Sir James Wilson Vincent Savile OBE KCSG was an
English disc jockey, television presenter and media personality, best known for his
BBC television show
Jim'll Fix It, and for being the first and last presenter of the long-running BBC
music chart show
Top of the Pops died he was 84. He was also known for his fundraising and support of various charities, particularly
Stoke Mandeville Hospital. He was widely described as a
philanthropist and was honoured for his efforts.
[1][2]
(31 October 1926 – 29 October 2011)
Early life
Savile was born in
Leeds, the youngest of seven children (Mary, Marjory, Vincent, John, Joan, Christina and James) born to Agnes Monica (
née Kelly) and Vincent Joseph Marie Savile, a
bookmaker's clerk and insurance agent.
[3] Savile almost died of pneumonia at the age of five months.
He was a
Bevin Boy, conscripted during World War II to work as a coal miner at
South Kirkby
Colliery, West Yorkshire, England. He suffered serious spinal injuries
in a mine explosion and spent a long period in recuperation.
[4] Having started playing records in dance halls in the early 1940s, Savile claimed to be the first ever
disc jockey. According to his autobiography, he was the first person to use
two turntables and a microphone, at the Grand Records Ball at the Guardbridge Hotel in 1947.
[5] Savile is acknowledged as one of the pioneers of twin turntables for continuous play of music,
[6] though his claim has been disputed. (Twin turntables had been illustrated in the
BBC Handbook in 1929 and were advertised for sale in
Gramophone magazine in 1931.
[7])
He became a semi-professional sportsman, competing in the 1951
Tour of Britain cycle race[8] and working as a
professional wrestler.
[9] He said:
If you look at the athletics of it, I've done over 300 professional bike races, 212
marathons
and 107 pro fights. [He proudly announces that he lost all of his first
35 fights.] No wrestler wanted to go back home and say a long-haired
disc jockey had put him down. So from start to finish I got a good
hiding. I've broken every bone in my body. I loved it.
[10]
Savile later lived in
Salford, and worked as manager of the Plaza Ballroom in Oxford Road,
Manchester, in the mid-fifties. He lived in Great Clowes Street in
Higher Broughton, Salford, and was often seen sitting on his front door steps. He also managed the
Mecca Locarno ballroom in Leeds around the late 1950s and early 1960s.
[11] Mecca also owned the Palais, a dance hall in
Ilford,
Essex, and Savile did a stint as manager there between 1955 and 1956.
His Monday evening records-only dance sessions (admission one shilling)
were a huge favourite with local teens.
[12]
Radio
Savile started his radio career working as a
Radio Luxembourg DJ from 1958 to 1967. He ran the
Teen and Twenty Disc Club (
TTDC),
[13]
membership for life, on Radio Luxembourg. For a small fee listeners
received a certificate and a small bracelet with a disc on it, inscribed
with the show's name. He stated on the BBC television series
Inside Out that the title
Teen and Twenty Disc Club had been rejected by the BBC in favour of
Top of the Pops as too long; also that he introduced dancing to records, so that he was the originator of the
discothèque.
In 1968 he joined
BBC Radio 1, where he initially presented
Savile's Travels and the discussion show
Speakeasy. His best-remembered contribution to Radio 1, however, is the Sunday lunchtime show
Jimmy Savile's Old Record Club, where entire top tens from years gone by were played. This was the first show to feature old charts. It began in 1973 as
The Double Top Ten Show and ended in 1987 as
The Triple Top Ten Show, at which point he left Radio 1 after 19 years, although he could be heard presenting
The Vintage Chart Show on
BBC World Service between March 1987 and October 1989, playing top tens from the years 1957 to 1987.
From March 1989 to August 1997 he was heard on various stations around the UK (mostly taking the
Gold format, such as the West Midlands'
Xtra AM and the original
Classic Gold network in Yorkshire) where he revived his Radio 1 shows.
In 1994, satirist
Chris Morris gave a
fake obituary
on BBC Radio 1 (as a joke), saying that Savile had collapsed and died,
which allegedly drew threats of legal action from Savile and forced an
apology from Morris.
On 25 December 2005, and 1 January 2007, Savile presented shows on the
Real Radio
network. The Christmas 2005 show counted down the festive Top 10s of
10, 20 and 30 years previously, while the New Year 2007 show (also taken
by
Century Radio following its acquisition by
GMG)
featured Savile recounting anecdotes from his past and playing
associated records, mostly from the 1960s although some were from the
1970s.
Television
In 1960 he presented
Tyne Tees Television's music programme
Young at Heart. Although the show was broadcast in black and white, Savile dyed his hair a different colour every week.
[14]
Jimmy Savile presenting
Top of The Pops in 1964.
On New Year's Day, 1964, he presented the first edition of the BBC
music chart television programme
Top of the Pops from a television studio – a converted church (now demolished) – in Dickenson Road
Rusholme, Manchester. On 30 July 2006 he also co-hosted the final edition, ending the show with the words "It's number one, it's still
Top of the Pops", before being shown turning off the studio lights after the closing credits. When interviewed by the
BBC on 20 November 2008 and asked about the revival of
Top of The Pops for a Christmas comeback, he commented that he would welcome a "cameo role" in the programme.
[15]
During the early 1960s he co-hosted (with
Pete Murray)
New Musical Express Poll Winners' Concert, annually held at
Empire Pool, Wembley, with acts such as
The Beatles,
Cliff Richard and
The Shadows,
Joe Brown and the Bruvvers,
The Who, and many others. These were filmed and recorded and later broadcast on television. On 31 December 1969, Savile hosted the
BBC/
ZDF co-production
Pop Go The Sixties, shown across Western Europe, celebrating the hits of the 1960s.
Savile is also remembered for a series of
Public Information Films promoting road safety, notably "
Clunk Click Every Trip" which was promoted the use of the car
seatbelts,
the clunk representing the sound of the door and the click the sound of
the seatbelt fastening. This led to Savile's hosting his own Saturday
night chat/variety show on
BBC1 from 1973 entitled
Clunk, Click, which in 1974 featured the UK heats for the
Eurovision Song Contest featuring
Olivia Newton-John. He also fronted a long-running series of advertisements in the early 1980s for
British Rail's
InterCity 125, in which he declared "This is the age of the train". After two series,
Clunk, Click was replaced by
Jim'll Fix It which he presented from 1975 to 1994.
He was interviewed by Dr.
Anthony Clare for the radio series
In the Psychiatrist's Chair, where Savile appeared to be "a man without feelings."
[16] In 1995 he was interviewed at length by
Andrew Neil for the TV series
Is This Your Life? (made by
Open Media for
Channel 4).
[17] In April 2000, he was the subject of an in depth documentary by
Louis Theroux, in the
When Louis Met…
documentary series. "When Louis Met...Jimmy" was voted one of the top
fifty documentaries of all time in a survey by Britain's Channel Four.
[18]
Savile visited the
Celebrity Big Brother
house on 14 and 15 January 2006. During these visits he "fixed it" for
some of the housemates to have their wishes granted; for example,
Pete Burns received a message from his
significant other and friend while
Dennis Rodman was able to trade Savile's offering for a supply of cigarettes for other housemates.
In 2007 Savile returned to television with
Jim'll Fix It Strikes Again,
in which he showed some of the most popular 'fixits' ever, recreating
them with the same people, as well as making new dreams come true.
[19]
Personal life
Savile was famous for his
yodel[20]
and his catchphrases included "how's about that, then?", "now then, now
then, now then", "goodness gracious", "as it 'appens" and "guys and
gals". Savile was frequently
spoofed for his distinctive appearance, which almost always consisted of a
track suit or
shell suit, along with gold jewellery. A range of licensed
fancy dress
costumes were released with his consent in 2009. Savile was also very
well known as a heavy cigar smoker, and often smoked them for the public
eye.
[21] In July 2005 he was named as one of the
Radio Times "Top 40 most eccentric TV presenters of all time".
He was a member of the
Institute of Advanced Motorists[22] and drove a
Rolls-Royce.
[23] He was also a member of
Mensa.
[24] He was chieftain of the
Lochaber Highland Games for many years, and owned a house in
Glen Coe. His appearance on the final edition of
Top of the Pops in 2006 was pre-recorded as it clashed with the games.
[25] While still alive he arranged for a bench, in
Scarborough, North Yorkshire, to be dedicated to his memory, with the words 'Jimmy Savile – but not just yet!' added as an inscription.
[26][27]
A bachelor, Savile lived with his mother (whom he referred to as "The
Duchess") and kept her bedroom and wardrobe exactly as it was when she
died. Every year he had her clothes dry cleaned. Savile's personal
relationships were rarely the subject of media report or comment during
his lifetime. He claimed in his autobiography that he had had many
intimate relations with members of the opposite sex, describing his
first introduction to women in detail and then adding: ".. there have
been trains and, with apologies to the hit parade, boats and planes (I
am a member of the 40,000 ft club) and bushes and fields, corridors,
doorways, floors, chairs, slag heaps, desks and probably everything
except the celebrated chandelier and ironing board."
[28] Savile claimed that the key to his success on
Jim'll Fix It
had been that he disliked children, although he later admitted to
saying this to deflect scrutiny of his personal life. He did not own a
computer, explaining that he did not want anybody to think that he was
downloading
child pornography.
[29]
In November 2007 Savile was
robbed
by a fan who made off with his glasses whilst in a Leeds hotel.
According to Savile, he was walking down a corridor of the Queens Hotel
at around midnight after attending a function at the hotel when he
became aware of a woman walking beside him. He assumed the woman was
going to hug him but she instead reached for his glasses before
sprinting off down the corridor. He later said "I thought it was
marvellous, it was just like old times!". Savile promised his
'assailant' a box of chocolates for giving him a "1960s thrill in 2007".
[30]
Charitable works
Aside from his TV and radio work, Savile carried out a considerable
amount of charity work and is estimated to have raised some £40 million
for charity.
[31]
One of the causes for which he raised money was the
Stoke Mandeville Hospital where he worked for many years as a volunteer
porter.
He raised money for the Spinal Unit, NSIC (National Spinal Injuries
Centre). Savile also raised money for St Francis Ward – a ward for
children and teens with spinal cord Injuries.
Savile also worked as a volunteer at
Leeds General Infirmary and at
Broadmoor Hospital.
In 1988 he was appointed chairman of a task force set up to advise on
governing Broadmoor. Savile had his own room at both Stoke Mandeville
and Broadmoor.
[32]
From 1974 - 1988 he was the honorary president of
Phab (Physically Handicapped in the Able Bodied community).
[33]
He also sponsored medical students at the
University of Leeds to perform undergraduate research in the Leeds University Research Enterprise scholarship scheme (known as
LURE), donating over £60,000 every year.
[34] In 2010 the scheme was extended with a commitment of £500,000 over the following five years.
[35]
Following Savile's death in October 2011 it was confirmed that a
bequest had been made to allow continued support for the LURE programme.
[36]
Savile was also well known for running marathons (many of them again for Phab, including their annual
half marathon around
Hyde Park). He completed the
London Marathon in 2005, at the age of 79.
Honours
Death
Savile's coffin on display in the Queen's Hotel, Leeds, 8 November 2011
Police and paramedics were called to Savile's home at
Roundhay, Leeds,
[44] at 12:10 pm on 29 October 2011, where they found his body.
[45] He was two days short of his 85th birthday. He had recently been treated in hospital for
pneumonia, and police said that they were not treating his death as suspicious.
[44] His closed satin gold
coffin was displayed at the
Queens Hotel in Leeds[46][47] together with the last cigar he smoked and his two
This Is Your Life books.
[48] About 4,000 people visited to pay tribute.
[49] His funeral took place at
Leeds Cathedral on 9 November 2011,
[50] and he was buried on 10 November at 12:30 pm at Woodlands Cemetery in the seaside town of
Scarborough.
[51][52] As his will had specified, his coffin was inclined at 45 degrees to fulfil his wish to "see the sea".
[52][53] The coffin was later encased in concrete "as a security measure".
[54]
Works
- Books
- Jimmy Savile, As it happens, ISBN 0-214-20056-6, Barrie & Jenkins 1974 (autobiography)
- Jimmy Savile, Love is an Uphill Thing, ISBN 0-340-19925-3, Coronet 1976 (softback edition of As it Happens)
- Jimmy Savile, God'll Fix It, ISBN 0-264-66457-4, Mowbray, Oxford 1979
- Recordings
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