Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story (2022) s01e01 Episode Script

[applause]
Ladies and gentlemen, it so happens that
I've spent the greater part of my life
fixing things for people, you see.
So the BBC decided,
why not put it all on film?
Which is why we call it Jim'll Fix It,
'cause we've been getting
all sorts of letters.
We've got about 9,000 letters up to press.
-Go on.
-"Dear Jim."
"Please will you fix it
to fly like Peter Pan."
[Savile] You want to fly around
with Peter Pan?
[magical music playing]
[whooping, cheering]
[Savile] But we did it,
'cause there's nothing we can't do.
[man 1] As a child, you just thought,
"This guy can make things happen."
[Savile] "Dear Jimmy, I have one person
in life who I would love to meet."
"He is Captain Kirk
of the program Star Trek."
Welcome aboard The Enterprise.
[Savile] "Dear Jim,
please could you fix it…"
[children's voices overlap] "Dear Jim,
please could you fix it…"
…20,000 letters a week.
If you misbehave at the BBC, they put you
on opening the Jim'll Fix It mail.
[laughter]
Come along, folks.
[reporter] Jimmy Savile can't help
attracting his own special kind
of private pandemonium.
[man 2] Jimmy Savile is public property.
Our Jim.
[woman 1] I had never seen anyone
do that much good.
How on earth do you raise
£10 million in three years?
[woman 2] Everyone was bedazzled by him.
He was like a conjurer.
He mesmerized people.
We trusted him.
-There we go.
-That's lovely, Jim.
Can I thank you for everything you do,
for every good cause.
[suspenseful music playing]
[static crackling]
[screaming, cheering]
This is the legendary Jimmy Savile.
[static crackling]
[man 1] We've received over 400 lines
of information from the public.
We are investigating major crime here.
We've got this case, which is really
quite extraordinary if it's true.
[man 2] Stephen King would struggle
to come up with something like this.
[woman 1] It is disturbing and horrible.
[man 3] He was at it from 1955 to 2009.
[man 4] What that man did
was just so, so wrong.
The allegations are completely appalling
and, I think,
are shocking the entire country.
[woman 2] Why did it take that long
for this to all come out?
[man 5] All the clues were there,
in plain sight.
[Savile] I never, ever thought
that I was clever.
Tricky, yes. I'm a very tricky fella.
If you are clever, you can slip up.
You never slip up if you're tricky.
[inhales]
Big question I get asked is,
"When did it all start?"
That's the pop scene of mine. And "Why?"
And it all started--
very quickly, I won't bore you--
uh, some years ago,
when I wondered what to do,
and I wasn't quite sure what to do.
So I started
working things out for myself.
"I'll work it the other way around."
"Instead of thinking of something to do,
i.e. a job,
I will work out the things that I like
and the things that suit me,
I'll see if there's any jobs
around those things."
"I like lights.
I like records, pop music."
"I like girls."
[gentle guitar music playing]
[man 1] Jimmy Savile was such
a well-known figure in Britain,
it's very difficult now
to imagine just who he was.
[host] Good afternoon,
ladies and gentlemen.
Welcome to the Poll Winners Concert
here at Wembley.
[cheering]
[man 1] He'd been there
since everybody's childhood.
It seemed like
he'd never been anywhere else.
A man who you have voted
Britain's top disc jockey,
ladies and gentlemen, Jimmy Savile!
[cheering, whistling]
Morning, ladies and gentlemen.
Let's just have a little look.
How's about, keep the ball rolling,
no time for talking, music all the way,
and we are now very, very honored
to present to you
somebody we know very well as…
Let's hear it for The Rolling Stones!
-[cheering]
-Hello.
[cheering, whistling]
Bow to the Queen.
[man 2] He was strange,
but we knew he was strange.
Britain's most popular disc jockey
for the second year in succession,
Jimmy Savile.
[tense music playing]
[man 2] That was part of his appeal
to people,
that he was an unusual character.
Top disc jockey again, fourth year
in succession, very fine of you.
Got the award here. Look in your radio
sets to see what it's all about.
How about that? Isn't that marvelous?
Thanks a lot. A million thanks.
I think it's obviously because the people
of this country have got great taste
and discernment,
and they can
tell a good thing when they see one.
[hums a tune]
[man 3] Famously,
a lot of radio broadcasters
could not adapt to TV.
-Shall I tell you something?
-Yes.
-You're on the telly, look.
-Ooh, no.
Yes, you are, and there's
millions of people watching you as well.
Yeah.
[man 3] Savile, he did have skill
as a broadcaster.
I'd sort of forgotten about that
or chosen to ignore it
because of the later depravity.
One of the difficult things on television
is to get nice, lovely, ordinary people
to be natural
when you shove a camera at them.
Just round this corner, in actual fact,
is Auntie Nora's fish shop,
and she's got a great theory
about lady fish and gentlemen fish.
Good morning.
[Mark Lawson] Most broadcasters
wore their Sunday best,
got their hair cut,
and spoke in a quite posh way.
[Savile] Where's Auntie Nora?
Good morning, sweetheart. How's things?
-Oh, all right, love.
-Give us a kiss, baby. How are you?
I'm all right, love, now I've seen you.
You've made my day.
-Have I?
-Yeah.
[Mark Lawson] Jimmy Savile,
a working-class former miner,
and, crucially, northerner.
Northern voices are regarded
as more authentic in Britain.
Should've had my hair done, shouldn't I?
[Mark Lawson] Warmth.
You're on telly.
-[Mark Lawson] Trustworthiness.
-How lovely.
Ah, this is lovely.
Can you tell everyone on the television
the difference between
a lady fish and a gentleman?
Gentlemen fish has a tail on the end--
-[Savile] Right.
-A lady has just a little flat piece.
-Just a little flat piece?
-Hey, give up. He's taking--
[Jimmy laughs]
[applause, laughter]
[Mark Lawson] He understood that
there was a connection you could have
with people through a TV screen.
You stay there. Put the camera
on her legs, and I'll drink my tea.
-There you go. There we go.
