It’s always hard to see great people you admired as a kid growing up pass away. Evel was one of those legends that I looked up to. I remember having the Evel Knievel lunch box and thermos that I took to school to show off to my friends. He was really part of the whole vibe for me growing up in the 1970’s. He will be missed millions I’m sure. So long Evel, thanks for excitement all those years.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071201/ap_on_re_us/obit_knievel;_ylt=AraLBy6btrj1h2Cf_C6tpYCs0NUE

By MITCH STACY, Associated Press Writer

CLEARWATER, Fla. - Evel Knievel‘s hard life killed him — it just took longer than he or anyone else might have expected. The hard-living motorcycle daredevil, whose bone-breaking, rocket-powered jumps and stunts made him an international icon in the 1970s, died Friday. He was 69.

Longtime friend and promoter Billy Rundle said Knievel had trouble breathing at his Clearwater condominium and died before an ambulance could get him to a hospital.

Knievel‘s son Kelly, 47, said he had visited his father in Clearwater for Thanksgiving.

Immortalized in the Washington‘s Smithsonian Institution as “America‘s Legendary Daredevil,” Knievel was best known for a failed attempt to jump an Idaho canyon on a rocket-powered cycle and a spectacular crash at Caesar‘s Palace in Las Vegas. He suffered nearly 40 broken bones before he retired in 1980.

“No king or prince has lived a better life,” he told The Associated Presss in May 2006. “You‘re looking at a guy who‘s really done it all. And there are things I wish I had done better, not only for me but for the ones I loved.”

His death came just two days after it was announced that he and rapper Kanye West had settled a federal lawsuit over the use of Knievel‘s trademarked image in a popular West music video.

“They started out watching me bust my ass, and I became part of their lives,” Knievel said. “People wanted to associate with a winner, not a loser. They wanted to associate with someone who kept trying to be a winner.”

In 1966 he began touring alone, barnstorming the West and doing everything from driving the trucks, erecting the ramps and promoting the shows. In the beginning he charged $500 for a jump over two cars parked between ramps.

His son Robbie Knievel followed in his father‘s daredevil footsteps and successfully completed the same jump in April 1989.

The parachute malfunctioned and deployed after takeoff. Strong winds blew the cycle into the canyon, landing him close to the swirling river below.

On Oct. 25, 1975, he jumped 14 Greyhound buses at Kings Island in Ohio.

Knievel decided to retire after a jump in the winter of 1976 in which he was again seriously injured. He suffered a concussion and broke both arms in an attempt to jump a tank full of live sharks in the Chicago Amphitheater. He continued to do smaller exhibitions around the country with his son, Robbie.

Many of his records have been broken by daredevil motorcyclist Bubba Blackwell.

Knievel also dabbled in movies and TV, starring as himself in “Viva Knievel” and with Lindsey Wagner in an episode of the 1980s TV series “Bionic Woman.” George Hamilton and Sam Elliott each played Knievel in movies about his life.

Evel Knievel toys accounted for more than $300 million in sales for Ideal and other companies in the 1970s and ‘80s.

Born Robert Craig Knievel in the copper mining town of Butte on Oct. 17, 1938, Knievel was raised by his grandparents. He traced his career choice back to the time he saw Joey Chitwood‘s Auto Daredevil Show at age 8.

Outstanding in track and field, ski jumping and ice hockey at Butte High School, he went on to win the Northern Rocky Mountain Ski Association Class A Men‘s ski jumping championship in 1957 and played with the Charlotte Clippers of the Eastern Hockey League in 1959.

He also formed the Butte Bombers semiprofessional hockey team, acting as owner, manager, coach and player.

Knievel also worked in the Montana copper mines, served in the Army, ran his own hunting guide service, sold insurance and ran Honda motorcycle dealerships. At various times and in different interviews, Knievel claimed to have been a swindler, a card thief, a safe cracker, a holdup man.

Evel Knievel married his hometown girlfriend, Linda Joan Bork, in 1959. They separated in the early 1990s. They had four children, Kelly, Robbie, Tracey and Alicia.

Robbie Knievel followed in his father‘s footsteps as a daredevil, jumping a moving locomotive in a 200-foot, ramp-to-ramp motorcycle stunt on live television in 2000. He also jumped a 200-foot-wide chasm of the Grand Canyon.

Knievel lived with his longtime partner, Krystal Kennedy-Knievel, splitting his time between their Clearwater condo and Butte. They married in 1999 and divorced a few years later but remained together. Knievel had 10 grandchildren and a great-grandchild.