Evel Knievel aboard a less lethal cycle. (Image courtesy of Bill Wolf.)

I’ve long admired “He’s Not a Bird, He’s Not a Plane,” a fun profile of the late, great motorcycle daredevil Evel Knievel from the February 5, 1968 issue of Sports Illustrated. The piece was penned by Gilbert Rogin, a novelist who was also SI‘s managing editor.

The article relays what a sensation Knievel was in the ’60s and ’70s. He dressed like Elvis and escaped death like Houdini, although the dark side of his appeal was the sick fascination of watching what would happen if he couldn’t avert disaster, as he jumped his motorcycle over rows of cars, hotel fountains and actual rivers.

Knievel had none of the sociopolitical significance of Muhammad Ali, but he shared the boxer’s keen understanding of Hollywood, hoopla and the hard sell. He went through a lot of money, broken bones, personal problems, a rock opera and a late-life religious conversion before his death in 2007. In Rogin’s piece, Knievel touted his desire to jump across the Grand Canyon (which never happened). An excerpt about his not-so-successful jump over the fountains at Caesar’s Palace on the last day of 1967:

“On New Year’s Eve, Knievel jumped the ornamental fountains in front of Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, which are billed as the World’s Largest Privately Owned Fountains. Several weeks earlier he had said, ‘I know I can jump these babies, but what I don’t know is whether I can hold on to the motorcycle when it lands. Oh, boy, I hope I don’t fall off.’

Knievel’s fears were justified. Shortly after the motorcycle hit the landing ramp, he fell and rolled 165 feet across an asphalt parking lot. Knievel is now in Southern Nevada Memorial Hospital, recovering from compound fractures of the hip and pelvis. ‘Everything seemed to come apart,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t hang on to the motorcycle. I kept smashing over and over and over and over and over, and I kept saying to myself, ‘Stay conscious, stay conscious.’ But, hey, I made the fountains!'”

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Knievel “jumps” the Snake River Canyon, 1974: