If you were a child in the 1960s of ’70s, chances are good that at some point, you tried to jump your bike over a line of Matchbox cars. Or you yelled “I’m Evel Knievel!” when you committed any daring act in your backyard or jumped from dad’s recliner to the living room sofa.
The man broke a legendary 433 bones (a Guinness World Record) in some of the most-watched daredevil acts of all time, soaring his motorcycle over fountains, cars, buses and tanks full of live sharks, injuring himself publicly much of the time. He was a talk show fixture, a toy action figure, one of the first Americans to harness our inner desires to gawk for the purposes of reality television and George Hamilton heroically acted out his life on the big screen. For years, he pursued a dream of jumping the Grand Canyon that government officials refused to approve, so he opted to make the jump on private property on Snake River Canyon.
He became more infamous by the late ’70s, when the man who had promoted Snake River Canyon wrote a biography of him that suggested he used drugs and beat his wife. Knievel attacked the writer with an aluminum baseball bat and shattered his left arm in several places, although a court later proved that he had signed off on the book himself before it was published. He spent six months in county jail and three years on probation for the crime, and was hit with a $13 million civil lawsuit. He filed for bankruptcy and spent most of the 1980s out of the public’s view, his son Robbie taking over his daredevil mantle.
In more recent years, Knievel made several appearances on talk shows and as a spokesman for various products and even signed off on a rock opera about his life. His health steadily declined, as he had contracted Hepatitis C from a blood transfusion during one of his many adventures on a surgical table. He suffered from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis before his death at age 69 in December of 2007.
Now, the last items from his estate are up for auction on eBay, giving the world a sad and intimate little snapshot into what his life became. While a couple of outfits, pairs of motorcycle boots and signature leather red, white and blue coats hearken his glory days, the final lot of his estate also includes oxygen machines, purple crutches, a glucose monitor, pajamas, a stethoscope, a bathrobe, a hand exerciser, broken sunglasses and several other personal items. There is a box of unopened fan mail and a 35mm camera with an unfinished roll of film inside of it, along with stacks of promotional photographs, oversized business cards that he used to sign for his fans, 12 bottles of Evel Knievel hot sauce and a broken Evel Knievel clock.
As I publish this, the top bid for all of it stands at $2,000 with two days to go.
Visit the Evel Knievel Estate auction.
(Update 12-4-08: Bidding closed at $6,200.)