-[laughter]
So, we've got to go. Any time now
they'll be pulling the plug out,
and we'll disappear from view.
[sound on TV] So we'll see you next week.
God bless…
[Mark Lawson] A man of the people
is allowed near the people.
Terrible, terrible things happened
because of that.
[Savile] The hair is,
you might say, a gimmick.
I call it smoke screen.
Being easily recognizable,
with all the hair and things like that,
immediately people see you,
they switch on to who you are,
and because of image
on television, 99.999%,
and I haven't met the other .1% yet,
people are very friendly.
[man] Right, quiet please.
We're on the clock.
[applause]
Ten, nine, eight,
seven, six,
five, four, three…
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
Welcome to Top of the Pops.
["Nut Rocker" playing]
[song continues through TV]
I'm on this one.
[chuckles]
[song continues]
There I am.
In green. Pale green.
[song continues]
I started working at the BBC in 1971.
The first thing I wanted to do
was go to Top of the Pops.
I was 19. I had my diary
full of girls who wanted to come with me.
I used to book the tickets
with a certain department.
I'd put down,
"Please could I go when Jim was there."
He was just completely unique.
We're just having
a little game from upstairs,
to see which camera they can catch me on,
but they can't catch me.
I've got eyes all over the head.
At 17 in the Hit Parade,
would you believe,
it's the one and only Mr Stevie Wonder.
It's called, "He's Misstra Know-It-All,"
and it's coming up any second now.
They're trying to catch me out, you see.
[Tina Davey] If you were on
Top of the Pops with Jimmy Savile…
Where's your mama gone? ♪
…it was awesome. It was a magic world.
Little baby Don ♪
Little baby Don ♪
Far, far away… ♪
[Savile] How about
if I jump round like this
and I say to you that, right behind me,
it's "Down on the Beach Tonight"
with the one and only The Drifters!
[applause]
["Down on the Beach Tonight" playing]
Hey, honey ♪
You know you're too young
To break your heart over one guy… ♪
[Tina Davey] Jim was the top, top man.
Say you'll meet me
Down on the beach tonight ♪
Where you and I could dance… ♪
He knew everybody.
The Rolling Stones.
The Beatles.
He was always keen to talk about…
[Savile] The four Beatles and myself,
we had to do a sketch.
They were mountaineers,
and I was an abominable snowman,
dressed in a big, hairy,
shaggy-looking thing.
And I captured The Beatles,
one by one, and ate them.
We're gonna have an all-night party… ♪
[Tina Davey] When I knew him,
he was 40, 45.
Smart, intelligent.
He headed up so many programs in the BBC.
Welcome, indeed, to the first
of 19 programs for childminders.
You know it had to end ♪
You might as well come down and have… ♪
[Tina Davey] I saw an advertisement
to work on one of Jim's programs.
Even though I was just a secretary there,
he didn't treat me like I was just someone
who had typed a letter or something.
He got me.
He's very, very intuitive.
Which means
he understood everyone.
[uneasy music playing]
It was magic to listen to his stories.
He used to come into the office,
started telling us
how he was at Buckingham Palace.
Stay onboard. Get inside.
Get inside because we mustn't keep
HRH waiting, as it 'appens.
[sing-song] Hi-he hi-he hi.
And it's the big house, which the…
It's like in old,
whitish stone, all right?
[uneasy music playing]
[Tina Davey] He was a very clever man.
He knew that fame bought power.
[reporter] Investiture at
Buckingham Palace, London.
The well-known disc jockey,
Jimmy Savile, received the OBE.
-One more time.
-[man] Jim!
-How about that, then?
-Jim, look over here now.
[Tina Davey] His level of fame
gave him every door open.
He wanted his fame
to go beyond anything and anybody.
[producer] So he didn't talk
about his emotional life?
He didn't have one.
He didn't have--
He wasn't emotional about anything.
He told me,
it was the most profound statement,
"I'm a machine."
And he was.
The only time,
one-and-only time,
I saw him show any emotion,
he had lost his mum.
I said to him, "I'm so sorry."
He did cry.
Never seen it since or before.
Deep down, he wasn't on the same road
as a lot of us,
in terms of boyfriends, girlfriends,
moving on to husband, wife, and children.
He really wasn't in that road.
[cheering]
[host] And he's here again, Jimmy Savile!
[cheering, whistling]
[rock music playing]
[Tina Davey] He didn't talk about
his personal life.
[cheering, whistling]
He was a complete…
[screaming]
…enigma.
[suspenseful music playing]
This is the final program
in the present series
about paperbacks
out in your shops this week.
Jimmy Savile OBE
has just brought out this book,
Love is an Uphill Thing,
and is sitting beside me.
I enjoyed it enormously.
Did you make up your mind
to be totally honest?
Were there things
you weren't going to say?
The bits that I didn't say
are only those which I forgot,
which I've got enough for another book.
I like writing. I think--
I call it the magic of the empty page.
Which is a tremendous thing
because you can make people laugh,
you can make them cry,
you can make them happy, sad, whichever.
I think that's a tremendous power,
that you've got a hand, a pen,
and an empty page,
and you can do anything with people.
To my mind, the best part of the book
is the anecdotes, which were very funny,
and I hope in the next one
you're going to tell a lot of anecdotes.
I'd probably finish up doing
about 15 years in the nick if I did that.
-[man] It's worth suffering.
-[Savile laughs]
-[host] Jacky?
-The other thing--
Yes, I enjoyed the anecdotes,
but I did feel
that I still didn't really know you
at the end of the book. I felt as though--
[Savile] What are you doing
after the show?
[chuckles]
-[host] I think that shocked--
-Come on. Don't sidestep.
Um…
Do you-- I felt as though you described
a person that we, the public, know.
-[Savile] Yes.
-Um…
Is there a private core
you really don't want us to know about?
No, not at all. Not at all. Uh…
I have no ego trip
that I keep things secret from anybody.
I don't think, for instance, that people
are really bothered about me personally.
Thank you all very much
for all your letters.
