CLEARWATER, Fla. - Evel Knievel’s hard life killed him — it just took longer than he or anyone else might have expected.

The hard-living motorcycle daredevil, whose bone-breaking, rocket-powered jumps and stunts made him an international icon in the 1970s, died Friday. He was 69.

He had been in failing health for years, suffering from diabetes and pulmonary fibrosis, an incurable condition that scarred his lungs. He had undergone a liver transplant in 1999 after nearly dying of hepatitis C, likely contracted through a blood transfusion after one of his many spills. He also suffered two strokes in recent years.

Longtime friend and promoter Billy Rundle said Knievel had trouble breathing at his Clearwater condominium and died before an ambulance could get him to a hospital.

“It’s been coming for years, but you just don’t expect it. Superman just doesn’t die, right?” said Rundle, organizer of the annual “Evel Knievel Days” festival in the daredevil’s Butte, Mont., hometown.

Knievel’s son Kelly, 47, said he had visited his father in Clearwater for Thanksgiving.

“I think he lived 20 years longer than most people would have” after so many injuries, Kelly Knievel said. “I think he willed himself into an extra five or six years.”

Immortalized in the Washington’s Smithsonian Institution as “America’s Legendary Daredevil,” Knievel was best known for a failed attempt to jump an Idaho canyon on a rocket-powered cycle and a spectacular crash at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. He suffered nearly 40 broken bones before he retired in 1980.

For the tall, thin daredevil, the limelight was always comfortable, the gab glib. There always were mountains to climb, feats to conquer.

Slide show   Rocket man A look back at the unusual career of international stuntman Evel Knievel more photos

“No king or prince has lived a better life,” he told The Associated Press in May 2006. “You’re looking at a guy who’s really done it all. And there are things I wish I had done better, not only for me but for the ones I loved.”

He garbed himself in red, white and blue and had a knack for outrageous yarns: “Made $60 million, spent 61. ...Lost $250,000 at blackjack once. ... Had $3 million in the bank, though.”

Knievel’s career began to take a downturn in 1977 after he was sentenced to six months in jail for attacking former television executive Sheldon Saltman with a baseball bat. Saltman, whose left arm and wrist were shattered, told The Associated Press on Saturday that he hoped Knievel was “at peace.”

“I’ve always felt pity for him,” said Saltman, 76, who still has a $12.75 million judgment pending against Knievel that, with interest, he estimates has grown to more than $100 million.

“He was a true daredevil, but he basically was not a good human being,” Saltman said.

Knievel said after the attack that he had been offended by Saltman’s book “Evel Knievel On Tour.”

Saltman, who maintains he never meant to offend, said Saturday he would not drop the judgment and plans to go after Knievel’s estate.

Knievel had enjoyed a resurgence in popularity in recent years. He made a good living selling autographs and endorsing products. Thousands came to Butte every year as his legend was celebrated during “Evel Knievel Days.”

“They started out watching me bust my ass, and I became part of their lives,” Knievel said. “People wanted to associate with a winner, not a loser. They wanted to associate with someone who kept trying to be a winner.”

Two days before his death, 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.