Life of Evel: Evel Knievel by Stuart Barker

death.
    Knievel was in Vegas for a middleweight title fight when he first clapped eyes on the spectacular fountains in front of Caesar’s grand entranceway. They gushed intermittently high up into the dry Vegas air and Evel realised straight away that they were perfectly suited to his needs: he vowed there and then to jump them. But even though he had built up a big-enough reputation to command national media coverage when he announced his jump, it wasn’t so easy gaining permission from the casino’s owners.
    It is worth pointing out that Evel Knievel was a notorious yarn teller and it was often difficult to separate whole truths from half-truths, and half-truths from complete fantasy, when listening to his animated and entertaining speech. Over the course of almost 40 years he repeated and exaggerated the same tales to the point where he appeared to believe even the furthest-fetched stories himself. Knievel didn’t become the legend he is by telling modest, mundane anecdotes about himself; his larger-than-life character was very much part of the reason why he attained such fame, and his enthusiastic and often over-the-top story-telling went a long way to creating that character. Knievel himself may well have had the last laugh by telling tongue-in-cheek stories and fooling many into believing them. Indeed, it was once a running joke that in 20 minutes Knievel could tell enough yarns about his early life to keep a reporter busy for 20 years just checking them out. His famed rhetoric was exemplified in his explanation of how he gained permission to jump the Caesar’s fountains.
    The day after the aforementioned Vegas title fight, Knievel called Caesar’s founder and executive director Jay Sarno, claiming to be a certain Frank Quinn from Life magazine. Knievel took up the story from both men’s points of view:
    Knievel: Do you know Eval Neval?
    Sarno: Eval Neval? Who the hell’s he?
    Knievel: He’s the guy who’s gonna jump the Grand Canyon, says he’s gonna jump over your hotel.
    Sarno: I heard about that nut, he ain’t gonna jump nothin’ around here. I gotta go, goodbye.
    The following day, Knievel called Sarno again, this time posing as a reporter:
    Knievel: Hi, this is Larson with Sports Illustrated. You ever heard of Evel Neevle?
    Sarno: Evel Neevle? Who the hell’s this Evel Neevle?
    Knievel: He’s the guy that’s going to jump the Grand…
    Sarno: Oh yes, some guy called me yesterday about that guy. I don’t know, something around here…something’s going on. I don’t know. Call back.
    Two days later, Knievel called again, this time impersonating a friend who worked for the ABC television network.
    Knievel: This is Dennis Lewen from ABC’s Wide World of Sports. Do you know Evel Knievel?
    Sarno: Eval Neval, Evel Neevle, Evel Knievel? Who is this crazy guy? Everybody’s calling me up about him. I think we’ve got a deal with him, I don’t know, call back.
    With the ball rolling, Knievel then sent his fictitious business partners to work. Because he admired the Jewish community for their financial skills, Knievel had created three fictitious Jewish businessmen to head up his company, ‘Evel Knievel Enterprises’, the idea being that the list of names on his headed stationery would look impressive and persuade people to take him more seriously.
    The president was named as H. Carl Forbes, the vice president was Mike Rosenstein and the secretary and treasurer listed as Carl Goldberg. Knievel himself did a very fine, if stereotyped, Jewish/ American accent and claimed he often called people up, on his own behalf, in this accent pretending to be any one of the three fictitious businessmen. With Sarno at least now aware of who Evel Knievel was, it was time for the killer punch and this time Knievel called impersonating Rosenstein:
    Knievel: Hello, this is Rosenstein.
    Sarno: Who?
    Knievel: Rosenstein.
    Sarno: Who the hell do you represent?
    Knievel: Evel Knievel. He’s going to be in your office this