We'll be back some time
with more books. Goodnight.
Thank you.
[background chatter]
[silence]
[high-pitched tone]
[gentle music playing]
[Savile] I've managed all my life
strictly on my own, as a one-man band.
I've got no agent,
no manager, no secretary, no… Nothing.
[man] Where do you live?
-[Savile] Anywhere.
-You must live somewhere.
[Savile] It's all the same to me,
whether I wake up under a hedge,
or in strange surroundings.
[man] You must have
a definite pad of your own.
[Savile] Oh, I've got several pads, yes,
but I consider them, uh, bases.
I've got bases
scattered all over the country.
Houses, flats, and things like that.
And I slide about and, uh…
I don't ever think of where I'm going
or what I'm doing, really.
[siren blares]
[Savile] I work two days a week
as a porter at Leeds Infirmary.
Just as a porter. Not as a special porter,
not as an odd porter,
a peculiar porter, just a porter.
And it's really wonderful.
I work in various departments.
There will be a patient on ward 21
has to be carried to be X-rayed,
so I take a trolley
and go shovel 'em into bed,
then all day ferrying
backwards and forwards.
One, two, three, up we go.
There's marvelous chat
you get on the wards.
When I go
into a women's ward with my trolley,
to take someone down
to X-ray or theater, and I say,
"Who's a lucky girl today, then?"
And this is a payoff
of having a well-known face.
Are you warm?
-[patient] Mm-hm.
-All right?
Away, Joseph. Let us away to the woods.
[woman] Did you start it off as a gimmick?
[Savile] If it is, it's the world's
longest-running gimmick.
[man 1] I think we must press you
a little more on this.
You chose this section of the population,
and I don't think
you've told us quite why.
[uneasy music playing]
[man 2] Working in the hospitals,
that seemed to be a great thing.
He was prepared to push a trolley
and go out with the ambulance.
[cheering]
His charity work
obviously went down very well
because people thought,
"He's putting a bit back in."
-Hang on!
-Jimmy!
See you later. See you later, my friends.
[reporter] Day two of Savile's run begins
at the foot of a long, long hill
out of Brampton.
-Morning, Jimmy.
-Morning, my friend, Martin. How are you?
-How are you feeling, more to the point?
-Hundred percent.
Seriously, Jimmy…
[continues on TV] …it's a rotten morning.
It's cold, misty, damp, raining.
I don't think it's a rotten morning.
I think it's a marvelous morning
because you can smell the air,
you can smell the grass,
you can hear all the cows and the sheep.
[Martin Young] He was running
across the country.
I think it was a week
that we ran with him.
We had dinner the first night.
I started to ask him
about the charity work,
after all, the run was for charity,
but I asked him about working
for Leeds hospital, I think it was.
Anyway, he did hospital duties,
and he did ambulance duties as well.
And he started to talk
about the crashes and things
that he'd attended
as an ambulance employee.
And, um, he told one story
that was bizarre,
for the first time
you've ever met somebody.
He said, "Oh, I went to this one and, um,
it was terrible."
"We saw the body
and it was definitely dead."
"It was decapitated."
And he said,
"It was-- Had rolled under a lorry."
"So, anyway, I volunteered."
"I went in under the lorry
and came back with the head."
And, you know…
[flustered] "Anybody like another coffee?"
[chatter, applause]
During those five days,
the crowds came out.
You'd have thought it was royalty.
[cheering, screaming]
Now then, I'll sign this lot,
then you can get the next lot.
[train horn sounds]
[Martin Young] Jimmy Savile
is public property.
He's everybody's cousin,
everybody's blood brother.
He has to be jolly, zany, our Jim.
-[cheering]
-[Savile] Oh dear, oh Lord.
Oh!
-Are you teach?
-Yes.
-Give us a kiss, teach.
-[kisses]
-Ooh!
-[cheering]
[Martin Young] Lorry drivers, autograph
hunters, television interviewers.
He takes them all in his stride.
Somehow, after following him
for three days
and jog trotting into Newcastle,
it all seems disturbingly natural.
A perfectly normal way to spend your time.
Jim's weird lifestyle rubs off on you.
[jazz music playing]
That's interesting. I haven't seen that
since I did it. Since it went out on air.
I'm quite pleased with the script.
I'd worked hard on that.
I knew there was something wrong.
In the quieter moments,
what do you think about as you slog along?
Slog along?
[Martin Young] That's Phil Tibenham,
one of the great reporters.
You're always doing something physical
like cycling or wrestling or something.
Are you in some way
trying to punish yourself?
[laughs] Oh, no, not at all.
The only time you punish yourself
is when you are with young ladies.
Then you punish yourself
because you're such a villain.
You should be kind to them,
and you're not kind to them.
And you squeeze them
and make 'em go "ouch!"
and things like that.
Gosh.
It's made me realize
that there are two people in there.
One half of the brain
has broken into the other half for once.
The real persona
has entered the public persona.
I can't think of anything nicer
than walking the length
and breadth of this country,
starting at the top and finishing
when you run out of land. It's marvelous.
'Scuse me showing my feet,
ladies and gentlemen. Do forgive me.
-[woman shrieks]
-Then they go…
Put it down.
Let me have a look. Turn it round.
Turn it round.
Yes. Later, later. Take it away.
[woman giggles]
You see, a man needs all sorts of things
to get him 700 miles.
He needs all sorts of things.
[man] What adventures have you had so far?
I've had so many adventures, in fact,
my case comes up next Thursday,
in various parts of the country, uh…
And we do tend to leave rather quickly
once we've stayed overnight somewhere.
Because when all the boyfriends
and, uh, brothers and fathers
come looking for you with the shotguns,
a diesel cloud, and an oil drip,
and that's where you were.
[man] My dealings with Savile
started years ago.
My aunt ran this very strange
institution called Duncroft.
I first started going there
when I was sort of probably six or seven.
From 1970, we'd regularly visit
maybe once a month.
You'd approach this mansion
surrounded by high walls,
uh, which, you know,
looked like a stately home.
