper i played bucky i really enjoyed myself growing up there i don't think there was a better city in the world to grow up in the pew montana there was a robbery up in great falls montana where this thief had stolen these gold rings and was in the paper so i went over the dime store and bought a whole bunch of rings and i was peddling them all down at the high school these kids all thought i was the one that stole i was kind of an outlaw i was a good safe cracker i did it up until i was about 22 or 23 years old i don't know why i was a good kid i just got a thrill out of it i just got hooked up with the wrong crowd most of them now these places i robbed they had insurance i'd seen the next day they'd say i took three times the money i had they were trying to screw the insurance company so in the end run you might say i created a lot of business for people that's just the way you look at it but the reason i quit i had so much pressure i'm scared to death i'd go to the penitentiary when you're in a bank a federal bank trying to put nitroglycerin in a door knowing that if you get caught you're going to go to jail for 15 years 20 years it is the worst thing that you can go through and i said to myself when i looked in the mirror what in the hell is the matter with you can't you live like a a real person in society and amount to something in life i remember throwing burglar tools and some dynamite into the sacramento river and just telling myself i would never wrong another human being as long as i [Music] lived i loved linda i just loved her i met her at a youth center she was a cheerleader and her dad was well known john her dad for bid me to see her after i kidnapped her the first time i took her way tied up in a car the first time from a theater with a boyfriend a month or so later i got her again on this ice skating rink next to her house and i took her down and hid behind this church so i talked her into going away and marrying me so we're on our way to coeur d'alene idaho to get married it snowed so bad we had to turn around come back so we drive back towards butte and there's a big road block boy they pulled me out of that car and handcuffed me and put me down in the snow and they took me to the county jail locked me up oh her dad was mad so he made a deal with me that night he said i won't press charges against you but you don't see her until she gets out of college so then a few weeks later her dad was fishing at the time up in a mountain like so i took her in my grandmother's car and we went to dillon montana and we got married by the time he got back home we've been married for two or three days [Music] my dad bought me my first motorcycle little ps8 125 and i was racing motorcycles for a hobby now i still wasn't doing something where i had that challenge where i had that lump in my throat that not my stomach i was looking for that all of my life and then came the idea for the jump and i don't know why i did it i jumped on a honda 250 honda scrambler over these mountain lions and these snakes but we got rattlesnakes in these boxes cardboard boxes anyway i jumped and i was short and i knocked the back end out of this last box all these rattlesnakes all got out of there everybody was afraid to grab them they were scrambling all over the racetrack people were getting up and running and i was on my motorcycle i i got up there on top of the hill and i was looking laughing at all these people i think that was the first public jump that i made really [Music] my buddies marco stanisch and louis markovich they helped me drill every hole in my take off ramp and my landing round they weighed six tons i loaded my ramps on those trailers with a forklift strapped three motorcycles up there went to indio california i was didn't know what i was doing india was the biggest retired person's home in the world and i went up there with a daredevil show thinking i could draw the whole town i didn't have very many spectators i didn't want to see any motorcycle there at all all i wanted to do was make a living i loved lending the kids i love them dearly and i wanted to provide for them it was my second show and they ran a motorcycle or a car at me and i jump in the air and spread my legs go underneath me this guy named dale ran this norton 750 motorcycle at me right down the track 50 or 60 miles an hour and i jumped too late when i jumped it hit me right in the balls i mean it just slaughtered me knocked me up i did cartwheels and landed on the ground they thought i was dead and boy i'll tell you i never did that stunt again man oh man oh man i had found something in my life that gave me that lump and that nut in my throat and my stomach that was legal that was legitimate something that i could do honestly and i had that challenge within me it was the best thing i ever had with the launch of evil knievel's daredevil thrill show robert craig knievel finds an occupation that gives him the adrenaline rush he craves after i jump several times with the show the jump got so big and so many people came to see it that i didn't need the rest of the show anymore if you owned a racetrack i'd call you up and i'd say hi this is evel knievel i'll come to your place and jump what do you charge for a ticket so you'd say well three dollars a ticket i'd say well you charge four dollars a ticket give me the extra dollar if i didn't trust a promoter i'd make him bring the gate receipts over my half and stick her right in my safe and i run into some real jerks well it'll be all right in my office i'd say well i just sit down and cross my arms if they didn't like it they could make the jump it's fat ass they couldn't do anything but if he is to survive financially you will need a big break to jumpstart his daredevil career that break comes in march of 1967 with a brief appearance on abc's wide world of sports i was tied up with the best promotional man in the world jc akagenian the first time i ever jumped for him was when i started with why driller sports i was at ascot speedway during a motorcycle race and jc agenian had asked wide willow sports not only to come to the motorcycle race but to film my jump this is evil knievel and uh his specialty in sports is to take a motorcycle up over a ramp and leap through the air some 90 feet that's what he's going to try to do today over 15 automobiles now have you ever done 15 before evil bill i never have i uh missed a jump up in the northwestern part of the united states over 13 and i was uh hospitalized and laid up for nearly five months and i sure hope that doesn't happen today i didn't use a speedometer i didn't use a tachometer i did it all by the feeling of the seat of my pants uh here's the thing how can you take your eyes off of a runway you're going down at 70 or 80 miles an hour and look down to the tachometer or speedometer if you do that you might lose line and sight on the on the line that's going up the middle of the ramp i just thought that i was good enough so that i could keep my eye on that line so that i take off in a straight line and hit that landing around he'll build up speed as quickly as he can and here he goes a beautiful leap as evil knievel gets the wrong approval from the crowd here going beautifully over 15 cars the runway was short on the front of the half mile and i had to use a parachute to stop that motorcycle with 40 hit the wall i had a parachute on the back of my motorcycle so when i jumped in tight places i released it and it stopped me pick me right up and pick the whole back end of the motorcycle up i remember it was quite a thrill for me and that's that's when i started with wide world i really didn't realize the power that i had at that time i didn't really realize that i'd be number one of course they didn't either i'm on the way from los angeles to las vegas to watch roger rouse who's a great friend of mine fight dick tiger for the