Being Evel Page #10

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family entertainment center,

located just outside

of cincinnati, ohio,

is jam-packed with people

who have come to watch

evel knievel

out of retirement,

and here he comes right now,

robert craig knievel, evel.

knoxville:
a lot was riding

on this jump.

uh, it was a different evel.

i mean, he actually did

practice jumps.

i'm gonna go, frank.

there's no wind gonna stop me,

not even a hurricane.

wilson:

it was a very gutsy jump.

the doctors told him

just don't ever do that again.

you know, one little slip,

wrong thing,

and he'd probably

have been paralyzed.

reporter:

everything is go.

and the total concentration now

is getting that bike

off the approach ramp

and on to the landing ramp.

and he's not hesitating.

he'll go.

( cheers and applause )

boy, busted the motorcycle

right in half, frank.

boy, it did come apart,

didn't it?

- boy, did i hit hard.

- yeah, i know.

thank you.

this motorcycle is the finest

machine in the world,

as far as i am 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 years.

i would like to tell

all of you something, though,

that-- that as far as

i am concerned,

i have jumped far enough.

today i'm gonna walk away

from here with you,

and i feel that's being

a professional.

that's what i'm gonna do.

knoxville:
king's island was

the longest jump of his career.

it was the biggest television

audience he ever had,

and it was

the highest-rated episode

of "wide world of sports" ever.

he did some small jumps

after that,

but he never went

that big again.

king's island was...

the gunfighter

putting away his pistols.

if you were on a bike,

you'd do stupid sh*t,

but you would do stupid sh*t

in the name of evel knievel.

hoffman:
i thought

that's why you had a bike.

i didn't know

you just rode bikes around.

i thought the whole purpose

of bikes were to hit things

and fly off of 'em.

seth enslow:
we'd line up

the neighbor kids

and see who could jump

more neighbors

without landing on 'em

and things like that,

but we just dreamed of having

a motor between our legs.

i loved just going down steps,

and i crashed all the time.

you're like, yeah, i'm gonna be

just like evel knievel

only not as good.

there's no way

that a youngster

is not going

to not want to try to do

what his hero does.

i don't think there's

anything wrong with a kid

wanting to be an evel knievel

any more than he'd wanna be

an o.j. simpson or frank gifford

or be any kind

of a professional athlete.

- reporter:

do you view him as a hero?

- yeah.

- do you really?

- yeah.

he's one of the greatest heroes.

robbie knievel:

he was a hero to so many kids,

but his own son

was his biggest fan.

reporter:
this is robbie.

look at this little guy go.

wouldn't you know

it would be the young one

who would steal it.

he's the one that's got

to have the longest wheelie.

robbie knievel:

he totally saw me and him,

and it was like,

"i'm gonna be you, dad."

and the legend continues.

i'm gonna jump the fountains

at caesar's palace

before i end my career.

( cheers and applause )

that was for you, dad.

knoxville:
yeah, robbie

broke all of his dad's records.

i mean, hell, he could jump

fourteen buses with no hands.

but robbie was jumping

on lighter,

more powerful bikes

that were designed for jumping.

leeuwen:
he could jump

farther and longer than evel

and all that stuff,

but it didn't matter.

robbie couldn't tell a story.

you know,

he was not a showman.

knievel is the ultimate showman.

a guy could sing

longer and louder

than elvis presley,

but who gave a damn?

he was elvis presley.

my dad was evel knievel.

( laughter )

( applause )

williams:
even when bobbie

wasn't jumping anymore

he still wanted to be

in the spotlight,

and he had to find

other things to do

to get himself attention.

yeah, one of his projects

was hollywood.

- viva

- viva

viva knievel

hamilton:
in the end,

there was one guy

meant to be evel knievel,

and that was evel.

evel had a movie-star quality

about him.

there's no doubt about it.

uh, not when he tried to act.

look at you, you're trying

to destroy yourself.

if you don't believe me,

here's the proof.

i'm not gonna let you

commit suicide around me.

he performed

for the audience,

but when it came

to the acting part,

i guess there's a difference.

- that was too far!

- stop it!

- all right...

- stop it!

- any way you want it, man!

- stop it, stop it!

hood:

once it came out,

it was a movie that wasn't

really well-received.

viva

i guess the exciting part's

is the jump, huh?

you know, we've got

the wallendas on the highwire,

and the mentalist on the edge

of the canyon on a motorcycle...

saltman:
when i knew

i was gonna take on

the snake river canyon event,

i decided something

very important--

that i would write a book,

a legacy,

that people could read

about the evel knievel promotion

of the snake river canyon.

and knievel, he was my 50/50

partner, and he says,

"don't forget,

just tell the truth."

so with permission,

i carried

an audio-cassette recorder

during the evel knievel tour.

if you listen to the tape,

you can form your own opinion.

and so when i wrote my book,

i kept out a lot of things,

stuff i would

never write about,

'cause remember,

when the book was coming out,

i was still protecting

his image.

evel's attorney,

he checked everything,

told me that it had

evel's approval in writing,

and then the book

was published.

little:
i was at evel's

compound one day,

and he throws me this book,

and he says,

"here, keep this.

it'll be worth some money

someday."

i open it up, here's all

his footnotes in there.

the first part of the book--

"x-rated evel."

he writes in there,

"constitutes adultery."

so right from the get-go,

you could tell he was mad.

it just starts,

and you can tell by the--

the farther it gets in the book,

the madder he got.

"this is a lie

and not accurate."

( laughs )

"lies, lies, lies."

i read the book,

and you know what?

i said, yeah,

what's the problem?

he could of said a lot more

worse stuff. ( laughs )

i read the book a couple times.

i didn't see

anything in it bad.

nothing.

it was very factual.

very, very, very factual.

i think that shelly,

that wrote it,

was, uh, accurate.

and...

it made him really mad.

saltman:
i was on

the 20th century fox lot,

when all of a sudden,

i saw evel,

with a big smile coming at me,

loping along.

and i was actually

glad to see him.

the book was out,

and i was like,

maybe i could even talk him into

doing some promotion with me.

i said, "hey, evel,"

and all of a sudden,

my hands,

they were held behind my back.

they tell me it was two men.

i didn't know them.

it may have been one.

it may have been two.

and he, uh--

he came at me

with a bat,

an aluminum baseball bat,

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