Jimmy Savile, TV Personality, Dies at 84

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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/03/arts/television/jimmy-savile-tv-personality-dies-at-84.html?hpw

November 2, 2011
Jimmy Savile, TV Personality, Dies at 84
By MARGALIT FOX

Jimmy Savile, an acclaimed English television host whose dress, hair and verbal flummery made all other comers in a nation renowned for eccentrics look like Puritans, was found dead last week at his home in Leeds, in the north of England. He was 84.

A puckish man, he years ago erected a memorial bench to himself in Scarborough, also in the north, bearing a plaque reading, “Sir Jimmy Savile (but Not Just Yet).”

That eventuality came on Saturday.

The West Yorkshire Police told The Associated Press that they had been called to Mr. Savile’s home that day and found him dead from what appeared to be natural causes.

Mr. Savile was the longest-serving host of “Top of the Pops,” broadcast on the BBC from 1964 to 2006 and featuring the chart-topping singles of the week. He was seen regularly from its debut until 1984 and returned for the valedictory episode after it was cancelled.

Artists appearing on the show included the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Chubby Checker, Barry Manilow, Green Day and thousands of other marquee names.

Early on, the show relied on lip-syncing, though the practice was later abandoned.

A blunt if hyperbolic Yorkshireman, Mr. Savile (the name rhymes with “gravel”) was simultaneously revered and ridiculed. On the air he served up patter that in its manic opacity verged on Dada. He also yodeled — often.

To Britons, though, Mr. Savile was ultimately better known for “Jim’ll Fix It,” a BBC television show broadcast from 1975 to 1994. On the show he granted supplicants (usually children) their dearest wish: to tame lions, to fly the Concorde, etc.

This despite the fact that by his own account, he did not care for children. “I couldn’t eat a whole one... . I hate them,” he once said in a widely quoted interview.

Mr. Savile came from a threadbare background but seemed to have transcended his roots, even those on his head. His hair was often a bright cascade of platinum, though as a young man, according to many news items, he once dyed it tartan plaid. No details are available about which clan’s tartan he chose.

His default outfit was a shiny tracksuit, though at least once, it was reported, he hosted “Top of the Pops” in a banana suit of some kind. Immense sunglasses, often with rose-colored lenses, were a frequent accessory.

Mr. Savile’s signature embellishment was a tangle of gold: medallions, chains and rings. His head-to-toe ensemble, including his ever-present cigar, can be bought as a costume, authorized by him and in its way remarkably true to life.

Mr. Savile was also widely known for charity work, and was reported to have raised more than £30 million (about $48 million) for hospitals and other causes. This, apparently, gave Queen Elizabeth II plausible deniability for knighting him in 1990. He also belonged to Mensa and the Knights of Malta.

Throughout his career Mr. Savile was a Zelig — or maybe a Walter Mitty — in gold lamé. Interviews he gave contained a torrent of claims, some true, some false and others occupying the vast limbo of credibility in between. Among them:

¶ He was the first D.J. to use a double turntable, for continuous play. (Doubtful: Advertisements for such turntables date to at least the early 1930s.)

¶ He ran more than 200 marathons, the last when he was 78 (true), and was once a professional wrestler (true: won-lost record 7-100).

¶ He played marriage counselor to Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales, as their relationship waned. (Dubious, though he did count them as coveted acquaintances. In a statement, Prince Charles expressed sorrow at Mr. Savile’s death but made no mention of counseling.)

¶ He spent 11 Christmases as Margaret Thatcher’s guest. (Hugely false, her daughter, Carol, told The Daily Mail of London in 2008.)

¶ He lived with his mother, Agnes, from his father’s death in the early 1950s to hers in 1972; for years they occupied his suede-walled flat in Scarborough. After she died he kept her body tenderly in the flat for five days and maintained her bedroom with curatorial rectitude ever after. (All true.)

The youngest of seven children, James Wilson Vincent Savile was born in Leeds on Oct. 31, 1926. His father, Vincent, was a miserably paid bookmaker’s clerk. At Christmastime the children’s present was a trip to a department store to see the toys.

Jimmy left school at 14 and during World War II was conscripted to work in British coal mines. A few years later he suffered severe spinal injuries in a mine explosion. After a grueling recuperation he began managing dance halls and was later a radio disc jockey.

“Top of the Pops” was first broadcast on Jan. 1, 1964; that episode, which included four sleek-haired Liverpool lads singing “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” was presented by Mr. Savile and the D.J. Alan Freeman.

Mr. Freeman was one of a rotating cast of co-hosts and guest hosts that over time included Davy Jones of the Monkees and Elton John. This arrangement, Mr. Savile often said, was to avoid overexposing himself.

Mr. Savile never married, though in talking of women he often described himself as a Lothario who could never be trapped into staying all night. “Good heavens,” he said in a 2000 BBC television profile, “anything more than two hours — brain damage!”

Information on survivors was unavailable.

Next Tuesday, the day before his funeral in Leeds, Mr. Savile is scheduled to repose in a local hotel “in the manner of a dead monarch lying in state,” as The Daily Mail of London reported.

The coffin, alas, will be closed.