Knievel, ‘Evel’ (1938–2007)

US motorcycle stunt performer. He began doing motorcycle stunts as a teenager, then embarked on an incredibly varied career (1956–65) that included professional hockey, a stint in the US Army, work in the copper mines, and eventually crime (safecracking and armed holdups). Knievel went ‘straight’ in 1965, forming Evil Knievel's Motorcycle Devils. He performed numerous dangerous stunts and became a hero to schoolchildren of the 1970s.

Stunts usually involved riding a motorcycle up a ramp and launching himself airborne over obstacles such as lines of cars, or in one of his most famous stunts, over the fountains at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada, which left him in a coma for a month (1967).

Raised by his grandparents, Knievel was born in Butte, a copper-mining town in Montana. After he retired, he managed the stunt career of his son, Robbie Knievel.