Renowned American stunt performer Robbie Knievel has died at 60 after a life lived following the daredevil tracks of his late father Evel Knievel, his older brother Kelly confirmed.
Robbie had been grappling with advanced pancreatic cancer and had known about his declining health for the past six months.
Robbie’s critically acclaimed, three-decade-long career saw him perform over 350 seemingly superhuman jumps across various manmade structures, break 20 world records and soar past the Las Vegas Caesars Palace fountains in 1989, a feat that his father had failed 22 years earlier.
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Despite constant warnings from Evel to never follow in his footsteps, and the various surgeries and traumatic injuries suffered by his father that he witnessed, Robbie chose not to listen.
Among four siblings, Robbie said that he was disciplined most because his rebellious nature saw him always emulating and challenging his father.
At 8 years old, he completed his first show at Madison Square Garden in New York – and later started to accompany his dad on tours, doing wheelie show warmers before Evel’s big stunts.
Soon, the roles reversed.
Jump by jump, step by step, Robbie managed to revitalize an otherwise strained early relationship with Evel. His father would later find himself doing wheelie shows before Robbie’s most exciting performances.
Evel died of pulmonary disease complications on Nov. 30, 2007, ending a chapter that his son described as the birth of a new entertainment industry.
“During the last few years of my father’s life, we spent a lot of time together,” Robbie wrote in a Fatherly essay. “We reminisced about the crazy lives we’d lived, and how lucky we’d been time and time again. I’d say to him, ‘I love you, Dad,’ and he’d tell me, ‘I love you, too, Rob.'”