light heavyweight championship of the world at the convention center i sat right at ringside sat right with sonny liston anyway i saw this guy come through the doors hustle and bustle gray suit real flamboyant guy had two or three bodyguards with him i said who the hell is that sonny says that's jay sarno he's a owner of caesar's palace i thought if i could perform at a big place in vegas it would really help me that i could perform around the world i could write my own ticket now i'm broke i must have had believe me hundred dollars on me so i call up caesars i asked for jay sarno he said yes i said this is gil rogan sports illustrator what do you want did you ever heard of neville he said who i said evil neville he said hell no i never heard of him i said he's this kid's going to jump the grand canyon says he's going to jump the grand canyon i said he says he's going to jump your hotel he said ah he's nuts i never heard of him call me back so then i called him back the next day i told him i was with frank quinn from newsweek i said you ever heard of evil naval he said who i said evil and evil he said hill no i never heard of him what's he do i said he's gonna says he's gonna jump your hotel he's gonna jump the grand canyon oh yeah i heard about him he said i don't know what he's gonna do around here i think he might do something he said call me back so i wait two days of calling back i said this is john herring time magazine i said you ever heard of this evil canadian he says evil knievel evil neville evil naval i heard i heard of this guy said he's going to do something around here call me back so i waited till the next monday and i called him she didn't even let me talk to him she said mr charnel will see you at one o'clock i go up to his office he comes running out of his office with his arms out he says kid where you've been i've been looking for you he says the morning of the jump i walked through the casino and i had one chip with me hundred dollars and as i walked through the casino to go outside i bet 100 on 21. dealer hit 21. i lost him i thought oh boy what a bad omen [Music] i hit that takeoff ramp and boy i did not want to be short short into the landing ramp throw me off down there at the bottom you can see in that spill i took down my head just bangs into the asphalt now i slide across and at the very end of it you just split my leathers completely up the middle in my groin area just open them wide open this is the bell magnum that i had on a caesar's palace i wore this helmet one time had the most beautiful new paint job on it the day i jumped there look at it this helmet absolutely saved my life even though i had this on i was unconscious for 29 days john derrick shot that jump linda evans they were going together he shot the jump she shot the landing she was sitting on the dunes fence separated the dunes from caesar's palace linda was in that hospital every every day with me i remember waking up and seeing a little can taped with some tape to this monkey bar i had so i could raise myself up in this hospital and this note was from john derrick i said i promised you this film i'll never film you again unless you're wearing a parachute your pal john now he promised me before he filmed that that he would never give it to anybody that belonged to me and we got a projector in there and saw it the first time i saw it about threw up i couldn't believe how horrible it was i would say that that jump and that landing probably was the biggest thing that ever happened to me as a performer to for notoriety in my whole life i guess i'm naturally a performer i like what it does to me i don't like to sit and watch somebody else in the arena when you run short of guts you ask yourself when you're standing up there and sitting up there for that final thing did they come to see me get killed when i jumped i spoke to people about how i felt and i don't sound like a politician i don't scream it through a microphone i try to tell them how i feel about a jump about what i'm going through they think they really knew that i was risking my life vietnam watergate drugs and the hell's angels america is disillusioned by the direction it's heading the country is seeking an antidote and it roars into their lives in a star-spangled package known as evil kneel little does he know it but what he represents will cement his image as one of the most iconic figures of the 20th century the last gladiator in the new rome [Laughter] i am a professional life risker and i am the best in the world at it there have never been none before me nor there will never be none after me [Music] i know this i came along in the right time at the right place the country was down country was down vietnam was in full progress and i kind of thought vietnam was a mistake but i didn't say anything about it because i had so much respect from kids in vietnam and those who were in vietnam that could watch me on tv and read about me and the stars and stripes and different magazines were over there they associated with me because i didn't quit i got shot down i kept getting back up i always lived by a saying that you can fall many times in life but you're never a failure as long as you try to get up i always lived by that i thought that [Music] i gave people something to think about spark is something to hang on to i go to indianapolis every year some of them cheat a little bit to get ahead and they use a nitro and their car runs for about five laps and then it blows all the hell and that's what will happen to you in life if you take narcotics you'll run for five laps and you will blow all the hell so the decision is yours you make it several kids have come to me and said you changed my life i was in a lot of trouble but listening to what i had to say about believing in god and they're loving their mother and their father and staying off the drugs and putting things in their body that would hurt them and i had a horrible altercation with the hell's angels they had a group that were drug peddlers in this country big ones in great long years i've spoken against alcohol and narcotics i have fought viciously against the outlaws in this industry and i took off a black leather jacket put on a white one so here i was in front of this huge crowd of sellout crowd in the cow palace boy these guys who were in the crowd these hells angels they took great a strong opinion against that one threw a tire iron at me in the hallway while i was making my practice runs i came back in and here was this guy the same guy standing in the middle of the cow palace in front of twenty thousand people or fifteen thousand was filled up giving me the finger you know i just wanted to punch one of them bastards and i rode this motorcycle at this guy and threw it down on that slick surface inside of that cow palace and i slid it right into it into him and knocked him over tea kettle in the air and then the fight started five or six of them come and jumped on me and half of that grandstand and that cow palace come out and stood behind me and just beat hell out of those hell's angels they got just what they deserved but the people 99 of were behind me and believed what i said was right they liked what i did the people liked what i s what i stood up against and i'll tell you something i hate to be referred to as a hero i hate that i'm not a hero i'm a daredevil i'm a daredevil and you might say i'm a legend because of the time i performed and still alive for now if you look the word up in the dictionary that describes me pretty well [Music] you know i was the pioneer nobody ever jumped like i did guy jumped one through a fire hoop maybe 20 feet and these car drivers they'd strap themselves in a car and jump one car nobody ever jumped a motorcycle where they were just hanging on uh let me ask you a couple names or say a couple names so you see what your reaction