LA Weekly: Evel Knievel and a Shit Named Joe Eszterhas - Peter Relic

For all those who had an Evel Knievel doll, Check this out!... The first paragraph of the story puts his fame in perspective of the 70's:

For kids growing up in the 1970s, Evel Knievel was a superhero. This had less to do with his real-life motorcycle jumps of double-decker buses, blustery canyons and casino fountains (which frequently ended in bone-breaking botch jobs and bailouts) than it did with mass-marketed merchandise. Thanks to action figures and comic books, Knievel existed in a mythic realm alongside the likes of Ghost Rider and Muhammad Ali. Best of all the Evel toys was a stunt cycle, which, thanks to its mega power launcher (basically a plastic hand crank), once cleared the slimy creek near our home — our housing development’s equivalent of the Grand Canyon.



In LA Weekly, Peter Relic writes about his attempt to profile Evel Knievel for Rolling Stone earlier this year.
 
   From the other end of the phone came a sigh: “Peter, I don’t want or need Rolling Stone to do a story on me after all these years. In 1974 Rolling Stone sent a shit named Joe Eszterhas to write a story about me when I attempted to make my Snake River Canyon jump. And when the story came out, the title of the story was "King of the Goons." It hurt, it hurt very much, and I know a thing or two about pain. Now, I’m not judging your insides by the cover of your magazine. I’m sure you’re a decent human being. And God knows we all make mistakes. [Pause.] I made some of my biggest live on national television. But Rolling Stone made a mistake when they ran that story.”

LA Weekly - LA Vida - Evel Knievel and a Shit Named Joe Eszterhas - Peter Relic - The Essential Online Resource for Los Angeles

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