You know, it had a Georgian wing
and a Victorian wing.
It was very grand, and yet there were bars
on the upstairs windows
where the girls were at night.
It's all been turned into flats now.
I remember that. The lawns there…
I mean, the grounds were much bigger.
They used to run all the way down there,
and my aunt's study is that window there.
This was called an approved school,
which was like a prison
for 14-year-old girls
who'd done bad things.
Some had done very bad things.
At times there were child murderers here
and all sorts of things.
I found it unnerving.
Some of these girls who'd been accused
of very serious offenses,
when I was a little kid, I'd come here,
and they would be, like, babysitting me,
while the adults went and had a few drinks
or a party or something.
There would always be celebrities there.
You would have old film stars,
politicians, at a garden party
raising money so that they could buy
minibuses to take the kids out.
My aunt,
she was swept up
with the idea of celebrity herself.
So every surface in her house
had pictures of her with celebrities.
In the middle of this, Savile arrives,
when I'm probably about 16.
[Savile hums a tune]
[Meirion Jones] At first, it seemed he was
just another of the celebrities there,
but he kept turning up.
Very often when we turned up,
we would see Savile.
It was the first time
I'd dealt with him face-to-face.
All his phrases, "Now then, now then"
and all this stuff,
it seemed to be a screen.
So there he was in his shell suit,
making the screen in front of him,
and it was like
you couldn't see through it.
A lot of the girls
were drugged-up a lot of the time.
Psychiatrists were often over-prescribing
just to keep them quiet.
I remember seeing him driving off
with three girls
from the school in the back seats.
They were very excited.
They were waving at their friends
up at the windows above.
I mean, they're locked up.
Suddenly, one of the most famous people
in Britain is turning up.
And that started to become
a bit of an issue for my parents,
who were both teachers,
who would say to my aunt,
"Why are you letting this guy
hang around with 13-year-old girls?"
And she'd say, "It's Jimmy.
He's a friend of the school,
raising money for charity,
helping people."
You know, Jim'll Fix It. This is a man
who can make all your dreams come true.
[man] Jim'll Fix It.
It was 21 years of a working relationship
between me and Jimmy Savile.
It was a good talking point
if you were meeting somebody.
[male voice] Six, five, four, three…
[Roger Orish] Suddenly,
you couldn't say it anymore.
We do hope you enjoy this program.
You're an important part of it,
so sometimes we ask you to applaud,
especially when I introduce to you
Mr. Jimmy Savile!
How could I be so naive?
-[jolly music playing]
-[applause]
Hello, ladies and gentlemen.
Happy Christmas Eve to one and all.
Hope you're gonna have a splendid holiday.
We're gonna have
a splendid Fix It just now.
We're starting in fine style
with this letter.
"Dear Jim, I would like you
to send my sister to the moon."
-[laughter]
-"She is 12 years old and very bossy."
[Roger Ordish] It was 
a terribly simple idea, really.
People write in,
tell Jim what they want "fixed,"
and he'll make their dreams come true.
[boy] "Dear Jim, please could you fix it
for my duck, Crawford, to fly
because he cannot fly."
"All he does
is run up the garden flapping his wings
and just staying on the ground."
[Savile chuckles] An amazing duck.
If a duck wants to fly, the first thing
it's got to do is go to the airport.
[duck quacks]
[woman] Morning. I'll take that for you.
You're in seats 2E and F, on the left.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen…
[Roger Ordish] Ideally, you'd laugh
and have pleasure from watching it,
but you'd also have a tear in your eye
as it was such a sweet, innocent request.
[girl] "Dear Jim, I have always wanted
to be an Indian princess and wear a sari."
[man] If you behave like a princess,
with a lot of dignity and poise,
all your dreams will come true.
[Savile] Now, a letter
from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.
"Dear Jim, please can you fix it for me
to ride through a hoop of fire
on a motorcycle…"
[motorcycle revs]
[Roger Ordish] The response
was absolutely enormous.
The room was stuffed full of mailbags.
Do you reply to all the letters
you receive?
No, we don't. It would cost us so much
to reply to all those 250,000 letters.
It would cost more
than it costs to make the whole program.
[Savile] "Dear Jimmy,
I'd love to swing the ball
that knocks the walls of buildings down."
[Roger Ordish] It was number one
in the television ratings.
[producer] How many viewers
was it getting?
It was 20 million.
[Savile] "Dear Jim, please can you fix it
for me to drive the new James Bond car?"
Missiles, four.
Harpoon guns, six.
[man 1] So many kids were writing letters.
It was like a golden ticket.
[man 2] Good luck, 007.
Because kids could see
other dreams being fixed,
they'd think, "Well, maybe, just one day,
Jim might fix something for me."
[boy] "Dear Jim, I would like to take
my teacher, Mrs. Harding, out for a meal,
but I have only got 12p in my money box."
"If I save, she will be too old."
[sound continues on TV] "I don't want her
to be old. Steven Phillips, age six."
[Savile chuckles]
[woman] Steven, would you like to bring
your reading books to me, please?
[Steven Phillips]
I hadn't asked for the earth.
I just wanted my teacher to be happy
and, you know, have a nice meal.
A Rolls Royce turned up
at my primary school.
We went to the local five-star hotel.
Sir, the wine list to start.
-Mrs. Harding, what would you like?
-What would you recommend?
There you are, Steve.
That's what you ordered, yeah?
Um…
[audience laughs]
[Steven Phillips] Suddenly, you're in
an environment where everything
is centered around
this wish that you've asked for.
Look at that!
Oh, I say! Isn't that wonderful.
-Look, Steven, there you are.
-Isn't that lovely!
[Steven Phillips] It was fun. It was
an experience that I've never had since.
It's lovely.
And we've got cherries…
[applause]
We traveled to London.
We went into the studio.
Because you must present
this badge to this man-about-town
because he is something else. Thanks.
[Roger Ordish] The important thing
at the end
was that you had had your dream come true.
Jim had fixed it for you.
So we had a badge and a red ribbon,
and it said, "Jim fixed it for me."