is other people who do something very much like you do super joe einhorn the other motorcycles yeah well there are several of them around the country uh einhorn and uh gary davis and rex blackwell and uh bobby bob gill and there's a couple of girls arena cave and the little debbie lawler who was now jumping they jumped almost as far as i did or maybe as far debbie jumped small jumps [Music] she did very well for a girl to jump in the astra dome somebody said i know you people hadn't said it but somebody said it might have been a world record uh well i measured her trump was 103 feet i could spit further than that i didn't want any competition i was the fierce competitor myself somebody else would have jumped as far as i did the next day i had to jump further into the next weekend i should have realized that that they were trying to be like me [Music] it's the greatest compliment they could have paid me i always thought to myself i would sure like to be an elvis presley and a liberace put together and entertain on a motorcycle liberace was i think absolutely the greatest performer i've ever seen in my life oh he just captured you and when they introduced him here he come from the top of the ceiling flying around on a this cable hooked to him all the way around the whole area oh boy and then he'd land on his seat he had on these beautiful big mink and chinchilla coats you've got a beautiful audience bless you liberace what a great performer [Music] i remember the first time i went in a bar in orange county i was there had a jacket on said evil knievel there was a guy standing there at the bar and he said evil knievel who's that i said that's me i said what kind of a name is that i said that's my name he said evil can you so that's a good name and i said well i haven't got used to it yet he said well someday it'll be a you'll be proud [Applause] we're back in the los angeles coliseum where some 25 000 people are waiting for evil knievel to make another one of his spectacular motorcycle jumps this time over 50 cars stacked up at the center of the field boy the jumps look longer and the ramps look higher and the speed looks faster well that's the way it gets you made a made a bed for yourself you got to lie in it i'm not looking forward to this 50 car jump really but until i choose to take this red white and blue number one off my shoulder i'm going to try and jump as far as i can and keep going even though i was going to make it evil never going to make it evil knievel's not going to make it how come it's too it's too high and too far we are now at the 51st row of the los angeles coliseum this is where the ski slide-like takeoff ramp has been mounted a 200-foot in-rock and this is a practice run of evil knievel trying to see just exactly where he wants to be and at what speed [Music] you can really feel the tension mount here evil not even wanting to look down that ramp i don't go down that runway praying you go down that runway praying your life will get killed boy you better brace yourself for what's on the other side [Music] promoter jc again has given the all-clear signal now the crowd rising ready [Music] this is going to be [Music] made [Applause] fantastic jump and here he comes back into the tremendous thunderous cross here in the [Music] you coliseum it again well another day another dollar i'll tell you this is if you were graded on form and beauty it would have been 100 today it was absolutely a beautiful job [Music] if you don't really believe and what you're doing you cannot transfer that message to people they won't believe it there never has been anything quite like this man evil knievel super daredevil my name is a household name and i know it a boy i earned it did i pay a price jesus i've paid a price being number one has its upside but there is an even greater downside to remain king evil knievel has pushed to break record after record and not just the records of his competitors but his own as well whether it's the length of the jump or number of bones broken evil strives to set the bar to unbreakable heights 1974 will prove to be the pinnacle of his career it will also be a year where evil is forced to make a decision about a lifelong dream a dream that could potentially end his life canyon jump my name is evil knievel i wear a red white and blue number one on my shoulder because i think i'm the best in my business you have to think you're the best you end up dead the man behind me is named evil knievel he's a motorcycle daredevil openly defies death on occasion after occasion on july 4th he hopes to become the only man ever to leap across the snake river canyon in idaho as a prelude to that tomorrow in dallas texas he will take a warm-up leap once again his life will be at stake and i'm here with you live at the green valley race track in north richland hills texas where today the extraordinary evil knievel will essay his longest leap yet over those 11 mack trucks right behind me and with an adverse wind against him you know i'd go to a track sometimes and i'd look at the jump i was about to make and i'd look at like 13 or 14 or 15 trucks and i'd say to myself you know i don't think that looks too far you've jumped over 300 times sampson had 11 misses you feel that basically the crowd comes out to help you make this jump there's a few that don't does this bother you that people come out maybe to see you jump 10 instead of 11 how do you feel about that i didn't come here to texas to jump any less than 11 i'm going to jump those trucks that's the way it should be you know there are some great athletes in this country who i respect greatly but there wasn't one billionth of one percent of them that could do what i could do [Music] uh this should keep our fingers crossed or whatever it is you do but let's do whatever we can to help them get over this thing i sure hate for it to be ten cameras are focused upon evil here he comes [Music] he did it only 11 misses and 300 leads previously and he did [Music] they didn't have any suspension in those days front or rear even to speak up the travel was only three inches at the most maybe you take these kids right now that are jumping they really don't even need a landing ramp to land on i needed the landing ramp because so when i landed on it it took the jolt and the danger out of hitting flat because if you hit flat you'd break your back i broke my back seven times that's a heavy motorcycle to be hurtling through the air over obstacles and buses and buildings and fountains and things motorcycles they're making nowadays are so much easier to ride that motorcycle's a big motorcycle when you make the motorcycle jump the best position for you to be in is on the balls of your feet balance perfectly from your weight up with your hands on the handlebars you're going so fast and the obstacle you're jumping goes underneath you so fast that all you're looking for is to hit that x on that landing round you got to make sure you're straight on the takeoff ramp when you hit it because if you're off say six inches of takeoff at the wrong angle you get out 150 or 200 feet you can miss the whole landing round when you go to make a jump the most important thing is that you're on the power curve you have to be just far away from the jump to where you can shift the motorcycle enough times so as you hit the take-off ramp it drives the motorcycle up the take-off ramp across the jump with the front end up in the air as you go across the jump you twist the throttle a little bit to spin the back wheel so it acts as a gyroscope to keep the front end going the opposite direction rear wheel going this way front wheel going this way that allows you to to go through the air and the motorcycle perfectly on the back wheel and an attitude kind of like this works just exactly like it should be [Music] i'd you what would definitely be a world record would we if