Evel Knievel

American daredevil, a modern-day gladiator who does daring motorcycle stunts that have almost killed him many times. A movie of his life was made in 1972. In 1977, he made an attempt to jump his motorcycle over a tank full of sharks, which were tranquilized and harmless as a precaution.

A school drop-out and hell-raiser, Knievel was spoiling for trouble from the time he was 19. With a history of aggression that occasionally went out of control, he once served a six month jail term for beating his former press agent with a baseball bat. In 1986, Knievel was arrested for soliciting a female cop posing as a hooker. In late 1994, police were called to break up a fight in a hotel room, where he was arrested for allegedly beating his girlfriend.

Knievel was married and had four children, but later divorced. His son Robbie, who followed in his dad's footsteps as a sports daredevil, was born on 7 May 1960. From 1991, Evel lived with a 22-year-old girlfriend, pro-golfer Krystal Kennedy, and drove a $150,000 Aston Martin sports car. He and 30-year younger Krystal had met on a golf course in 1995 and they married on 19 NOvember 1999. In 1996, Knievel was arrested at a Sunnyvale, CA motel for beating Kennedy during an argument, she never pressed charges.

In January 1999 he was in Tampa, Florida awaiting a liver transplant due to the effects of hepatitis C. He believes that he contacted the disease during one of the 14 operations to repair the 35 broken bones and other injuries caused by his stunts. He had a liver transplant on 27 January 1999. By mid-April he was once more doing battle with hepatitis C.

Suffering from diabetes and pulmonary fibrosis, he died on November 30, 2007 in Clearwater, FL. He was 69.