Which, for a time,
were quite valuable on eBay.
[Steven Phillips] I did think it was
the Crown Jewels when I got it.
Um…
You have to understand that it was a big…
This was a big thing
for children in the 1980s
and the decades around it either side.
-[Savile] Here come their badges.
-[man] Here you go.
-Dear, dear, dear.
-That's it.
[Savile] Wow, look at that!
Come here. There you go there.
[Steven Phillips] As a child,
you just thought,
this guy can make things happen.
A Father Christmas-type figure, I suppose.
The whole process of writing a letter
is very much like Santa Claus.
That's what you'd do as a child,
write to Santa and say what you wanted.
[Mark Lawson] There's something Jesus-like
about it.
Jesus crossed with Father Christmas.
Well, that really took some fixing.
But here we are in beautiful Israel.
[choral music playing]
[suspenseful music overlaps]
[Mark Lawson] There was an implication
of something miraculous and caring.
He was seen as someone
that children would listen to.
Trust.
Your Uncle Jim.
[Steven Phillips] He was on our TVs
in this family show that families watched.
So he was a safe person.
[Mark Lawson] He wrote the introduction
to the American book
warning children about stranger danger.
Set out like a little poem.
"Here is a book
for you to read and remember."
"Will you remember a stranger is danger,
when you are on your own?"
Welcome back to James and his producer,
Roger Ordish, who've come to see us.
-Hello.
-The team.
Yes, the team. The Fix It team are here,
sifting through a few fix-its.
[Roger Ordish] I don't think you ever
got behind the mask
'cause he was so controlled,
so self-controlled.
The idea of having a wife…
He had an automatic
defense mechanism about that.
"Brain damage."
So the idea was that it would be…
It was one-night stands.
I mean, he would say,
"I met this young lady last night
and she obliged," or something like that.
You don't think about it
any more than that.
You don't say,
"What?! In what way? What did you do?"
He would talk about his conquests,
but you didn't see the person concerned,
and you didn't really think beyond that.
I mean, some people said,
"He's gay really, you know,"
but people say that
about everybody, don't they?
[suspenseful music playing]
[woman] I was The Independent on Sunday's
celebrity interviewer.
For a while I was called Demon Barber,
which was a bit hard, I thought.
More of my interviews were nice
than were bitchy,
but the bitchy ones
were the ones the readers loved.
Before I worked
for The Independent on Sunday,
I worked for the Sunday Express.
I did a series called
"Things I Wish I'd Known at 18."
Jimmy Savile.
I'm not sure what he said
about what he'd wished he'd known at 18,
but I asked him about the fact
he'd never had a girlfriend.
He said that he was so busy
he didn't have time for a girlfriend
or children or a proper home.
And he was always traveling.
Sometime after, I asked around the office,
and what was striking
was how many people said to me,
"You know, he likes little girls."
It was a very widespread rumor.
But it was a feature of Fleet Street
that rumors could go on
going round and round and round,
so you'd hear the same thing
from 20 people,
which made them sound plausible.
But then always you had to
try and get some backup.
"Have you any evidence for this?"
And they never did.
[man] In the dark,
dim recesses of the night,
can anything that you read about you,
or hear it said about you, make you wince?
Not really because, you see, I don't--
I've been in the business a long time now.
I run an average weekly audience
of about 40 million people
through things like television,
Sunday People, radio and things like that.
So after many years like that,
you get that people
say all sorts of things about you,
and you get over being hurt, uh,
because maybe the things
that they say are not true.
And it doesn't really matter because
you think back
to the words of the Governor,
who said, "Forgive them, Father,
for they know not what they do."
So that's all right.
It's the way it goes.
[man] If you think about all the stories
published about celebrities
in the last 40 years,
there's a much larger volume of stories
which have never been published
and never seen the light of day.
[Savile] This is the world-famous
Stoke Mandeville Hospital,
the most famous spinal unit
in the whole world.
[Dominic Carman] Powerful friends
can certainly help.
The British establishment.
A few thousand people
hold influence and power.
It is an invisible club in which,
once you become an established member,
you can find yourself afforded
a degree of protection and sympathy
that wouldn't be the same were you just
an ordinary person in the street.
At first glance,
Stoke Mandeville Hospital,
or at least this part of it, looks good.
It's only when you begin to look
at some of its not-so-new buildings
that a less favorable image
begins to appear.
[Dominic Carman] People can enter
the establishment from modest backgrounds.
To be taken seriously
by the establishment,
one has to make
a very strong impression on them.
A…
big impression.
[man] Blizzards have tonight
closed many roads.
Snowplows are out on all major routes.
Police have warned
of severe weather conditions
and advised people to stay at home.
[woman] On 2nd January 1980,
we had bad snow.
One of the patients
is laying in bed, can't move,
and the ceiling above his head,
which is what he'd got--
all he'd got to look at for a few months,
was beginning to bulge.
[man] Ceilings of five of the spinal unit
wards have collapsed.
Fortunately, our staff very quickly
moved the patients into the corridors.
[Sylvia Nicol] One of our consultants
phoned Jim and said, "Can you help us?"
And that's the moment
all hell was let loose.
[pipe band playing]
The appeal to rebuild
the National Spinal Injuries Centre.
[crowd] Five, four, three, two, one.
[cheering]
Is that why you're--
Are you raising money tonight?
So I've got time
to try and get hold of £10 million,
with the help
of my lovely friends in Great Britain, uh,
to stop the rain falling on the heads
of my 120 paralyzed boys and girls.
In fact, only three days ago,
a floor collapsed and one of my girls
disappeared through it.
-You're getting good publicity--
-It's not publicity.
Publicity is when
you make money for yourself.
That's not publicity. We're doing
a service to the people of this country.
I'm extremely sorry.
I shouldn't have said--
No more chips for saying that.
[laughter]
Ladies and gents,
say thanks to Jimmy Savile.
[brass band music playing]
[whistling]
[Sylvia Nicol]
With Jimmy Savile as our head,
it was in every newspaper
you could think of.
Good to see you. Hello.
