Missoula News

Montana Son, Stuntman Died at age 69

Butte Lays Evel Knievel to Rest

By Benjamin Shors, Guest Writer, 12-10-07

BUTTE, Mont. -- They walked to the pine box one-by-one and doffed their ball caps or crossed their chests or wiped away a tear. Some simply bowed their heads as the ‘70s rock music soared:

Viva! Viva! Evel Knievel!

Ever the showman, Robert Craig “Evel” Knievel, Jr., lay in his famous white leather jumpsuit, a bulky gold ring on his finger. A few feet away stood a massive granite headstone that had been built in 1974 as part of the promotion for Knievel’s “death-defying” jump over the Snake River Canyon.

“I sold my stocks, and I scraped together every dime I had to come here,” said James Blake, a 40-year-old dishwasher from Conway, Ark., who waited in line in the snow and freezing weather to view Knievel. “Seeing him in that box, I don’t know if I can take it.”

On Monday, after the international memorials of the American daredevil had wound down, this once-great mining town reclaimed its once-great hero in a public funeral.

“I’ve had celebrity funerals before, and they mean a lot to me, but nothing like this one,” said Rev. Robert H. Schuller, 81, of Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, Calif., where Knievel was baptized earlier this year. “To think that he added the words ‘Jesus Christ’ to his tombstone … and when you put it on your tombstone you mean it.”

The death of Knievel set off a weeklong wake in this town of 35,000, where its most famous citizen was remembered as an American hero and a Butte boy who liked his booze and tussled with local law enforcement. More than 3,000 people attended the ceremony at the Butte Civic Center, including the actor Matthew McConaughey and former heavyweight champion Joe Frazier.

While working on a program for the History Channel, McConaughey asked Knievel why he did what he did.

“He goes, ‘Matt, I’ve got to find a way, every day, to sweat in my boots.' I’m not going to bring up a lot of the things that you did to sweat in your boots," McConaughey said turning toward Knievel's casket. "But he had a little higher threshold for what it takes to get a buzz than most of us.”

Knievel, who survived 40 broken bones, concussions and multiple crashes in his star-spangled jumpsuit, died Nov. 30 near his home in Clearwater, Fla. Knievel, who suffered from pulmonary fibrosis and diabetes, was 69.

“I’m right back to the spot where it all began, though with a different viewpoint,” his son-in-law, Matt Vincent, said, reading from a letter Knievel wrote. “It is on this solid ground where I plan to end my story.”

Perhaps best known for his spectacular crash at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas and his failed attempt to jump Idaho’s Snake River Canyon, Knievel was born in Butte on Oct. 17, 1938. Raised by his grandparents, he grew up rough-and-tumble, an excellent athlete with a penchant for trouble and knack for slick self-promotion.

“Evel was Elvis,” said Bob Gill, a 62-year-old contemporary of Knievel who was paralyzed in a jump in 1974. “We were alike because we both jumped over cars, but we were different people. The name had a lot to do with it. He was a great promoter, a great entertainer. He made motorcycle jumping what the Hula Hoop was.”

Early Monday morning, fans and mourners formed a line in the snow and freezing temperatures well before the doors opened at 7 a.m.

Keenan Fitzpatrick, 8, wore a replica off Knievel’s suit –- right down to the red-and-blue trim.

“We even have a helmet, just like Evel,” Fitzpatrick said. Then, evincing a bit of Knievel’s flair for promotion, he added: “I finally made the news.”

Knievel returned to Butte in the summers for Evel Knievel Days, but his illness and the high altitude – the town sits at 5,000 feet above sea level – slowed the old daredevil considerably. Last summer, he took to calling in his orders for pork chop sandwiches from Muzzy Faroni’s bar – or slipping in through the back door to avoid the crowds.

For a generation of children growing up during the Vietnam War, Knievel embodied the American male – fearless, rugged and tough.

	“I owe my whole career to him,” said Spanky Spangler, who lit himself on fire and jumped off the Finlen Hotel in Butte five years ago. “I’ve been around the world fifteen times. Without Evel, I wouldn’t have been around once.”

“I saw him as what it meant to be a man,” said John “Mercury” Morgan, a 42-year-old minister and former stuntman who once jumped 10 elephants with his motorcycle. “We forget that there was no bigger star in the United States of America in the early 1970s than Evel Knievel.”

Indeed, his 1975 jump of 15 Greyhound buses in King’s Mill, Ohio, ranks as the highest-rated show in the history of ABC’s Wide World of Sports – ahead of Muhammad Ali’s knockout of George Foreman in the “Rumble in the Jungle.”

“If you really think about it, he wasn’t a great motorcycle rider,” Doug Wilson, a television sports producer, said as the crowd at the funeral laughed. “I mean, look at what happened time and again … but as a marketer and promoter he was a genius. He was the greatest barnstormer of the 20th century.”

Since his death, the celebrations have carried on in Butte. Motorcycle jumpers and daredevils from the across the country sang dirges in the bars and told stories of the man who inextricably shaped their lives.

“I owe my whole career to him,” said Spanky Spangler, who lit himself on fire and jumped off the Finlen Hotel in Butte five years ago. “I’ve been around the world fifteen times. Without Evel, I wouldn’t have been around once.”

At the Met Tavern, a popular local hangout, 67-year-old Sam Holverson told stories about the man who became an international celebrity but never forgot his hometown.

“I’d see Evel all over the world, but wherever he went, he was always from Butte,” Holverson said, easing his beer back onto the bar counter. “You know, he robbed this place three times.”

He laughed, wiping away a tear.

“I said I’d never shed a tear for him,” Holverson said, “but I guess I did tonight.”

At the War Bonnet Hotel last Saturday, the crowd swayed and sang country songs. Drunken mumbling filled in the trickier lyrics to “Sweet Home Alabama” – remixed to “Sweet Home, Butte, Montana.”

Three people muscled an upright piano to the top of the stairs in the bar, and Bob Kovacich, a retired middle school English teacher and a close friend of Knievel, plinked a few keys.

He wore a gold ring with diamonds forming a ‘K’ – a gift from the daredevil. A diamond gleamed on his right incisor as he talked.

“Evel asked me to play ‘Impossible Dream’ at his funeral,” Kovacich, dressed in a black fedora, pink shirt and silver scarf, said sadly. “And I learned that damn song. But I guess they forgot about it.”

Kovacich didn’t get to play at the funeral. But he sat down at the piano that night, banged on the keys and sang one for the bar.

Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.