Evel Knievel dies aged 69

Motorcycle daredevil Evel Knievel has died at the age of 69.

The hard-living stuntman became an international icon in the 1970s, with a string of highly publicized motorbike jumps.

Knievel, real name Robert Craig Jr, had been suffering diabetes and an incurable lung condition called idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.

In 1999 he underwent a liver transplant, after nearly dying of Hepatitis C. He is thought to have contracted the disease through a blood transfusion following one of his bone-shattering accidents.

Knievel's death was confirmed by his granddaughter Krysten Knievel. Knievel has been a household name since the late 1960s and is arguably the most iconic motorbike stuntman of all time.

The stuntman performed his first show in January 1966 at the National Date Festival in Indio, California, and went down a storm. To get ahead of his rivals who jumped animals or pools, Knievel started jumping cars, and would add more and more for every performance.

In May 1967, he successfully cleared 16 cars in Gardena, California. He attempted the same jump two months later, on July 28 - but landed on the final vehicle and knocked himself out.

He recovered for a month, returned to finish the show in Graham, Washington, but crashed again. This time he smashed his left wrist, right knee and two ribs. Knievel's accidents failed to stop him and he carried on with his stunts getting more and more risky.

The Daredevil is best known for a failed 1974 attempt to jump Snake River Canyon on a rocket-powered cycle and for a spectacular crash at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. Before his retirement in 1980, he suffered almost 40 broken bones.

Immortalized in the Washington's Smithsonian Institution as "America's Legendary Daredevil", Knievel dropped off the pop culture radar in the 80s.

But thousands of fans still went to Butte, Mont., every year as his legend was celebrated during the "Evel Knievel Days" festival.

Knievel's death came just two days after it was announced that he and rapper Kanye West had settled a federal lawsuit over the use of Knievel's trademarked image in a popular West music video.