As tributes pour in for the Fix It host, Tracy McVeigh looks back at an extraordinary career on radio and TV
Where does one begin to describe the life and trademarks of Sir Jimmy Savile, who was discovered dead at his home in Yorkshire on Saturday , just two days before his 85th birthday?
Police were called to his house at Roundhay, Leeds, just after midday and said there were no suspicious circumstances around his death.
An eccentric British entertainment figure for some six decades, with wild platinum hair, Rolls-Royce and ever-present cigar, he was a marathon runner, hospital fundraiser, TV and radio star, Fix-It man, Tarzan impersonator and knight of the realm. His accountant claimed to have stopped counting after Savile raised more than �40m for various causes.
Savile enjoyed regular dinners with one-time neighbour Margaret Thatcher when she was prime minister and played court jester at social gatherings of the royal family. He acted as an intermediary for Charles and Diana before their split, and discovered violinist Nigel Kennedy.
Usually encased in gaudy tracksuits and adorned with chunky solid gold jewellery, a predecessor of bling long before hip-hop or Ali G, Savile was an extraordinary character and loner who delighted in being an enigma and hid a sharp intellect behind wildly inane chatter.
A member of Mensa with a very high IQ, Savile got the OBE in 1971, his knighthood in 1990 and in between racked up an honorary doctorate of law from Leeds University, an honorary fellowship of the Royal College of Radiology, was made a Knight of Malta, and claimed to be an honorary Royal Marines green beret and an Esteemed Friend of Israel.
Savile was born in Leeds in 1926, the youngest of seven, to a poor Catholic couple, Vincent, a bookmaker's clerk, and Agnes, the women he called the Duchess and whom he lived with until her death in 1973. Afterwards he kept her room preserved and had her clothes regularly dry cleaned because he said it was "better then a photograph".
He had at least two brushes with death himself as a youngster, once as a baby when he had pneumonia and once in a mining accident as a 14-year-old Bevin boy, drafted to work as a coal miner during the second world war. He damaged his spine and spent three years learning to walk again, but his joke when asked about his memories of those days was that all he could recall was "banging my head on the roof".
After the war he turned to the dance hall scene and throughout the 1950s ran clubs in Yorkshire. He claimed a fistful of firsts ? from being one of the innovators of rock'n'roll, to running the UK's first "disco", in 1948 in Leeds. He also claimed to be the first person to use two turntables and a microphone as a DJ.
Then came athletics. Savile became a semi-professional sportsman, taking part in the 1951 Tour of Britain cycle race and fighting more than 100 bouts as a professional wrestler.
But it was work on Radio Luxembourg and then Radio Caroline that got him noticed and, in 1964, Savile presented the first edition of BBC TV's Top of The Pops. (He returned to present the last episode in July 2006.)
In the 1970s his catchphases took off: he appeared in TV adverts urging motorists to wear seatbelts and "clunk click every trip". In 1975, he began a 20-year run as the host of Jim'll Fix It, working miracles for more than 1,500 children who wrote in asking for wishes to come true. The Jim'll Fix It badge became an object of desire for thousands, while Savile's phrases "How's about that, then?', "Now then, now then, now then", "Goodness gracious", and "Guys and gals" became as familiar as the man himself. From 1977 he was the face of British Rail, declaring it "the age of the train".
The sometimes improbable nature of Savile's personality, along with his bachelorhood, made him a target of much gossip. He said he didn't even want to spend the night with a woman to avoid the "headache".
"I was the youngest of seven: four sisters, two brothers," he said in 2001. "There was great excitement in the house when they got married. The big day dawned and there was a bloody dress, people weeping and lovey-dovey and all that, and a bit later on, be it a month or a year or whatever, it was all 'he's a bastard' and 'she's a bastard'. I couldn't work out why they ended up wanting to kill each other. Something must have happened. Therefore I wanted no part of it."
He gave some extraordinary interviews, once telling psychiatrist Anthony Clare: "I haven't got any emotions. Feelings aren't logic." When asked about children, he said: "I couldn't eat a whole one ? hate 'em." The only reason he got on with children, he said, was because he did not like them. But later he said he only said he hated children to stifle rumours about his sexual preferences.
Savile's cartoonish image made him a target too, which he hated. In 1994, Chris Morris spoofed his death and was hit with threats of legal action. A 2000 documentary by Louis Theroux probed his unusual lifestyle and Savile was hurt by the implication he was an egomanic.
Among those paying tribute were fellow DJs. Dave Lee Travis said Savile had been a larger than life character, adding: "We are all going to be worse off without him around." Tony Blackburn said: "He was a one-off ? that's the way he'll be remembered, really."
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2011/oct/30/jimmy-savile-top-of-pops-dead
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