With assistance from Ed Swindle, a member of the Las Vegas Walk of Stars selection committee, Griffin said, organizers got approval from Caesars Palace to have the star placed near the fountains, site of his famous motorcycle crash on Dec. 31, 1967.

"Even though Evel was not well," Griffin said in an e-mail, "he insisted on overseeing and master minding the entire event."

However, "due to Evel's paranoia of having his name used and lack of financial support of his so-called close and dear friends, the entire effort became just dialogue," Griffin said.

I agree with Griffin that it's sad Knievel didn't live to see his star at the site. I hope it's not too late, with efforts redoubled, to pull everyone together and have a star ceremony on the crash's 40th anniversary, four weeks away.

Griffin wasn't the only Review-Journal reader who responded to my call for favorite Knievel stories.

Lou Mack of Las Vegas also e-mailed, saying he was "a 21-year-old punk kid" in a Los Angeles jail in the 1970s when he met Knievel, who was doing time for attacking his promoter with a bat for writing an unflattering book.

Mack, who was jailed for fighting and drug-related incidents, said Knievel befriended him and preached "positive goals like a wild motivational speaker."

Knievel made so many friends in jail that he announced he would arrange to have a limo waiting when some were released. But the media got wind of it, and there was pressure to call it off.

Mack credits Knievel for turning his life around and getting him involved in "something that I really enjoyed and to this day (I am) running a successful stunt dog thrill show," said Mack, who ran the Sooper Dog Show at the Excalibur for years.

Jim Tofte, a member of the morning show on KKLZ-FM, 96.3, said Knievel, in a 2001 interview, was excited about the prospect of opening a museum and cafe in Primm with MGM mogul Kirk Kerkorian. It didn't pan out.

I met Knievel for the first time in the mid-1960s when he walked into the newsroom of the Helena (Mont.) Independent-Record, where I was the sports editor. He asked if I would run a blurb on his then-modest motorcycle-jumping act. He offered me tickets to the event, but I didn't make it out, which I sorely regretted after his career exploded.

The next time I talked to him was about a decade later, after he came out of retirement to jump 14 Greyhound buses Oct. 25, 1975, in Kings Island, Ohio. I was covering it as an Associated Press sportswriter out of Cincinnati. That's me in the AP photo, the guy with the Elvis sneer in dire need of a haircut and a fashion makeover. Dig those hip bell-bottom jeans.

Knievel, an international phenom by now, helped ABC's "Wide World of Sports" score its highest viewer ratings ever.

Years later, after he moved to Las Vegas in the 1990s, he was a regular at the Pasta Shop on Tropicana.

"The first time he came in, I had my Harley-Davidson parked out front," said co-owner David Alenik. "He complimented me on my bike and told me to get my helmet so he could sign it. I thought he would write something spiritual like 'ride safely,' or 'keep your eyes open.'

"Instead," Alenik said, "he wrote 'happy landing.'"

SIGHTINGS

Andre Agassi and his wife, Steffi Graf, sharing a steak at the bar of N9NE Steakhouse (Palms) on Saturday night. Graf had heads swiveling when she walked back to the kitchen arm in arm with bartender John O'Donnell to sign chef Barry Dakake's celebrity door. Agassi bought a bottle of Cristal and had glasses of bubbly sent to Dakake and other friends at the restaurant.

THE PUNCH LINE

"Tuesdays With Robert Blake" -- From David Letterman's Top Ten Chapter Titles in O.J.'s New Book.

Norm Clarke can be reached at 383-0244 or norm@reviewjournal.com. Find additional sightings and more online at www.normclarke.com.