As it was for now, the show had to go on. Evel was determined to continue his gradual rise back into the public eye, and if he now had to treat diabetes
and
hepatitis C along with his usual aches and pains, so what? His career as the king of the stuntmen meant he was no stranger to pain and the possibility of death. He even foolishly showed no regard for his doctor’s orders concerning alcohol, even though he had already stated that he had quit drinking. ‘They told me to quit drinking…I am a stubborn man. I have been a big-shot all my life. I thought I knew it all so I continued to drink. I have punished my liver, I can tell you, and that just helps hepatitis C even more.’
Knievel did eventually stop drinking but was still suffering much of the time, drained of energy and hobbling around like a man 30 years his senior. But he was revelling in the new recognition he was now being showered with as the originator and founding father of a whole new lifestyle, one which was gathering momentum throughout the States and would eventually spread worldwide – Extreme sports.
While Evel had been primarily associated with motorcycles, he had once strapped himself into a steam-powered rocket and had also planned to freefall from an aeroplane at 30,000 feet to land on some hay bales, stunts which make him more than just a motorcycle jumper. He had no shortage of imitators over the years – whom he more often than not despised as they threatened to steal the limelight away from him. The Extreme-sports fanatics, however, are much closer in spirit to Evel than any of his imitators were. They invented their own ways to live life on the edge, and with it they invented a whole new lifestyle, fashion industry and music form. Whether it was extreme surfing, base jumping, snowboarding or freestyle motocross, a whole host of youngsters ushered in an enviable new lifestyle, all wearing designer brands like Oakley, Fox, On Fire and RipCurl gear and opting to drop out of humdrum society in order to chase thrills. They wore cool shades, baggy pants, beanie hats, combat trousers, covered themselves in tattoos and body piercings and listened to Nu-Metal music. They rebelled against the nanny state and thrived on taking risks and inventing new challenges, just as Evel had done a generation before. For them, copying Evel’s suit and replicating – or even trying to better – Evel’s stunts would have seemed utterly pointless. It had been done before, so where was the risk or triumph in that? They possessed far too much originality to become mere clones; then they would be little better than the thousands of overweight Elvis Presley impersonators who merely dyed their hair black, donned a pair of aviator sunglasses and squeezed into a white-tasselled jumpsuit.
Many of these kids were too young to even remember Knievel, but the older members of the Extreme community began hailing Knievel as the godfather and originator of everything they did and believed in, and the message soon spread to the younger participants thanks to the back-catalogue of Knievel videos. From being a relic of a forgotten decade and little more than a washed-up joke, Evel Knievel was finally finding the respect he had always craved, and it was coming from a youth that he respected – a youth which embodied the very lifestyle and attitude he had single-handedly created.
Golf does not have the reputation of being a particularly dangerous sport but Evel Knievel seemed to have a knack for getting hurt wherever he went or whatever he did, even in the most relaxed of environments. In December of 1997 he finally underwent the surgeon’s knife in Tampa General Hospital to have a complete hip replacement after falling over during a round of golf and once more smashing his fragile hip. It was, as one would expect, found to be in a terrible state of repair when surgeons opened Knievel up to begin the operation. ‘The doctors said they had never seen a worse hip in their lives,’ he commented.
It may not have been the most glamorous way to injure himself (wiping out at Caesar’s Palace carries heaps more credibility), but the operation to insert a titanium hip was successful and meant that, for the first time in 30 years, Knievel’s legs were both the same length and he no longer had a limp – or the need for his famous cane. Prior to surgery, Evel had been suffering badly with his hip and was told by doctors to use a Zimmer frame to take his weight off it. Pride, however, prevented Knievel from doing so – at least in public – and he insisted on using only his cane, even though it was woefully inadequate for the job.
The injuries didn’t stop there either. Some months later Evel slipped while getting out of a Jacuzzi and broke a rib to add to his quite outstanding list of injuries. But all these problems paled into insignificance as Knievel’s hepatitis C approached a critical point much earlier than had been expected. In April of 1998 doctors gave him between three and six months to live. ‘Three years ago,’ Knievel said, ‘the doctor diagnosed five years, but now it’s just crept up on me so fast.’
The virus was sapping Evel’s strength and forcing him to remain in bed for up to a week at a time. He was also losing weight fast and was down to 165 lbs from his usual 180 lbs. If he didn’t undergo a liver transplant within the next three-to-six months, Evel Knievel was going to die. But finding a suitable donor is never easy, and being rich and famous (which he was now slowly becoming again) didn’t make it any easier, as he explained: ‘Some people think that if you’re rich you’ll just get a transplant. It doesn’t work that way. The person who needs it the most and is a donor match will get the transplant. It doesn’t matter if you’re Mickey Mantle, Evel Knievel, Walter Payton or Joe Smith. And what if the body rejects the first one you’re given? You can’t just say, “Hey doc, I’m rich, here’s another $467,000. Go find me a new one.” Believe me, they’re just not available.’
