Daredevil Evel Knievel dies in Florida

ST. PETERSBURG, Florida (Reuters) - Daredevil Evel Knievel, who dodged death in a series of spectacular motorcycle leaps and crashes that made his name synonymous with showmanship, died on Friday at the age of 69, according to a message on his Web site.

The site read simply "Robert Craig 'Evel' Knievel October 17, 1938 - November 30, 2007."

He had been ill for some time.

In his heyday, the tempestuous showman dressed like a superhero for his jumps, wearing a red, white and blue leather jumpsuit with a cape and cane, his hair sculpted back in a tall pompadour.

Knievel's greatest stunt turned out to be a failure when on September 8, 1974, he tried to ride a rocket-powered motorcycle across the Snake River Canyon in Idaho.

With a nationwide pay-per-view television audience watching, the parachute deployed when Knievel's Skycycle X-2 was only about two-thirds across, sending the cycle into the canyon wall. It landed partly in the river, but Knievel walked away with minor injuries.

Reuters/Nielsen