[Sylvia Nicol] 'Cause it was Jim,
it was out.
How did you raise it?
[man] All sorts of ways,
but mainly a 24-hour sponsored run.
Thanks on behalf of the patients.
Would you like to meet my team,
then the patients?
-Love to.
-Good.
Oh, there you are. That's me!
Stoke Mandeville keeps me going.
That's why I'm still here now.
I was given a life expectancy
of ten years.
And look at the age of me now.
So we needed that hospital.
-Can I give you this check…
-You can indeed.
…on behalf of 120 Squadron RAF Kinloss.
[Roger Ordish] He raised millions.
And it was part of the Fix It thing
that Jim's gonna fix this hospital.
-[Savile] We started a week ago.
-[man] Right.
Within 12 hours,
we had got quarter of a million pounds.
I did a deal this morning,
from some super people,
who said you will benefit
by about £2 million,
so in seven days,
we've done about three million quid.
But it's not bad, is it?
[applause]
[host] Now…
[sound fades]
[Savile] "Dear Jimmy,
please could you fix it for me
to patrol 10 Downing Street
as a police lady?"
10 Downing Street.
Prime minister's.
[man] Here we are.
Your job, along with me today,
is to make sure the prime minister
is well cared for and looked after.
Thank you very much. Shall we close that?
Now, can I just point
something out to you?
Do you see what this says?
-Hello, my dear Jimmy! How are you?
-Good heavens!
[Thatcher] She's done marvelously.
And I hope you've had a very happy day.
[man] I worked for five prime ministers,
and Margaret Thatcher
certainly was different.
Are we going to get it on over your hat?
We'll try. No, don't move yet.
I think we can try.
One moment. No. Let's put it this way.
See if we can do it
without disturbing anything.
Shall we have her
have a look around, like this?
When I became principal private secretary
to Margaret Thatcher in 1982,
her relationship with Jimmy Savile
had really become quite established.
Well, actually--
I thought you were going to fix
my getting into Number 10?
[Savile] I've already done so.
Then you can give me
a "Jim has fixed it for me."
-Indeed.
-All right.
-Good.
-Come along, Jimmy.
Nice to see you. Wonderful. All right.
[Lord Butler] Their relationship
was pretty close.
He was writing letters to her.
She had invited him
to the prime minister's
country residence, Chequers.
Now, these are floribunda.
No, they're not as good as the others.
-What about here?
-Goodness me.
[Lord Butler] Stoke Mandeville
is on the doorstep of Chequers.
It was round the corner.
At the present moment, we're five years
and three months ahead of schedule,
which is staggering-- A miracle, really.
[man] It's remarkable.
Over £6 million in two years?
Yes-- Under two years.
[Lord Butler] Margaret Thatcher
particularly liked Jimmy Savile
because he wasn't relying
on what the state could do.
[Savile] The British public and industry
have rallied to this appeal
like they haven't rallied to anything
since the last war.
[Lord Butler] His entrepreneurialism,
his taking the initiative.
[Savile] It will open on August 3rd,
and any problems that we get before then
will be resolved by then
'cause we don't understand
the words "can't do."
[Lord Butler] Her vision of society,
a thriving economy,
relying on successful people
who were then able to support the people
who were less fortunate than themselves.
Do as much as you can
for yourself is the aim.
Here we have a very special, unique unit.
Patient in bed…
This place would not be in existence
without Jimmy Savile.
He has been the driving force,
been the focal point, the engineer.
The saint.
I had never seen anyone…
do that much good.
He kept it up,
never faltered.
I just, sort of… I probably loved him.
[laughter]
Prince Charles went to Stoke Mandeville
Hospital in Buckinghamshire today
to open a new unit.
[applause]
[reporter] Prince Charles was
supposed to come alone,
but when Princess Diana turned up as well,
the patients were overjoyed.
For Jimmy Savile,
who raised the money for the new hospital,
it was a moment of triumph.
[Prince Charles] When I think
that it cost £10 million…
How on earth do you raise
£10 million in three years?
[laughter, applause]
[reporter] "Easy," said Jimmy Savile,
pointing to the team
who helped him raise the money.
[Sylvia Nicol] Diana came a lot of times
afterwards.
She came on her own. No-- Nobody with her.
[Christine Checkley] She would leave
all her security somewhere up the road.
Jim used to pick her up,
and she used to come to Stoke Mandeville
just to walk around with him.
She was very friendly with him.
There she is.
Why are you lurking over there?
Come here. Come here.
[reporter] Royalty seem to spend
much of their time these days
being seen with Mr. Jimmy Savile OBE.
They were asking his opinion on things.
Asking his opin-- I used to say,
"I don't know who they think you are."
But they were.
[producer] How did you know?
'Cause we would see them,
or you'd hear them on the phone,
or they would come to Stoke.
[tense music playing]
[Christine Checkley] She said to me,
"What do you do with yourself all day?"
And Jim said, "Oh, they watch porn."
I said, "Oh, if only I had the time,"
you know…
[giggles] …and she goes all blushed,
and you know that look she had.
She looked down,
and she started to giggle.
Things happened with Jim
that you accepted as almost normal,
but it was abnormal.
-[laughter]
-[cameras click]
Ta-da!
[applause]
The Duke of Edinburgh jumped in it,
and he went off to the station.
And you've got all the outriders
and all the security absolutely petrified.
They were both like little boys,
Jim and the Duke of Edinburgh,
laughing their heads off.
I'm a cab driver today,
thank you very much indeed.
-I'm ex…
-[background chatter]
I'm expecting a very good tip. Thank you.
[woman] Why such a close relationship
with the royals?
What's your appeal for them
and theirs for you?
[Savile] No-go area.
-Next.
-[woman] But there must be something.
You know the royals well,
and you're close to them.
[Savile] Next.
[woman] No comment. Is that the secret?
[Savile] Next.
[woman] I was a journalist.
I worked at the Yorkshire Evening Post
as the Savile correspondent,
covering all his news
and charity fundraising antics.