you uh clear the snake river canyon up there are you going to do that and if so when uh i've always made the statement and i've tried to be honest that uh i'm going to milk that snake river canyon jump for all i can get out of it i'm going to do it when i'm damn good and ready but this will be the year [Music] there's been a lot of controversy about motorcycle jumping what the record is and what it isn't well indoors today on wide world of sports you're going to see me attempt to jump 17 vans and trucks and today i'm going to make the announcement i'm going to announce the canyon date joe here in portland oregon king of the daredevils number one evil ponyville thank you keith and evil knievel has emerged from his van here at the memorial coliseum in portland oregon colorfully garbed as he always is evil kin evil become a top hero if you will around the country i would like to go back a few years with you when i did announce that i was going to jump the grand canyon the secretary of interior mr stuart udall gave me permission in writing to jump across the grand canyon they changed their minds that i couldn't jump that canyon so i went to idaho and i bought a piece of the snake river canyon it's my canyon well on sunday september the 8th i'm gonna go like hell and i'm gonna get across that thing faster and further than you've ever seen [Applause] no question about it evil knievel he's quite a man people can even warming up and we're going to listen in on perhaps what's going on maybe you can hear it i remember saying to frank i don't know if he remembers this or not i said frank they came here today to see me spill my blood i can't even explain to you the feeling in your stomach when you ride up there on that takeoff ramp and look across that thing i can't even tell you [Music] you cannot describe the feeling that you have to have inside of you to make you back off of that takeoff wrap after you've looked at it and turn around and go back and then take a run at it and try and jump across it this is the most challenging crazy suicidal feeling in the world to do that [Music] here he comes [Applause] should not have been more perfect evil [Applause] none of us thought that i could make this jump in here you know we sold this place out tonight and i just assume missed the jump is having blew me out of here and uh i'm almost to the end of my road and i'm not gonna let that happen yet i'll tell you i i have never made a better jump than that in my life i don't think you got the snake river coming up you said it be september the 8th any jumping before that yes i'm going to make a big jump a world record jump at the canadian international exposition of toronto canada and then we're going to the canyon sunday september 8th and i'll see you there yvonne it's lonely up there isn't well you're all alone but you got somebody with you frank i've had somebody watching over me for a long time good luck thank you thank you eva knievel unusual to say the least i don't know what the hell i was thinking of i thought i was indestructible and i wasn't i've never made a dime in the stock market i'd invest in something and get it and i earned mine i spilled my blood and broke my bones on every damn race track in america i earned it [Music] for evil knievel the years of working in obscurity at the edge of financial ruin is over when wide world of sports broadcast one of his jumps this exposure catapults evil into fame and fortune that is barely comprehensible for a small town boy from butte montana physical abuse he's endured finally pays off and it pays off big there's one thing that money can't buy his life to be a success in life you go through life like a whirlwind you don't really pay attention to things like family because they're just there you make sure they're there you make sure they're accounted for you make sure you're taking care of them but you would never get to be the success that i was if that is what you paid attention to can't happen because if you do that you're taking away from the drive that is making you a success and i had that drive and he set the goal take off of course very critical when i started with wide world i did it for nothing television rights came and the movie books white roller sport paid me as much as a quarter of a million for different chumps i signed for four pictures with erwin allen and warner brothers i'd made a deal with harley davidson i had a red white and blue money maker that went 100 miles an hour that i rode it was a money-making machine motorcycle toy was introduced and there were there'd never been a motorcycle toy it was just unbelievable the whole knievel thing begins to make sense on a visit to the ideal toy company where mr knievel is no cultural question mark but the solid inspiration for six million dollars worth of sales in one year and that's real enough kids love that toy and their dads loved it for the first time here was a toy that really appealed to everybody all of the little toys that came off of it puzzles and drinking cups and just everything you can think of came off of the success of that toy boy the money i made off of that thing man oh man oh man just unbelievable toy grossed 350 million dollars that guy saved the toy industry it was on its extent i didn't get it all i mean i made five to ten percent of it but it allowed me to live like a king paid for my yachts and my ship and my racehorses and my stutzes and my ferraris and my girlfriends and my beer and whiskey and everything that i had i think in this world i don't care whether it's furs diamonds automobiles houses anything you can name that is the best that i'm not going to have two of all good-looking i don't know what drove me to this why i succumbed to it i was so jealous of linda if another guy looked at her i wanted to kill him i mean god i loved her [Music] but i'd go to a show where i was jumping and during that time i'd walk around to these booths when i was not performing and i'd meet these girls miss new jersey miss showmanship miss bike week i'd go back to my hotel when i had a guy in the chair sitting outside of my room knock knock knock and here was a girl and a guy this happened in two or three different cities and she was miss cycle show and i said who's this guy with you well that's my boyfriend or my fiance or my husband what's he gonna do he's gonna wait and say what he's gonna wait out in the hallway one girl told me i told him if he didn't let me be with you i was gonna leave him and i don't know what it was i asked his psychiatrist one time i said what in the hell is going on with these women he said number one you're not a bad looking guy you're not the best looking guy in the world but you're not a bad looking guy said secondly you're evil but it's spelled e-v-e-l but it represents doing maybe something wrong it's attractive too long but that she can live with he said thirdly you're a life risker and they see you jump for some reason that's danger is a real turn on to a woman it represents adventure danger the excitement is like fascination that uh most people only fantasize it became the strangest thing that any man could ever wish for i used to bring a girl to bed in the afternoon knowing that i was going to go out that night just to wear myself down you can take two a week times how many years figured out yourself just mind-boggling in puerto rico eight in a day it was just like a candy bar something i had to have and i was married to the most beautiful woman in the world now you doctors that are watching me psychiatrists suck on that he'll probably be doing about 75 or 80 i imagine i was paid a lot of money by the canadian international exposition to come to toronto and i wanted to do it because it was going to help with the big expense i had gone to at the canyon this is the moment of psych this is the moment where he sells himself on the idea that