Nov 1, 2008 12:00 PM

, By Herbert E. Nass

By Herbert E. Nass

Robert Craig Knievel, purportedly nicknamed “Evel” by police after an arrest for stealing hubcaps off cars, was born on Oct. 17, 1938 in Butte, Mont., and died in Clearwater, Fla., on Nov. 20, 2007, at the age of 69. His will, recently made available to the public, shows that the famous stuntman — who gained worldwide fame between the late 1960s and early 1980s for nationally televised death-defying motorcycle jumps — had broken not only most of his bones, but also his estate. It had assets of just $12,500. It also has an outstanding liability of an estimated $64 million to his former press agent, whom Evel was convicted of attacking with a baseball bat.

Evel had been in poor health for years, suffering from diabetes and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a progressive lung disease of unknown origin in which the air sacs become replaced by fibrotic tissue. He'd had a stroke and in 1999, Evel underwent a liver transplant after nearly dying of hepatitis C, which he reportedly believed he'd contracted from a blood transfusion after one of his many crashes. He also suffered the effects of years of heavy drinking, reportedly telling the media that at one time in his life he was downing a half a fifth of whiskey a day, complete with beer chasers.