He called me, as a joke,
his "head of media" or "good-news girl."
I did like him. We got on.
I looked forward to seeing him.
It was a thrill to see Jim'll Fix It,
sort of thing.
It was like seeing your childhood hero.
I did know a lot about him, really,
so I was asked by a book publisher
to write his biography.
This is research
I used for writing the book.
I've not been in here for years, actually.
So there's the book I wrote.
It was published in June 2012,
three months before the scandal erupted.
After the scandal,
I was shown all of this stuff.
Lots of letters here. He kept everything,
you know, meticulously.
So there's letters
from the royal family. They…
Including Prince Charles
and Princess Diana.
A letter to Jimmy Savile,
to his London flat, at Park Crescent.
Written on 4th July, 1991.
"Dear Jimmy,
I can't tell you how grateful I am
for the most useful assistance
you provided for my speech,
in the Guildhall the other day."
"It really was extremely good of you
to take the trouble
to put together those splendid notes,
and they provided me
with considerable food for thought."
"With renewed and heartfelt thanks,
yours ever, Charles."
"January 2nd, 1989,"
from the Prince of Wales to Jimmy.
"I can't remember
if I have written you a note recently
about morale-boosting visits to projects
that don't get enough attention."
"I have a dreadful feeling
the office doesn't consult you
before each program meeting."
He's asking his advice.
Where should he go and visit?
Who should he see?
So he obviously valued Jimmy's opinion,
which is bizarre, really,
when he's got the big--
You know, the staff.
He's got advisers, and assistant advisers,
and, you know, a big team of people.
"April 1990."
Seeking Jimmy's advice about a speech.
"You are so good at understanding
what makes people operate
and wonderfully skeptical and practical."
"Can you cast an eye over this draft,
and let me know how we can best
appeal to people on this score?"
[horn beeps]
[horn beeps]
[Alison Bellamy] "January 14th, 1987."
"I so want to get to parts of the country
that others don't meet."
"What I really need
is a list of suggestions from you."
"Perhaps I am wrong, but you are the bloke
who knows what's going on."
-It's a few years since I was here.
-Aye.
My word, eh?
[Alison Bellamy]
He was still a man of the people.
[applause]
He knew the common folk.
The royal family, they're often seen
as stuffy and out of touch.
Charles had found his link
with the people of Britain.
[Savile] Honorary managers,
with all sincerity,
I've been looking forward to today
for some considerable time.
If only for one reason,
I'm getting more wages for today
than in all the time
I worked down the pit.
[laughter]
[applause]
I mean, there's-- It's not just
a couple, it's not just three or four,
there's absolutely loads--
There's files of it.
"December 22nd, 1989."
"I wonder if you would ever
be prepared to meet my sister-in-law,
the Duchess of York."
"I can't help feeling that it would be
extremely helpful to her if you could."
"I feel she could do with some
of your straightforward common sense."
Fifty-four minutes after they'd taken off,
without warning or distress signal,
the airliner started
to disintegrate over Lockerbie.
[Alison Bellamy] "January 27th, 1989."
A month after the Lockerbie disaster.
This is Jimmy
giving PR advice to the royal family
about how to react publicly
when there's a major incident in Britain.
I suppose that, statistically,
something like this has got to happen
at some stage, on a town.
But of course, it only affects
the community in a very small way.
[Alison Bellamy] Jimmy advises
the Queen should be informed
in advance of any proposed action
by family members.
Jimmy suggests they should have
a coordinator, who is "a special person
with considerable experience
in such matters."
"There must be an incident room with
several independent phone lines, etc."
I mean, Jimmy is advising them
how to do it, what they should do,
what they should say,
should they say anything.
So Charles says to Jimmy,
"I attach a copy of my memo on disasters,
which incorporates your points,
and I showed to my father,
and he showed it to Her Majesty."
Jimmy had sent back to Charles
a five-part manual titled
"Guidelines for members
of the Royal Family and their staff."
Jimmy seems to be a kind of unofficial
chief adviser to the Prince of Wales.
[reporter] Jimmy Savile,
suitably gold-braided.
Big smile there for Prince Charles.
[cheering, whistling]
[Lord Butler] 1988.
Jimmy Savile was already an OBE.
There were two steps above that.
CBE. Commander of the British Empire.
The other is a knighthood.
Sir Jimmy Savile.
It represents a recognition
by the state,
by the Queen as head of state,
that you have done
very good public service
in the interest of the nation.
Margaret Thatcher
had started pressing for him
to get a knighthood in the early 1980s.
[Savile] It said in the magazine
the other day
that the only person
she listens to is Jimmy Savile,
which in itself is an oddity.
We'll go down and sit with the PM
over the Christmas period,
and I think that somebody like me
is invited into a family circle like that
because I'm not a political person,
and maybe she just wants
a bit away from politics over Christmas.
[man] What will you do over the weekend?
Who knows? We might play games.
I don't know.
[Lord Butler] She had written,
"Please can Jimmy Savile be considered
for a knighthood?"
But there were suddenly
these revelations about his lifestyle.
They were in The Sun newspaper,
and they really were rather extraordinary.
"His is one of the most
familiar faces in Britain."
"But there is another side,
a dark side."
"It is of a ruthless,
calculating Jimmy Savile."
"'The people who work for me
call me the Godfather.'"
"'Nobody messes with the Godfather.'"
"'He is the boss, the big man.'"
He wants to claim,
as well as the soft side,
this rather macho image.
They're such contrasts with each other.
"'If anyone misbehaved in my place,
they got a thick ear.'"
"'I said, let him lie there."
This is when somebody was being beaten up.
"Just make sure his eyes are closed,
and they went outside
and kicked his head in."
"They left him lying there concussed."
Well, this is quite a mile away
from the popular saint image,
and he himself is, as it were,
bringing it to public attention.
[continues reading]
"I had 107 pro fights as a wrestler,
and I never once lost my temper."
"I don't allow myself
the luxury of personal feelings."
"It's the same with my ladies."
"I like girls, plenty of them."