he can do it he's done it so many times before but every circumstance is different every obstacle is different visually it is different it is a long way across [Applause] and i don't know what i made at that toronto thing maybe 25 or 30 000 but then it was a lot of money boy i'd come down to my last couple thousand bucks anyway i jumped that close to the jump because i needed the money nobody that i had for a sponsor paid that million dollars to pay for that ramp and that fence and the rights and the attorneys and the everything to pay for that canyon jump that rocket i mean i had three of them built and now you hang on to your seats and all hang on to the handlebars and we'll get this harley davidson over these mack trucks and get this thing done thank you very much everybody was real nervous because we knew if i didn't make that jump that i wouldn't be able to make the canyon jump i think maybe the thing that helps me most of all before i get ready to go a little prayer that i say that kind of helps me get across and maybe the prayers that i can feel coming across the field from the grandstand [Applause] absolutely perfect he hit it right on target and listen to the crowd september the 8th after the canyon jump is over i hope that i'll see you there and we'll have a cool one together i went to idaho and i bought a canyon it's my canyon and on september the 8th i'll jump it and the only way they'll get me out of the air is to shoot me out with an anti-aircraft gun because i am going to go believe me evil knievel seemed to be a man without fear 300 jumps over 50 broken bones that's why he's the king of the daredevils even if he was unsuccessful he was always up for another jump the thing is it had to be bigger and better than his last there was one stunt that would cost him more than any broken bone make river canyon job this dream jump will be his last you know i've always talked about the canyon tremendous undertaking in my part i have this goofy engineer named doug malwicki he thought he was going to build a rocket for me where i could get a run at the canyon then it'll take off and get across it it's dropped like a rock and then ob2x came along and showed me another idea this rocket is the one that i did try to go across the canyon in it provided 15 000 pounds of jet horsepower probably 10 000 pounds of thrust and it would have put me about a half a mile across that can maybe between a quarter and a half it was just so powerful you'll see it on wide world today the canyon flight of evil knievel when i went there that day to get in it somebody painted a bullseye on the other side of the canyon wall right in all was a bad omen to me you've obviously thought about a lot about life and death are you afraid at this moment i've never been afraid in my life of dying under any circumstances i think that a man was put here on earth to live not just to exist and today is the proudest day of my life i'm living a dream that they thought could never be done but it'll be done and i got in that thing the sound there are a lot of people who think your earlier two test failures of the x1 and x2 were put up phony jobs were they real failures they were real failures mother nature is rough enough to deal with without trying to invent failures i'd like to ask everybody in the booth right now to be silent i mean i know what men like gary gilmore felt when they stood in front of an executioner i was a dead man i never thought that i had a prayer i didn't think that thing would get 10 feet i hope that no one ever sees in their wife's eyes and in their children's eyes what i saw in my wife's eyes in my kids eyes the night before that jump my wife was petrified uh jim all i can tell you is uh happy landing's evil knievel truax and all the other engineers were sitting in a van the control center a hundred yards away from me in front of me it was in there for quite a while and the rocket was heating heating the parachute which was to be operated by my hand was pulled back i had to push it forward to let it go was pull back and taped back with duct tape we're one minute and counting one minute to go one minute i had a choice strap into it or tie me into it so they tied me into it with a real firm firm safety belt system they got down to like 15 seconds and i was counting down with them sitting at that thing almost at this angle and when it got there got to three i said god take care of me here i come there's been a mistake he looks like he's going into the canyon the ship's going down it's it's going down that parachute the power was so much that parachute blasted right out of that rocket right on the launch pad and i'll tell you what when the parachute opened finally i had a blackout when we took when i took off then i had a red out when it opened that's where all the blood comes back into your system into your eyes and out your nose and your mouth and your ears i can never tell you what i said i was so mad at that engineer i screamed so loud from up there thousands of feet or so way up in the air i don't know why you never heard me on the ground what does it look like it looks like he didn't hold on to the handle like we feared yeah that guy was an idiot i never touched that shoot it was his fault and his fault only that i didn't make it across that canyon and he's he's going to crash now he's coming down about 17 feet per second slowly going down boy looks like he's down in the water robert craig knievel did not clear the 1500 foot snake river canyon all those people along the canyon i could see them all most of them were silent some of them were booing and there i was floating down you know it was a sad defeating experience believe me i never want to relive it evil knievel now appears to be standing in the boat and waving he's alive and well i waited seven years to get across that canyon and that's what happened because i put faith in that guy you didn't do a damn thing though the can is still on the beach [Music] and there you heard it from bob truax evil did not deploy the parachute himself it came off on the pad a mechanical failure are you going to try it again well i don't know what i'm going to do i i sat in it and gave it my best i don't know what to tell you believe me the way i think about it here it's been 30 years a canyon's still there god hasn't moved at an inch i don't see any big long long line of daredevil standing up there beating themselves on the chest saying i'm gonna try that do you [Music] it's a turned on crowd at wembley stadium as evil knievel returns to action i saw so many people i couldn't believe it there were three times as many people in the stadium there as soon as it was in my whole hometown so you haven't you haven't jumped in over a year i sometimes think that maybe i should quit but you always want to keep going and kind of proud of that red white and blue number one i'm wearing my shoulder on i want to keep it on there i'm glad you're here today you know i've never had an accident when you're around wembley stadium i got half the gate they had 80 some thousand paid i made a million dollars for that jump of course there's one one real significant problem about my jumps you got to be alive when it's over to collect the money it's not whether you win or lose where i come from it's how much heart you put into it and the most important thing that you keep your word and get in and try you hang onto your seats i'll hang on to the handlebars and we'll get this over with as i was looking out of that tunnel into that stadium before i rode out i thought to myself you finally reached your goal you found the thing that makes you happy you found the challenge or you go out there and do it just before he came out he leaned out the window and looked at a crowd of 80 000 people he said what does a man have to do to get this many people together and i looked at him and i said evil