Leigh Montville Does Evel Knievel

Considering he died in 2007 and we're still talking about him, I'd say people still care, in a nostalgic way.

He was one of those 70s icons that inspire nostalgia, and a bit of cringing as well (like leisure suits).

 

relevance of evel? as montville says, he was the first reality TV star.

 

Guys were going over Niagara Falls in a barrel and walking across astonishingly-dangerous high wires -- without a net -- decades and decades and decades before Evel.

 

Funny, we were just talking about Leigh the other night. I remember the glory years at the Globe when he was part of a great department.

 

but those old-time guys weren't doing it on live TV.

 

Had the pleasure of interviewing Evel Knievel about 10 years ago when he made an appearance at a baseball game here -- he rode his motorcycle around the field and did a giant rooster-tail on the warning track. So after his press conference, a couple of us are still hanging around talking to Evel and a reporter mentions that one of the baseball team's players was out with a broken femur and wonders if Evel might have some advice to help him heal faster. He asks Evel, "Have you ever broken your femur?" Evel looks at him with the straightest face imaginable and says, "Five times."

 

Read this Friday (the SMG interview) .. Evel sounds like he was full of shit 80 percent of the time.