Evel Knievel, the late daredevil who took pride in his scrapes with the law, was nearly indicted by the federal government, according to the 290-page report the FBI compiled on him. Along with possible ties to a crime syndicate, Knievel’s bread and butter seemed to be kicking the shit out of people:
His most well-known run-in with the law was a 1977 attack on movie studio executive Shelly Saltman, whom the daredevil beat with a baseball bat in the parking lot of 20th Century Fox.
Saltman promoted Knievel’s infamous attempt to jump Idaho’s Snake River Canyon and then wrote a book about the experience, angering Knievel by portraying him as “an alcoholic, a pill addict, an anti-Semite and an immoral person.” Knievel was sentenced to six months in jail and Saltman won a $12.75 million judgment, but never collected…
Knievel’s file shows investigators believed he was involved with other violent acts — a threat in Phoenix, an attack in a Kansas City hotel room and a vicious beating in San Francisco. All were allegedly carried out by Knievel associates, according to subjects quoted in the file.
Yeah! What an awesome badass! It’s like that old saying: revenge is a dish best served in public, as you assault them with a baseball bat at their place of employ. Well done, Evel. That guy was a real class act. Not like those thugs O.J. Simpson and Lawrence Phillips. Evel’s totally different, in that he didn’t play football and was… uh… how do I put this delicately? I believe the term is “white.”
Evel Knievel, the greatest daredevil who ever lived, died yesterday. He was 69. Here's a video of him plying his craft at Ceasar's Palace on New Year's Eve, 1967:
I always admired Evel Knievel. Not because I was particularly fond of daring the devil, but because the motorcycle stunt-man didn't take shit from anybody. I remember seeing a program about him on the History Channel in which they recounted the story of when Evel severely bludgeoned a former promoter of his with a baseball bat because the promoter had written a slanderous pulp biography about him. And he had 2 broken arms from a recent jump, but that didn't stop him from sending the promoter to the hospital. What? Yeah, I watched the History Channel. I couldn't find the remote control and the TV was at least 5 feet away from the couch, but the span seemed longer than the Snake River Canyon. More Evel vids after the jump:
