Daredevil Evel Knievel dies of natural causes

His health had been failing for years.

CLEARWATER, Fla. (AP) — Evel Knievel is dead.

That sentence probably should have been written in 1968, when the daredevil crashed his motorcycle spectacularly as he jumped the fountains at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas and wound up in a coma.

It probably should have been written in 1974, when his rocket-powered cycle failed as he tried to jump Idaho’s Snake River Canyon and he almost landed in the raging water. Or the numerous other times he battered himself while trying to jump something bigger than ever.

Instead, it was written Friday. Natural causes. Age 69.

“It’s been coming for years, but you just don’t expect it. Superman just doesn’t die, right?” said longtime friend and promoter Billy Rundle. He’s the organizer of the annual Evel Knievel Days festival in the daredevil’s Butte, Mont., hometown.

Rundle said Knievel had trouble breathing at his Clearwater condominium Friday and died before an ambulance could get him to a hospital.

Knievel had been in failing health for years, suffering from diabetes and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, an incurable condition that scarred his lungs. He had undergone a liver transplant in 1999 after nearly dying of hepatitis C, likely contracted through a blood transfusion after one of his many spills. He also suffered two strokes recently.

Immortalized in the Washington’s Smithsonian Institution as “America’s Legendary Daredevil,” the red-white-and-blue-spangled showman became an international icon with a host of sensational jumps and bruising failures. He suffered nearly 40 broken bones before he retired in 1980.

“I think he lived 20 years longer than most people would have” after so many injuries, said his son Kelly Knievel, 47. “I think he willed himself into an extra five or six years.”

Though Knievel dropped off the pop culture radar in the ’80s, the image of the high-flying motorcyclist clad in patriotic, star-studded colors was never erased from public consciousness. He always had fans and enjoyed a resurgence in popularity in recent years.

Knievel made a good living selling his autographs and endorsing products.

Evel Knievel toys accounted for more than $300 million in sales for Ideal and other companies in the 1970s and ’80s.

Thousands came to Butte, Mont., every year as his legend was celebrated during the Evel Knievel Days festival, which Rundle organizes.

He began his daredevil career in 1965 when he formed a troupe called Evel Knievel’s Motorcycle Daredevils, a touring show in which he performed stunts such as riding through fire walls, jumping over live rattlesnakes and mountain lions and being towed at 200 mph behind dragster race cars.