George Eads Gets 'Evel'

George Eads Gets 'Evel'
Entertainment Tonight
July 29, 2004

Extreme sports legend EVEL KNIEVEL is in the Guiness Book of World Records for having broken 35 bones during his daring motorcycle career, which included a 150-foot long jump over the fountains at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas in 1968, and clearing 50 cars stacked four deep at the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1973.

On tonight's ET, we take a look at the two-hour movie on the life of the daredevil, starring "CSI"'s GEORGE EADS as Knievel, JAIME PRESSLY as his wife LINDA and BEAU BRIDGES as his father-in-law JOHN BORK.

"I grew up in a working-class town with a population of about 8,500," Eads says. "I certainly identified with that small-town attitude of really wanting to broaden my horizons and get more out of life. I knew that Evel was from a small town like mine and I really felt I identified with that need to get out of there."

The two-hour movie opens when Robert Craig Knievel is 12 years old and already on the road to trouble after being arrested for stealing hubcaps. While spending the night in jail with the town drunk, Awful Knoffel, Knievel hears the police officers making a joke that they had Awful Knofell and "Evil Knievel" in custody. Knievel liked the sound of it, but later changed the spelling to Evel so as not to offend his religious fans.

What is made clear is Knievel was driven by a restlessness that life in the small town of Butte, MT, could not satisfy. He held numerous jobs, none of which he found satisfying, but it was a bet that led him to his life's work as the motorcycle maniac. In 1965, in an attempt to attract attention to his motorcycle dealership, Knievel jumped a mountain lion, landing on a box of rattlesnakes, but his true career was born.

"It was important for me in doing this film to humanize someone who, at least for me as a child, wasn't real," Eads adds. "For me as a child, he represented the ultimate manhood and courage, and I wanted to be like him when I was a kid. He wasn't real. So for me, I just wanted to make him a human being."

Now 65, Knievel retired in 1981, following a career that resulted in the aforementioned 35 broken bones, 14 surgeries, one coma and countless crashes. Today, he works on behalf of the Make-a-Wish Foundation and fans still show up to get his autograph.