Despite his pecadillos and imperfections, he was a successful stunt man on the one metric that matters to stunt men. Media mind share.

The skycycle stunt did have a partial failure due to a mechanical error beyond the scope of the pilot.

I say partial failure because again, under the only metric of importance to a stunt man, it resulted in unprecedented media exposure and mind share. So much so, the majority of the population still knows about it and thinks about it.

You may poo poo a candy company sponsoring Knievel, but note this well. That was Nabisco, one of the largest food companies on the planet.

The $25k suitcase was possibly the best investment they ever made. That was pocket change for them!

Jerry