You may be aware that Evel Knievel is the pre-eminent daredevil of our time, but you might not fully grasp the magnitude of the stuntman's celebrity and what his fearless spirit represented to so many unless you were alive during his thrilling run throughout the 1970s. Being Evel is a new documentary that aims to educate younger audiences about Knievel's influence, and it contains plenty of unbelievable revelations that only bolster the legendary mythology surrounding the man in red, white, and blue. Being Evel premiered at Sundance, but we caught it this week at SXSW. Here are 10 things we learned about the legendary daredevil.

1. He wanted to marry his girlfriend, so he kidnapped her.

Evel Knievel was married to Linda Joan Bork for nearly 40 years, and it all started with a kidnapping. Two, actually. Knievel met Bork in his hometown of Butte, Montana. While living in the mining town the future daredevil avoided hard labor by turning to crime. Though he was known for petty burglary, there was no intention to profit when he kidnapped Bork in 1953, a crime for which he was charged. Six years later in 1959 he kidnapped her again, this time taking her away on his motorcycle to get married.

2. He was a legendary insurance salesman.

Knievel's success was due just as much to his ability to sell himself as it was to his fearlessness. And if he could sell the appeal of a guy running his motorcycle off of ramp, you could damn well bet he could sell some insurance, which he did while still living in Butte, where he famously went into a mental hospital and sold 271 policies. But when he asked the president of the company if he could be the VP if he broke every sales record and the president said no, Knievel quit and moved to Moses Lake, Washington, to sell motorcycles.

3. His first public jump was a stunt to sell motorcycles.

To drum up motorcycles sales in Moses Lake, Knievel decided he would stage a publicity stunt in which he would jump a bike over "cougars and rattlesnakes." He did… kind of. As he would several other times in his career with slightly more drastic results, Knievel shorted the jump, landing the motorcycle's tire on the edge of the tank holding the snakes, which then flipped into the air, sending rattlers flying into the audience. Publicity achieved.

4. There's a story behind his name.

This may come as a shock, but "Evel" is not Knievel's real name. Born Robert Craig Knievel, the future daredevil once found him in jail with a man named Knofel, where together they became known as "Awful Knofel and Evil Knievel." The nickname stuck, and Knievel changed the "i" in evil to an "e" because he didn't want it to sound too evil.

5. He conned his way into his famous jump at Caesar's Palace.

Before Knievel could jump over the fountains at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, he was going to have to convince the casino to let him make a spectacle of the death-defying feat on their property. Because at this point no one had heard of him, this was going to be difficult. Before even pitching the event to Caesar's, Knievel called every news outlet he could think and told them that he'd be jumping the fountains and to make sure they came out and covered the event. Once he had the media interested, he called the casino owner repeatedly, pretending to be a different person clamoring to see the jump each time. Word spread to such a degree that Caesar's had to let Knievel attempt the jump. He didn't make it, of course, but in the long run it was for the best; the cringeworthy footage of his body tumbling across the concrete made him famous.

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6. He dominated ABC's Wide World of Sports.

ABC's long-running program Wide World of Sports was a home for the unconventional and the offbeat, and nothing defied tradition quite like a guy dressed like a blonde Elvis jumping a Harley over a row of semi trucks. The show's existence was a godsend for the up-and-coming daredevil, and the up-and-coming daredevil's existence was a godsend for the show. Of the top ten highest-rated episodes in the program's 37-year history, seven were Knievel events.

7. He once forced George Hamilton to read him a movie script at gunpoint.

George Hamilton played Knievel in a 1971 biopic, but the man with the legendary tan first had to convince Knievel to approve of the script. He visited the man he hoped to portray planning to drop off the script, but Knievel wanted Hamilton to read it to him. Hamilton thought he was joking, but quickly realized he wasn't when Knievel brandished a gun and reiterated his "request." Hamilton said he then gave the best screenplay reading of his life.

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8. He was an unrepentant asshole.

Once Knievel became famous, he was notorious to not being so kind to both the media and to those he loved. Despite the undying devotion of his wife, he was a serial womanizer. After Shelly Saltman, the promoter behind Knievel's famous Snake River jump, wrote a book about the experience, Knievel beat his old friend senseless with an aluminum bat and refused to apologize. Knievel proudly admitted to the crime in court and asked the judge to do his worst. He went away to prison and hired a limousine to pick him up for his work release program. When he started hiring limos for other inmates, they revoked his work release. Knievel atoned for his behavior later in life. Some forgave him, but for some the damage had already been done.

9. He was a fashion icon.

Once Knievel started making money—which largely came through licensing his name and image through products like the Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle—he spent it. His philosophy was that you can't take it with you when you die, so you better as hell spend it while you've got it. Clothes were no exception. Just take a look at this fur coat and cane he rocked on the Tonight Show:

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He was also known, of course, for his Elvis-like stunt suit, which, like everything he did, was carefully calculated. He deliberately dressed in white to run counter to the image of darkly dressed bikers, establishing himself as a kind of counterculture superhero, a shining white knight in the era of the Hell's Angels.

10. We have him to thank for extreme sports.

Being Evel was produced by Johnny Knoxville—who is also one of the film's primary interviewees—along with fellow Jackass creator Jeff Tremaine and BMX legend Mat Hoffman. They do a great job of articulating just how influential Knievel was on today's extreme sports daredevils. He pushed himself to jump farther and farther, and to continue to shock people by at least attempting to outdo whichever unbelievable stunt he pulled off last. Knievel lived without fear and never backed down. If he said he was going to do something, he was going to do it, and this spirit was at the core of the '90s extreme sports renaissance.

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