WHAT HAPPENED IN VEGAS: EVEL KNIEVEL'S JUMP AT CAESAR'S PALACE
 

By Howard T. Brody

On December 31, 1967, one of the most daring stunts of its time took place as a then little known motorcycle daredevil named Evel Knievel would attempt a ramp to ramp jump over the iconic fountains at Caesars Palace.

Before the jump, Robert Craig Knievel was best known for his motorcycle stunts at state and county fairs, local stock car races and demolition derbies. The failed jump, which ended in a spectacular crash, not only catapulted Knievel into a pop culture icon but made him into a multimillionaire by launching a brand that would become synonymous with the word fearless.

Knievel got the stunt idea six weeks before the jump when he attended a boxing match on November 17 at the Las Vegas Convention Center to see then WBA and WBC light heavyweight champion Dick Tiger successfully defend his titles against Roger Rouse. At the time, the fountains at Caesars Palace was billed as “the world’s largest private fountain display,” with 18 fountains pumping 350,000 gallons of water per minute, not quite the Fountains of Bellagio, which would become an iconic Vegas tourism hot spot on the Strip decades later, but impressive nonetheless.

Knievel’s big challenge wasn’t going to be the jump itself, but instead getting Caesars to go along with the crazy idea. But for the daredevil who gambled with his body every time he attempted a stunt, he rolled the dice once more. He devised an equally crazy plan on how to convince then Caesars CEO Jay Sarno, who initially wanted nothing to do with the event, to allow him to do the jump.

To grab the CEO’s attention, Knievel created a fictitious corporation called Evel Knievel Enterprises and began placing phone calls to Sarno pretending to be lawyers, business representatives, and reporters, inquiring where and when the jump would be taking place. Knievel even pretended to be a producer from ABC-TV and a writer from Sports Illustrated asking about the jump.

In his final call to Sarno, Knievel played the CEO like a mark as he pretended to be a lawyer representing Evel Knievel Enterprises. Fronting as his lawyer, Knievel told Sarno that his “client” had been inundated with phone calls asking him about the upcoming jump to which his client knew nothing about. Knievel told Sarno that his client had gotten so many phone calls that Knievel was considering a lawsuit against Caesars for promoting an event and using his name without permission.

That’s when Sarno blinked.
Knievel had him.

When Sarno asked for a meeting, Knievel told him he also represented musician Lawrence Welk (of all people) and that he had to leave the next morning to go on tour with him. Knievel suggested a meeting between Sarno and his client directly to discuss the matter. Knievel couldn’t believe his grandiose scam worked. Once he got his foot in the door, he and Sarno met and made a deal. Knievel would jump three times — December 31, January 3 and January 6 — receiving compensation from Caesars in the form of $4,500 (just over $35,000 in 2020 dollars) plus a complimentary hotel room, food and drinks.

After the deal was finalized, Knievel contacted ABC and tried to get them to air the event live on “Wide World of Sports.” Although the network turned him down, they told him if he had the jump filmed and that if it was as spectacular as he hyped it up to be, they would consider airing it at a later date.

Enter director John Derek. Knievel met Derek at a boxing match and the two agreed to produce a biopic about Knievel under the working title “Why?” It was decided Derek would shoot the Caesars jump as part of the film. Because Knievel, then aged 29, was using his own money to underwrite the film, Derek employed his then-wife actress Linda Evans to serve as one of his camera operators.

The night before the jump, Knievel admitted to Derek in a moment of candor that the jump would most likely be a failure. Derek, who was horrified at the thought of what the camera might capture, said he wouldn’t want to glorify a tragedy and pulled out of the film. When Knievel asked him to stay with the project, Derek refused, but he did agree to shoot the jump for Knievel and give him the film, as hesitant as he was because it was too late for the daredevil to find anyone else to do it.

As the now-legendary story goes (so who knows how true this part is), on the morning of the infamous jump, Knievel went to the casino and gambled away his last $100 at the blackjack table. He stopped by the bar and had a shot of Wild Turkey and then headed outside where he was joined by several members of the Caesars Palace staff and two showgirls. It was time to become famous.

Derek brought two cameras with him to film the jump. He operated one, which panned the jump site and the crowd, while Evans, then a star of the TV Western series “The Big Valley,” operated the other at the end of the jump. It would be Evans who would capture Knievel’s infamous landing where he tumbled after falling short of the ramp. His prognostication to Derek the night before held true — the attempted 140-foot jump over the fountains at Caesars Palace was a spectacular failure.

After doing his typical pre-jump show and a few warm-up approaches, Knievel began his real approach. When Knievel hit the takeoff ramp, jumping from the north to the south, launching at an estimated 80-90 mph, he claimed he felt the motorcycle decelerate unexpectedly. Knievel didn’t use a speedometer as he liked to jump by feel. The sudden loss of power on the takeoff caused Knievel to come up short, hitting a safety ramp that had been placed flat across the top of a van to keep him from decapitating himself should he fall short. This caused him to bounce off of his motorcycle, ripping the handlebars out of his hands with him falling over them onto the pavement where he tumbled and skidded into the Dunes parking lot.

The crash left Knievel with a crushed pelvis and femur, fractures to his hip, wrist, and both ankles, and a concussion that kept him in the hospital longer than usual. Although rumors were running rampant that Knievel was in a coma for 29 days, this was disproved by his wife and others in the documentary film Being Evel.
After his crash and recovery, Knievel’s star shot like a rocket. After ABC-TV bought the rights to the film of the jump, paying far more than if they would have originally televised the event and showing it on “Wide World of Sports,” Knievel gained international recognition. The Knievel brand became a hot commodity throughout the 1970s, launching merchandise from lunchboxes and toys to apparel and more.

While some Knievel supporters have contended in the aftermath that the jump at Caesars Palace put Vegas on the map, the truth is it was the other way around. Las Vegas was already established as an international destination. But if not for the now historic 1967 New Year’s Eve failed jump and subsequent crash, there’s a pretty good chance Evel Knievel would be little more than a footnote in entertainment history.

While some things that happen in Vegas really do stay here, for the Evel Knievel failed jump over the fountains at Caesars Palace, it certainly did not. The event might have happened here, but its imagery has traveled the globe in people’s minds many times over.