Evel Knievel, the world’s most famous motorcycle daredevil, has died at the age of 69.

Granddaughter Kysten Knievel confirmed that the hard-living adventurer passed away Friday in Florida.

The man who was born Robert Craig Knievel had been in failing health for years, suffering from diabetes and an incurable lung condition known as idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.

In 1999, he had a liver transplant after almost dying from hepatitis C, which he likely contracted through a blood transfusion after a nasty crash.

It was just one of many close brushes of death for Knievel, who suffered nearly 40 broken bones in a lifetime of stunts that included riding through fire walls, being towed at 200 m.p.h. behind dragster race cars and jumping over a tank of live sharks.

He once told Esquire magazine: “Anybody can jump a motorcycle. The trouble begins when you try to land it.”

He is best known for a a spectacular spill at Caesar’s Palace on New Year’s Day 1968, which left him in a coma for a month, and a failed 1974 attempt to jump Snake River Canyon on a rocket-powered cycle.

Another memorable stunt came in 1975, when Knievel soared over 13 buses at London’s Wembley Stadium, breaking his pelvis in the process but earning $1 million.

He formally retired in 1981.

Knievel’s death came just days after he settled a lawsuit against rapper Kanye West over the use of his trademarked image in a West music video.

For a lifetime of death-defying stunts, Knievel has been immortalized in Washington’s Smithsonian Institution as “America’s Legendary Daredeveil.”

“No king or prince has lived a better life,” he told the Associated Press in a May 2006 interview. “You’re looking at a guy who’s really done it all.”






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