you're doing it here i was clear across the atlantic in another country and i finally realized what drove me keep going i finally woke up i didn't have any death wish it was just the excitement of the thing and that's the day i realized it wasn't wembley 1966 hurt himself indio 1967 series and he will go evil knievel has made some 300 jumps and broken about 50 bones in his career as a daredevil says he's calling it quits [Music] he made that announcement in london today after an attempt to make a hundred mile an hour jump over 13 buses ended in a spectacular crash [Applause] [Music] i don't want to stand up despite a crushed vertebra and fractured hand knivo got up from a stretcher and returned to the ramp to tell 70 000 spectators ladies and gentlemen of this wonderful country i've got to tell you that you are the last people in the world who will ever see me jump because i will never ever ever jump again i'm through [Applause] get that stretcher up here and that's the way it is monday may 26 1975. this is walter cronkite cbs news good night wide roller sports was considered the number one sports show in all of the history of television of all of the wide world of sports top rated shows by all four of the top ten i hold the number one spot i created my own show i created my own sport i'm so proud of it robert craig knievel unwittingly launches the x-game genre when he becomes evil knievel the king of the daredevils but the smooth leather exterior that has come to personify his superhuman image now conceals a career total of 50 broken bones evil knievel the man of steel is literally beginning to feel the steel plates holding him together evil the obvious question is uh what are your future plans are you going to jump again yeah i'll jump the 25th october i'll jump in kings island cincinnati now uh when you made the london jump you said you were going to retire then you changed your mind are you gonna go back and make that jump again not in london i jumped 13 buses in london i'm going to jump 14 kings island 13 is an unlucky number i just put myself in a trap all the time i was behind the eight ball all the time i kept jumping further and further and further after missing look at me in london i went there and jumped 13 buses said i was all done ended up at king's island jumping forward just go further and further and further hello i'm frank gifford back with evil knievel as we were in london last may to the 26th evil knievel of course missed on that job he said right after that i will retire but indeed evil kneel is back and he's going to jump you have to ask yourself and wonder why is evil kneel back jumping but something just struck me in the chest again to stand up and be a man and i didn't exactly do that for the money i did it because i wanted to go out a winner i didn't want to go out a loser and here he comes right now robert craig knievel evil welcome to kings island thank you good crowd ready to go looks like there's enough to blow me over if i can't get that harley davidson over the wind we'll talk about that again evil uh adjusting a problem well it looks from the side of the flags that it may have died down a little bit but uh i'm gonna go frank there's no wind gonna stop me not even a hurricane [Applause] [Music] [Applause] and there is the jump in i'll tell you when you look at that perspective you it really is kind of awesome 14 greyhound buses he does not have a speedometer on his motor he goes strictly by field and he's not hesitating he'll go [Applause] and even though i mean it looks like i made the jump perfectly that motorcycle broke right now i didn't know it at the time because i was going so fast when i hit the brake i thought it stopped like it should but boy when i got down there and took a look at it turn it around i could barely get it back to where the television cameras were oh yeah it did come apart didn't it [Applause] just march little short [Music] thank you [Applause] you know i i landed on number 14. i i didn't get all the way across it this motorcycle is the finest machine in the world as far as i'm concerned it broke in half but it held me up and all i can say is thanks to number one thanks to harley davidson you've been so good to me through the [Applause] year on the way to austin i stopped in deming new mexico we found a good mexican restaurant with a bar and this one guy says see i see him jump to grand canyon and this other guy says i seen him jump a hundred cars in the la coliseum i didn't jump to grand canyon i jumped the snake river i didn't jump no hundred cars in the l.a colosseum i jumped 52. when i got to thinking if i have to live up to what these people think i am comic book character spider-man or captain marvel or superman i won't be alive another year because they have stretched the truth about me so much that no man could ever stay alive trying to fill this bill no man not even evil kneel that's what made my decision to quit i could not believe what they expected of me [Applause] they thought we could go into the seattle kingdom and do that jump draw a big crowd and it was big but not nowhere there did it fill the seattle kingdom and of course seven buses doesn't sound like a long jump for evel knievel if you're familiar with this history but keep in mind there's a short end run here and it could be very dangerous and evil knievel quite frankly is very concerned about it when you hit the pavement at 100 miles an hour it really smarts and it gets tougher as you get older in life to get up and keep going your mental attitude deteriorates with pain and long healing process i've been hurt so many times i've spent three years in hospitals are flat on my back i'd like to kind of do this thing successfully and safely and just go ahead and hang it up evil says thumbs up proud cheering in anticipation they've said so many times before there's nobody in the church not a crowd fight like evil knievel i believe it's going to [Applause] [Music] you go what happened here tonight you saw the motorcycle nose dive i really didn't do it right the power curve was wrong and even me after jumping for 12 years i even make mistakes still now you've been a wonderful crowd thank you [Music] never thought i'd run out of talent never thought i'd run out of nerve never thought i'd run out of whiskey or beer or anything boy i didn't i ran out of them all this guy named bob arum he was the president of top rank he's the fight promoter anyway top rank was a promotional company that showed the canyon jump sold out every venue ever had all over the world for that canyon jump sold him out i didn't pay me beans he pretended to be my friend fight promoters are flesh users that's what he is baram hired some of the most sleazy bastards you could ever imagine in the world like shelly saltman i wanted to buy a book that these rats wrote about elvis presley just came out so i went down there to buy the book and this guy handed me one about myself he said here's one you're going to like a lot less he said well you read what this guy wrote about you and it said on tour with the x-rated evil knievel by sheldon saltman i couldn't believe it he called me a drug user for him to say that i hated my mother for him to say that i should be a woman in butte montana i had to take my kids out of school for christ's sake you know what i did to him i caught him i went to the guard gate of 20th century fox i said you know shelly slalom and oh yeah he's a vice president i said where's he at well you'll probably catch him up in the commissary i caught him going right into it then i took that baseball bat after that guy i had a guy with me it's because i was afraid he'd take the bat away from him and hit me i couldn't hang on to it very good both of my arms were broken both of them i had casts on them from an accident i had to hold that ball back with both hands [Music] and they