Evel Knievel: Evel Knievel, the motorcycle stunt rider with a penchant for leaping over rows of parked vehicles, was that most American phenomenon - the self-created legend.
Yet for each tall tale he spun, he also delivered, setting at the same time a Guinness world record for broken bones.
It may seem ironic that he has now died in his Florida retirement home, aged 69, from diabetes and pulmonary fibrosis. But as he put it himself, he was "first of all a businessman", and after all, his greatest profits came from the licensing of his image for children's action figures.
This befitted an icon of America's frantic search for heroes in the 1970s. Knievel was played in films by George Hamilton and Sam Elliott, played himself (opposite Lauren Hutton and Gene Kelly) in 1977's Viva Knievel! and guest-starred on the Bionic Woman. He was a real bionic man; his injuries as much as part of the hype as the stunts themselves. "He was an amazing athlete, smart as a tack, and... simply unafraid of anything," said US congressman Pat Williams, a childhood friend.
Knievel shot to fame on New Year's Day 1968, jumping his motorcycle 151ft (46m) over the Caesar's Palace fountains in Las Vegas. The crash landing left him in a coma for a month, but launched him on to bigger events, broadcast live, generating more hype and money, with the risk of injury or death compelling the public's attention.
The apex was his September 1974 leap 1,600ft (488m) across Idaho's Snake River canyon in a specially designed "rocket cycle". Television, ticket sales, and sponsorship generated $6 million, and though his bike would have cleared the canyon, a "malfunction" deployed Knievel's parachute early, and he landed safely in the river below. The finish suggested Knievel at his huckster best.
Knievel was born in Butte, Montana. After his parents divorced, he was raised by his grandparents. He was inspired by seeing Joie Chitwood's Auto Daredevils when he was eight, and claimed to have stolen his first motorcycle when he was 13. He got his nickname, "Evel", after being arrested for stealing hubcaps. He shared a cell with a local character called "Awful Knofel". The cops christened him "Evil" Knievel; he later changed the spelling, believing that "Evel" looked classier.
Knievel repeatedly embellished the "facts" of his life. He quit school to work in Butte's copper mines, shorting the city's power with an earth mover. Or he was a high school champion ski-jumper, pole vaulter and ice hockey star. He claimed to have played minor pro hockey for the Eastern League's Charlotte Clippers, but if he did it was not in a regular season contest.
He returned to Butte and married his high-school sweetheart, Linda Joan Bork.
Knievel played some cons, and moved through numerous jobs, from hunting guide to insurance salesman, eventually selling Honda motorcycles, promoted by offering to arm-wrestle customers for $100. In 1965 he launched Evel Knievel and his Motorcyle Daredevils, jumping piles of rattlesnakes and being towed behind dragsters.
Soon a solo act, he jumped 52 wrecked cars in the Los Angeles Coliseum and drew 100,000 people for jumps on two consecutive days at Houston's Astrodome. He upped his car total to 19, and, with appropriate sponsorship, crashed while clearing 13 Pepsi trucks. Although he never got federal permits to attempt a jump across the Grand Canyon, the Snake River was the next best thing.
In 1986 he was arrested for soliciting an undercover policewoman, and eventually his marriage collapsed. In 1999 he married long-term girlfriend Krystal Kennedy, and although they soon divorced, they continued to live together. Knievel is survived by four children by his first wife.
He contracted hepatitis C, probably from a transfusion during one of his many operations, and had a liver transplant in 1999.
Robert Craig (Evel) Knievel: born October 17th, 1938; died November 30th, 2007