If Knievel was to be lucky enough to find a matching donor in time, there was still, as he said, no guarantee that his body would accept it. Even if it did, he estimated that a new liver would only buy him about seven years. To further add to his worries there was every chance that his hepatitis would immediately attack the new liver all over again.
Part of Knievel’s appeal in his glory days was that he simplified things, even death itself. He faced a ramp, gunned his bike up it, and tried to bridge the gap. He either landed successfully, got hurt or got killed. Gruesome but simple. And if he did get killed, chances are it would have been so quick that he wouldn’t even have known about it. Now he was in a very different situation, little better than a prisoner waiting on death row hoping his appeal will grant him life. But to his eternal credit, Knievel faced this new form of death in exactly the same way he had faced it in a different guise. He talked openly about his illness and remained philosophical.
‘It is a bitch,’ he admitted, ‘but I am not scared of it – nothing much scares me – but I just don’t want to die. Hepatitis C is worse than AIDS. There is no cure. If I do get a liver the disease will start attacking the new one as soon as it is put in. It is a damn rattlesnake this thing.’
Knievel was issued a pager to carry at all times, which would alert him if and when a suitable liver was found. He was one of 10,000 patients in the US holding on for the news that might save their lives and was acutely aware that a quarter of those patients die before their pagers ever go off. The sickest patients are pushed to the top of the list, and at one point Knievel was nearing the top after twice coming extremely close to death. On both occasions his body’s near-superhuman ability to fight off pain and injury, coupled with the steely determination that had allowed him to become Evel Knievel in the first place, allowed him to recover sufficiently well to embark upon what looked like being his last-ever road trip. Evel’s doctors advised him to visit his family and friends while he still could, as it might be his last chance.
By this time, Evel had not only his own four children to think about but eight grandchildren too. Sadly, he could not see his beloved grandmother Emma who had raised him as a child; she had passed away the previous year aged 103.
Evel set out on a heart-breaking trip to Montana to visit as many friends and relations as possible, knowing full well he might never see them again. He might not have been an ideal father to his own children but as he grew older he doted on his grandchildren, five of whom were Tracey’s children, two Robbie’s and one Alicia’s. It was a trying time for all involved with so many uncertainties hanging over Evel, but he retained his optimistic outlook, despite hearing of his youngest grandson (Tracey’s son) Jesse’s ambitions. ‘He’s just seven and [he] came up to me and said, “Granddad, you know it’s going to be up to me and my brother Josiah to keep the family name going.” He was wearing his bicycle helmet and sitting on an Evel Knievel bike. I just rolled my eyes and said “Jesus.”’
Upon returning from his ‘last trip’, Evel continued making personal appearances when he felt well enough and he also gave interviews and played golf, even though his arthritis meant he had to run his wrists under a hot shower for twenty minutes before he could even think about holding a golf club. ‘I have bad arthritis,’ Evel admitted, ‘and it hurts me to get up in the morning. I have to be very careful in the mornings because of the injuries I have; I’m a slow starter.’ When the pain was too great he even took to rubbing horse liniment into his body to try and ease the pain in his muscles and joints.
Helped along by widespread and remorseful reports of his deteriorating health (the public often forgets how much they admire celebrities until these celebrities are dead or in danger of dying), the Evel revival continued to gather momentum. The Playing Mantis toy company announced that the famous Knievel toys would be re-released in time for Christmas and his new official website was selling a whole new range of Knievel-labelled merchandise, from which Evel naturally got a cut. Replica leather jackets, Evel Knievel cigars and aftershave, commemorative coins, T-shirts, caps, posters and signed photographs were all available at a price. If Evel Knievel merchandising had been a phenomenon in its own right back in the 1970s, it was well on its way to being so again.
Evel relished the fact that he was now finally able to make money without having to risk life and limb to do so; it was a scenario he had dreamed of since his career started going downhill back in 1976. Of the multitude of businesses offering him appearance money he said, ‘They don’t ask me to jump; I just turn up, smile, pose for the cameras and they give me the money. It is quite a career. In the old days, the promoters wanted more and more from me. They wanted me to jump or spill my blood and break my bones. Every time they wanted me to jump farther and farther and farther. Hell, they thought my bike had wings.’
The endorsement deals kept flooding in. In 1998 Evel linked up with world BMX champion Matt Hoffman to produce an Evel Knievel BMX bike. Hoffman had long idolised Knievel and was one of the many Extreme-sports fans to view him as the granddaddy of the movement. HoffmanBikes was recognised as being at the forefront in producing stunt bikes and the Knievel signature-series model was, naturally, designed primarily for long jumps rather than more intricate stunts. Hoffman himself often jumped over lines of cars on his BMX by being towed at speed behind a car then letting go of the rope as he reached the ramp. The bikes sold for $800 and Knievel seemed delighted, not only with his cut in the franchise (by 1998 he was making around $300,000 a year) but in being recognised by current world champions like Hoffman. At the time, Hoffman was a nine-time world champion and Evel described him as ‘One of the finest young men I have ever met – a true competitor.’ Hoffman himself penned a poem in honour of Evel, which ended with the lines ‘On behalf of the past and future generation, thanks for the inspiration.’ It summed up Evel’s contribution to the Extreme movement perfectly.