asked me when i went to trial if i had any remorse so i said no i have no remorse my attorney told me to play no low contendry i fired him i told him i'm not pleading anything i did it i stood up to it i was proud that i finally took a stand against him god created all men and baseball bats in winchester made them all equal and that's just the way hell but you really can't believe what you're saying that if somebody were to were to write something about them you have the right to go after them with a baseball bat i think i did him a favor by going after him with a baseball bat a judge in santa monica california today sentenced stuntman evil knievel to six months in jail for assault with a deadly weapon i was on a work furlough program i got to get out during the day so the word got around that i had a chauffeur driving my stuts out to my office out in north hollywood and then to the universal sheridan for lunch every day i was on work furlough in the beverly hills hotel in the polo lounge and drunk and avatar shared and drunk but i told the guys that were on work furlough i said if i win this rose bowl game i'll get you all limousine well i want it so the day after the game here comes all these limousines into the parking lot of that county jail and here comes all these prisoners out of that and these limos took the guys to where they were supposed to work that was the deal oh boy the havoc it caution it was fun while it lasted for those few inmates who got to ride in style today the last time they were in the back of a car being driven anywhere they were in handcuffs i really thought at the time that it would bring some morale to some guys in the whole jail system that knew i was doing this to make them feel good about themselves most of all to make their kids feel good about them i don't think i'll get any trouble over it i hope i won't for trying to help somebody that's all i can tell you on the toy front it may not be a merry christmas for daredevil evel knievel knievel was imprisoned this week on assault charges and ideal toys says it doesn't know yet if it will keep selling evil knievel stunt motorcycles and other toys and that could be a big loss for knievel the guy i hit with a ball that created so much stink in l.a my toy career my pinball career my clothing career and television career all products associated i was in so much trouble i couldn't believe it two days before they were gonna parole me i said the hell with it i'm not going back to jail i'm gonna go after this guy again this saltman oh i never forgave this guy what he wrote about me never anyway uh i escaped came back about two o'clock in the morning when i wised up they arrested me right away for escape evil knievel is confined to the maximum security cell tonight judge rafi in santa monica will determine later this week of how much he's going to have to pay for being five hours late in returning back to jail so when i was sent back down to get more sense he could have given me three years for the escape and the limousine thing but he didn't he sentenced me to six more months and so a much subdued evil knievel returns to jail the words of the judge graffiti in his ears that you are no longer the daring evil knievel you are robert craig knievel with a booking number sold almost everything i had never took care of my family like i should [Music] robbie is off the wall i don't know what happened i was rebellious and crazy just because i had a crazy father in my mind the more i found out about him the more i wanted to be like in july of 1971 evel knievel's two sons kelly and robbie appear for the first time with their father at madison square garden it will be another three years before they make another public appearance this time in toronto just days before the famous snake river canyon jump soon after older son kelly decides that the daredevil life is not for him i usually don't like to be in the spotlight i think that was the main reason plus i don't have as much guts as they do but from the start younger brother robbie is drawn to the wildlife for the motorcycle daredevil oh he's just a hellraiser from day one he's a great rider and the reason he's still going is because i started him when he was like four or five years old teaching him how to ride a motorcycle a little mini bike i tied a rope around my waist and tied it to the back of the mini-bike so that's how he taught us but my dad did not encourage me at all to jump i mean he would crash get in the ambulance with me and my brother and say look at me be all busted up and he's going to the hospital and say look at me never do this i never want you to do this but he knew that i was going to do it he knew it he was a superhero to me like he was any other kid and he wore the red white and blue and i remember standing in his truck and watching him take a shot of wild turkey in his dressing room before he did a jump what the hell's this look at this you want to get hurt my father he was like a drill sergeant sometimes why don't you change that you're not supposed to have a brake lever like that i want you to get that fixed before tonight you understand he was like a superhero but real life hero and that's why i wanted to follow in his footsteps and do what he did like most kids want to do what their dads do you know i have a special night tonight because i have two sons i always wanted them to perform with me and do some writing under my guidance at the last performance i would ever have before the canyon jump and this is that performance and i would like you to meet my sons kelly and rob my brother didn't ride as much as i did so his life was going another way i didn't know it at the time but he knew i was the eye of the tiger the young kid the crazy one the middle black sheep whatever you want to call me but that's what i wanted to do the crowd was going nuts and that's when i said this is what i want to do for a living and it stuck in my head and i kept it there and wanted to do that ever since i was 11 years old [Music] i'd like to do some wheelies for you would you like to see some wheelies okay i'd like to have my youngest son robbie come up i'd like to have him do some wheelies with me robby that was the main day i think that i introduced robbie to his career where he did the wheelies it was a pretty proud day of my life if i had known what i was going to end up with like him i probably wouldn't have been so proud i don't know why he went the wrong way i said is it because i bought you too many motorcycles he had a garage he had 12 motorcycles in the garage so it went from a trailer house to being poor to eight acres in this huge home two layer jets five ferraris lamborghini and maserati and 118 foot fed ship and a home in fort lauderdale i said what in the world have i done wrong trying to give you everything you want i just i can't understand it there was a rebellious part of me that was like my father robbie really tried me tried my temper things didn't really get fiery between me and my dad until i was like 16 when i moved out robbie was only trying to do what i did or what i said i did the way i drank and i ended up doing drugs in my era my father pretty much showed me how to drink in the 70s i don't blame him maybe i do maybe i don't it was difficult being the son of evil knievel when i was growing up you know going through all his pressure he had a lot of pressure on him it was you could understand you know if you were uh that you stopped and thought about what he was going through all the time thank you very much i made this same jump about this same distance in this colosseum a few years ago i never thought about death i thought about confidence positive mental attitude the things my dad taught me when i started jumping i put that positive mental attitude what he always taught me death was a part of it and still is and i wasn't a born adrenaline