TIMELINE: Key events in OJ Simpson’s fall from sports hero, movie star to convicted armed robber and kidnapper

Here’s a timeline of major events in the life of Simpson, now 70, who has been imprisoned in Nevada for armed robbery and faces a parole hearing Thursday

LAS VEGAS (AP) — O.J. Simpson’s story represents one of the most dramatic falls from grace in the history of American pop culture.

A beloved football hero in the 1960s and ’70s, he transitioned effortlessly to movie star, sports commentator and TV pitchman in the years that followed.

He kept that role until the 1994 killings of his ex-wife and her friend. A jury acquitted him, but much of the public believes he carried out the grisly slayings.

Here’s a timeline of major events in the life of Simpson, now 70, who has been imprisoned in Nevada for armed robbery and faces a parole hearing Thursday:

— 1967: Simpson leads all college running backs in rushing in his first season at the University of Southern California.

FILE – In this Nov. 9, 1968 file photo, Southern California’s O.J. Simpson (32) runs against California during a college football game in Los Angeles. Simpson won the Heisman Trophy at Southern California in 1968. Simpson will have a lot going for him when he asks state parole board members Thursday, July 20, 2017, to release him after serving more than eight years for an ill-fated bid to retrieve sports memorabilia. (AP Photo/hf, File)

— 1968: Simpson wins the Heisman Trophy, college football’s top honor.

— 1969: The first pick in the pro draft, Simpson goes to the Buffalo Bills and spends the next nine seasons with the team.

— 1973: He becomes the first NFL player to rush for 2,000 or more yards (2,003) in a season.

— 1979: Simpson retires, having rushed for 11,236 yards, second most in NFL history at the time.

— 1985: Simpson is inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

— 1988: Simpson, who had been appearing in TV shows and commercials since the late 1960s, co-stars in the first of the “Naked Gun” crime comedies, perhaps his most popular role.

— February 1992: Nicole Brown Simpson files for divorce after seven years of marriage. It becomes final Oct. 15.

— June 12, 1994: Nicole Simpson and a friend, Ronald Goldman, are stabbed to death outside her Los Angeles home.

FILE – In this June 13, 1994 file photo, blood-stained sheets are strewn along the entryway of the Los Angeles-area condominium of Nicole Brown Simpson after she and her friend Ronald Goldman are found dead. O.J. Simpson is later arrested after a widely televised freeway chase in his white Ford Bronco for the murders of his ex-wife and Goldman. (AP Photo/Eric Draper, file)

— June 17, 1994: Ordered by prosecutors to surrender, Simpson instead flees with a friend in a white Ford Bronco. It’s a nationally televised slow-speed chase across California freeways until police persuade him to surrender.

— June 1995: During Simpson’s trial, a prosecutor asks him to put on a pair of gloves believed worn by the killer. The gloves appear too small, leading defense attorney Johnnie Cochran to famously state in his closing argument: “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”

FILE – In this June 21, 1995 file photo, O.J. Simpson holds up his hands before the jury after putting on a new pair of gloves similar to the infamous bloody gloves during his double-murder trial in Los Angeles. During Simpson’s trial, a prosecutor famously asks him to put on a pair of gloves allegedly worn by the killer. The gloves appeared to be too tight, reinforcing the immortal words of defense attorney Johnnie Cochran: “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.” (AP Photo/Vince Bucci, Pool, File)

— Oct. 3, 1995: Simpson is acquitted of murder.

— February 1997: After a trial in a civil suit filed by the victims’ families, a jury finds Simpson liable for the deaths and orders he pay survivors $33.5 million.

— July 2007: A federal bankruptcy judge awards the rights to a book by Simpson, in which he discusses how he could have committed the killings, to Goldman’s family as partial payment of the judgment. The family renames the book “If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer.”

— September 2007: Simpson, accompanied by five men, confronts two sports-memorabilia dealers in a Las Vegas hotel room, angrily telling them that most of the memorabilia they are planning to sell is rightfully his.

— Oct. 3, 2008: A jury finds Simpson and co-defendant Clarence “C.J.” Stewart guilty of kidnapping, armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, burglary and conspiracy charges. The other accomplices had taken plea deals and received probation.

— December 2008: Simpson is sentenced to nine to 33 years and sent to Lovelock Correctional Center in northern Nevada.

— October 2010: The Nevada Supreme Court denies Simpson’s appeal but grants Stewart a new trial. Stewart takes a plea deal and is released.

FILE – In this July 25, 2013 file photo, O.J. Simpson, in custody at the Lovelock Correctional Center, is shown on the video screen above Nevada Board of Parole hearing representative Robin Bates, left, and Commissioner Susan Jackson during a video conference parole hearing in Carson City, Nev. Simpson could have a good chance at parole when he asks officials Thursday, July20, 2017, to let him out of a Nevada prison after serving more than eight years for an ill-fated bid to retrieve sports memorabilia.
(Geoff Dornan/Nevada Appeal via AP, file)

— July 25, 2013: Simpson asks the Nevada Parole Board for leniency, saying he has tried to be a model prisoner. He wins parole on some convictions but is left with at least four more years to serve.

— June 2017: The parole board sets a July 20 hearing date.