But the product endorsement didn’t stop with BMX bikes; for the first time ever, motorcycle riders could now buy a genuine Evel Knievel signature-series motorcycle. The California Motorcycle Company (CMC) announced in 1998 that it would be building a limited-edition run of 1,000 bikes, each painted up in the familiar red, white and blue starry logos Knievel made so famous, and different models would be made in honour of Evel’s most famous jumps: Caesar’s Palace, the Snake River and Wembley. They were certainly not intended as stunt bikes, however, but rather as Harley-Davidson-style cruisers. The 1440cc S&S engines pumped out a relatively puny 75 brake horsepower, but the bikes were not designed for performance but rather for show, as the gold-coloured trimmings and acres of chrome testified. The bikes went on sale for $25,000 and in November of 1998 CMC merged with Indian Motorcycles and seven other companies in a $30 million deal to form the Indian Motorcycle Company Incorporated. Unfortunately, failure to produce targeted numbers of bikes resulted in the company finally closing its doors in 2003.
Knievel must have been extremely frustrated throughout 1998. His name had never been hotter since his heyday and he was boldly predicting that he would make more money in the next 10 years than he ever made in the Seventies. But his new-found success was continually tainted by his illness and the nagging, depressing thought that he might not be around to enjoy the rewards of his comeback. His condition meant he often couldn’t even enjoy the present. ‘This disease is a bitch,’ he admitted. ‘Some days I just can’t get out of bed. It saps your energy. Some days are good, some are bad.’
Yet still the recognition kept rolling in. Knievel was awarded the prestigious
Motor Cycle News
Dave Taylor Lifetime Achievement Award in September 1998. Taylor had been a stunt rider of some repute himself and had campaigned endlessly on safety issues before sadly dying from cancer.
MCN,
established in 1956, is the biggest-selling motorcycle weekly in the world and had chronicled Knievel’s career from the moment he became famous. It was also significant that Knievel was being recognised by an enthusiasts’ motorcycle title rather than as a mainstream celebrity, a fact that was not lost on Evel and one he was particularly proud of.
Knievel was too frail to fly to the UK for the awards ceremony but spoke to the audience via a pre-recorded video tape. Speaking of the cancer that killed Taylor and the liver disease that was well on its way to killing him, Knievel said, ‘I know how painful cancer can be. I’m sick myself, not from cancer but from liver disease. I have hepatitis C and it’s…everything that ails us is tough for a human being to get along with. God put you here on earth to do the best and be the best and live the best that you can, and when he’s ready he’s gonna take you and I don’t think that a human being can ask for anything better than that.’
Fully expecting that Knievel was on his last legs, there were few in the audience – made up of the cream of the British motorcycle industry – with dry eyes. Knievel came across as being humble and in full acceptance of his condition. His speech was as far removed from his usual bravado and gung-ho rhetoric as it was possible to be, and the fact was not lost on his audience, many of whom had grown up marvelling at the crazy stuntman from across the Atlantic. Some of them had even been present at Wembley way back in 1975.
The UK was caught up in a Seventies revival just as much as the US, and in November of 1998 BBC2 honoured Evel with a special Evel Knievel Night – a whole night of programmes dedicated to the Seventies icon. A new documentary,
A Touch of Evel,
was aired along with the 1977 movie
Viva Knievel!,
an episode of
The Simpsons
which featured a Knievel-type character called Captain Lance Murdock, and some short documentaries on other famous stuntmen and women including Britain’s own answer to Knievel, Eddie Kidd, who sadly suffered brain damage in a jump in 1996 and is now confined to a wheelchair. Having a whole evening’s programmes dedicated to one man on a channel as respected as the BBC was a true measure of how much Knievel still meant in the UK, almost a quarter of a century after his only performance here.
He continued to be celebrated in the US too, as the world-famous Smithsonian Museum in Washington opened a permanent Evel Knievel museum in December. In what is one of the largest exhibits in the museum dedicated to just one person, Evel donated many of his personal belongings including the Harley-Davidson XR-750 that he used to make his longest successful jump at Kings Island in 1975 and one of his famous white jumpsuits.
But, as always, Evel Knievel and trouble were never very far apart, and in December Evel attracted further bad press when he was reported to the police for making threatening phone calls to a Cleveland-based motorcycle collector. Knievel had apparently not learned his lesson after being jailed for breaking Sheldon Saltman’s arms back in 1977 and was now threatening the same punishment to a man whose name was not revealed. A business associate of Knievel’s called Carl Forbes told the press that the man in question had been ‘manufacturing jump bikes and using Knievel’s name to advertise them’. Cleveland police-chief Kurt Laderer said, ‘Since this happened over the phone, we have no way of truly knowing what happened. All we can do is put the man’s residence under house watch.’