junkie this is a time for robbie a final mental adjustments collector's thoughts focus in on the challenge the huge crowd they expect around 50 000 here they completely closed the las vegas shrimp just for this event i'll say this robert's got a lot of guts tell you one thing though an incident happened at caesar's palace when i jumped it i built a ramp takeoff ramp to run across and jump so i said robbie this was the day before robbie i want you to build a safety ramp out from your landing ramp 12 feet wide and 25 or 30 feet long nobody will know the difference but it could save your life so he said dad i don't want to build a safety ramp i'm robbie knievel i said well look i'm evoking evil and i'm telling you you build that safety ramp oh he argued with me and arguably then he got mad he said i had to punch you in the mouth i said i said you're going to build a safe trip my dad said i'd never want to use a safety deck at one time i didn't but ever since that was years ago when i was a punk i always use a safety deck it's very smart it's not smart to jump but it's smart to use a safety deck duh i don't know what i'm talking about i am not the greatest daredevil in the world i am absolutely not i am the father of the greatest daredevil in the world and i would like to introduce you to my son robbie the greatest daredevil and obviously choked up evil fable embracing robbie tonight robbie's ultimate dream and even though it's the same job that nearly ended his father's life 21 years ago a jump that sent his father into a cola left a one inch discrepancy in the lengths of his legs he is determined to get revenge so i watched him real carefully and he got on his motorcycle and he he just runs back and forth [Applause] when he jumped he landed 15 feet short of the landing ramp he landed on the safety ramp at 75 or 80 miles an hour if that safety ramp had not been built robbie would have decapitated himself at the neck took his head off what an incredible sight robbie knievel's dream has come true so now after the jump he walks up to the microphone he says i love you dad that was for you dad i love that but i know he loves me can't change that no kick in the butt was ever hard enough to have him not love me too much traffic out here we'll go for a ride all right let's see go sign some autographs i'll see you later [Music] [Music] i think he should just quit before he gets killed most athletes quit when they're 40. i put 10 more years into my life i'm gonna jump forever if i can be the luckiest kid in the world if he doesn't end up in a wheelchair it'll be break my heart i'm a perfect example of someone who had a desire a burning desire to do something a dream and i lived it being a true gladiator many believe that evil would die in the arena when you live every day like it's going to be your last it's got to be hard stepping out of the spotlight now evil often spoke of jumping again but years of hard living made for some pretty hard landing in 1999 his past finally caught up to him hepatitis c contracted from blood transfusions was destroying evil's liver without a transplant he was gonna die as usual he beat the odds and the granddaddy of extreme sports was back [Music] in 1992 evil met and began a relationship with 22 year old golf pro crystal kennedy knievel was 53 at the time i'm lucky i have crystal to stand by my side in november of 1999 shortly after evil recovers from his liver transplant he and crystal are married at caesar's palace less than a year later they divorce but to this day remain together as a couple if it wasn't for crystal my being so happy with her i really think that i would spend my life on the road i'm a gypsy and i admit it i just am i love to travel in that coach i just love it it's as big as you can get it's got everything in the world in it tiffany lighting and king-sized bed it's got a bedroom prettier than any suite at caesars palace i hope while you were all here got a chance to look at our new wells cargo beautiful 40-foot trailer where everything is stationary the trailer has a lot of memorabilia in it it's beautiful to see and i take it to all my performances and all my shows so i call it my wells cargo evil knievel experience and i just pull it up or into your showroom or in front of your place and just open it up and you can see the things in it i sign autographs in the different stores or malls that i go to what do you think how's it look like it earl so i've got the triumph in here that i jumped seizures with then the harley-davidson xr750 that i made my last three jumps on the rocket is just like it was when it came out of the canyon this harley-davidson is is uh my own personal bike that i ride george latest from latest motors in portland oregon gave me this bike i almost want to get on that 750 but did make it i don't really want to make another jump on it i've had a lot of people say why don't you just quit and not do it i don't know if i just quit what am i going to do i just lay in bed and watch tv walk around the coach for exercise i can't do that uh what did it feel like jumping over uh it was scary i didn't tell anybody though i just told him i was concerned i have a skeleton a big skeleton that i have all them plates in and everything that my doctors made for me i talked to it i say see evil i told you you should have made another jump i pretend the skeleton is me but anyway it it uh it works out all right can you imagine me at this age trying to jump people wouldn't think that was dignified [Music] ladies and gentlemen boys and girls let's give a great canadian welcome to a man who is known throughout the world as the last of the gladiators the all-time king of the daredevils evil knievel [Applause] did you ever hear about my great-great-grandfather he was a gladiator in rome caesar hated him dug a hole in the middle of the arena buried him up to his neck and caesar got the meanest lion in all of rome had him flown from africa over there put him in a cage fed him for a month starved him to death then he let him out at this big julius caesar gathering they have in this big arena in rome this lion pounced and as he went to grab my grandfather by the neck my grandfather ducked the lion went right over his head my grandfather leaned up and bit the lion's balls off and he spit him right at julius caesar you know what caesar said fight fair can evil you son of a big fight fair that was my great great grandfather i love to be in the arena too [Music] i owe god for watching over me every day i know it if a doctor were to come to me today tell me i had two weeks to live i would pray that i would go to heaven and i would be thankful i thank god for every wonderful day i've had [Music] i'm so thankful for that come on baby light my fire come on i think to be known as a man who kept his word with people and stood against the odds it's good enough for me i don't care what else they say about me i know my grandkids love me i know my children do i don't know what else a man could ask for what the hell are you going what are you going to ask for when you die i really am blessed realizing how short life is can you imagine i wasn't a team i wasn't two guys i wasn't a fraternity of the sporting world it was just one guy came along with a show in the right time the right place and i captured the hearts and imagination of americans what a wonderful feeling [Music] [Music] you

Channel: My Collection

Views: 667,586

Keywords: Evel Knievel, Matthew McConaughey, Harley Davidson, The Hells Angels, Bikers, Stuntman, Daredevil, Evel Knievel Wembley Stadium, Evel Knievel Snake River Canyon, Evel Knievel Caesars Palace, 1970's, Motorcycle Crash, Motorcycle Jump, Butte Montana, Robbie Knievel, Snake River Canyon, Wembley Stadium, American Hero, American Icon

Id: 4GEStca5lXc

Length: 87min 17sec (5237 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 24 2020