I have the book Evel Knievel On Tour. If you really want to understand the mindset of Evel check out the hand written comments he made in the book. Joe Little from Butte Montana has it and talked about it in the movie. The hand written comments show you that Evel didn't read the book or understand the book. I believe it was a frusting year for Evel. He was attacked in the Press leading up to the Chicago Shark Jump. Viva Knievel bombed at the box office. And Evel didn't have any kind of cast on his arms when he went after Saltman. In fact he filmed the Bionic Woman Episode before this and you don't see any cast on his arms. Evel said that he did have cast on his arms . He said that because he needed an excuse for having another man or men hold Saltman. Either way he paid the price for his acts. And the fans paid the price just as much as Evel did.
One reviewer of Pure Evel made a remark about how quickly Evel aged after 1977. And not only did Ideal Toys drop him, most of his friends did as well. I don't know what Roger Reiman thought about it but it was indeed a very dark time for Evel. Evel never graduated from High School but I think he was a very intelligent man. Street smarts I guess. He built his empire from the ground up. That's why this was so tough to see what happened.
I remember seeing how bad he looked in The Bionic Woman episode but then I thought it might have been because he was still recovering from the Shark Jump accident. Interesting that the security cameras didn't capture the action . I guess they didn't use them back then. I did hear that someone got in trouble for letting Evel and the other men into the backlot without proper security clearance .
Now I hope all of the hate for Shelly Saltman stops. He's a good man. Thanks to Johnny Knoxsville and others involved in the filming for being fair to both Evel and Saltman in the Movie. I do find it interesting that even after all of these years nobody knows who helped Evel with the beating. Nobody can give a description of the other man or men who helped. And Evel was very lucky that he received such a short time in jail.
Being only 15 years old at the time I had never heard about the dark side of Evel. I never saw the Rolling Stone Story from 1974. I never heard anything negative about Evel during that time. When it was first reported on the news I couldn't understand it. Even if Saltman had written a book Evel didn't like I couldn't understand why Evel would do what he did. He had to have known he would get in trouble for it. But with all of this being said fans should still respect his legacy even if it's a bit tarnished.
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