"Before I go out,
I write my telephone number
half a dozen times on bits of paper
and put them in my pocket."
[Lord Butler] These revelations,
The Sun describes them as
"The dark side of Britain's top DJ,"
and yet, it wasn't something
that they'd discovered,
it was something that he seems to have…
[hesitates]
…volunteered.
"Today, for the first time,
the real Jimmy Savile talks."
He volunteers it.
Um…
It's very odd.
[laughter]
[woman] I know you usually get
breakfast in bed, but…
-[giggling]
-Oh my goodness gracious!
[Lord Butler] My predecessor was chair
of the Main Honours Committee.
He said, "Mr. Savile
is a strange and complex man."
"He deserves high praise,
but he has made no attempt to deny
the accounts in the press
about his private life."
"Why?"
[Meirion Jones]
My contact with Duncroft School,
and, in fact, Jimmy Savile,
really ended in about 1976.
Duncroft then closed down,
and it was sold off to a developer.
I got to university, became a journalist,
and sort of invested my life in it.
I mean, I always remembered
what I had seen back in the '70s.
Looking at these cuttings from The Sun,
it's billed as
"The dark side of Britain's top DJ."
Actually, it's a dark side
that he can live with.
Uh, it's not a dark side that's gonna
lead to him being prosecuted for anything.
Gives an impression of him
as being hard but fair.
By all accounts,
he was quite a tough character
when he was running around in the clubs
many years earlier.
Something about lots of different women.
Bit of a lad.
But nothing illegal.
These are safe confessions
for him to be associated with,
and perhaps he then
gets rid of the reporters.
He's giving them something.
He's giving the tabloid press
something that will sell papers.
He's coughed. He's admitted.
We don't need to look at him anymore.
We can put him away in a box.
He was very good at distracting people.
Talk about cuties. Hello, again.
-Hello. How are you?
-Jimmy's our guest of the day.
Oh my God.
-[Selina Scott] Don't look at me like that.
-What's that?
He's done it
to every woman on the program so far.
Have you bought
your Christmas presents yet?
I haven't bought
a Christmas present in the last 20 years
because I don't have anybody
to buy Christmas presents for.
Come on. We'll play the violins
in a minute.
Where are you going for Christmas?
I haven't made my mind up yet.
Where are you going to go for Christmas?
-I shall be in the North.
-Will you?
Will you be in the North?
-I haven't made my mind up yet.
-Do you want to come round for tea?
When I was working on breakfast TV,
I knew instinctively what my role was.
Do you have a family Christmas?
I haven't got any family.
I'm a single man.
[giggles]
[Selina Scott] A bit of glamour.
The pressures on a woman,
at that time, were immense.
How could anybody
get tired sitting next to you?
Any, um, plans for the future, Jimmy?
Are you doing any more fundraising?
Stick with it, girl. That's it.
He was odd,
but, you see, he made people laugh,
and it's a gift to make people laugh.
And television studios
are desperate for light entertainment.
Isn't he rude?
All this schmooze in the morning.
it's really-- I'm unused to it.
-Lots of schmooze.
-[Frank Bough] His heart rate is rising.
I'd run like mad. You were very rubbery.
You're very limber.
Is that 'cause you do--
Oh dear. This…
I hear tell
the women absolutely besiege you
at the end of these marathon runs,
these charity runs. Is it true?
Well, with cooling drinks.
It's excruciating.
-TLC.
-[Savile groans]
[Selina Scott] See? You see?
Look at the effect you have on women.
[hesitates] I was as much
an actor in this as he was.
-And that's…
-[Savile on TV] None whatsoever.
That's embarrassing.
-You train with girls?
-Afraid so, yes.
They're faster than me,
so they run in front of me,
therefore the pain is intense,
but the view is magnificent.
[laughter]
-Jimmy Savile.
-What?
You always had a marble body?
And I'm doing the Diana thing,
under the fringe,
and encouraging this
for as much as it's worth.
Yes. Why are you hiding
beneath this sleeping bag?
If I might ask you, Selina,
if you could hold that hand
with one of your hands, please?
-I see something opening--
-This one. No.
I'll make certain
he doesn't step out of line.
[Selina Scott] Right, okay.
I know millions of fellas…
I knew this was going to come!
Jimmy Savile!
…who wish to hold hands
with Selina Scott in their sleeping bags!
-Oh, you are a… You're a…
-[Savile] Ah!
I knew that was gonna happen.
If this guy was walking down the street,
you wouldn't want to speak to him.
Or you might be
even afraid to speak to him.
[laughter]
[Selina Scott] Right.
I know a lot of fellas who wish
Selina Scott would pinch
their sleeping bags from them!
[Selina Scott] You'd think
he might be slightly dangerous,
something odd about him.
But, of course,
once he's sitting there on the sofa,
then he's made human.
[Selina Scott] The man of the moment
is David Icke.
The World Open
Squash Championship in Munich
has been won by Jahangir Khan of Pakistan.
Have you ever tried squash?
-I've tried squeeze…
-Yeah.
…and press but never squash.
[Selina Scott] He was trying to emit
this kind of sexuality.
[laughter]
[Selina Scott]
It wasn't raw sexuality at all.
Cost you one kiss in public.
-[Selina Scott] Would it?
-Yes.
Oh God.
-[laughter]
-[kisses]
I know what I was thinking
looking at him there.
It's a totally different experience
when you're sitting at home
looking at this set.
[Savile] Doctor, please, save me
from the attentions of this piranha woman.
It's a weird-- It's…
[scoffs]
It's like I'm a liar.
Like I'm sitting here telling fibs.
And the truth is very different,
'cause a camera never lies, does it?
A camera never lies.
So what I'm looking at here
is something totally different
from what I actually felt at the time.
So the camera does lie.
You know, if the camera never lies,
then the camera
would have picked up on him years ago.
Yep.
Yes, it's the biggest liar.
The most influential liar.
People are doing it wrong. They work
until they're 65, then they retire.
And I'm looking forward
to getting a job when I'm 65.
I'm going to be a--
Maybe a caretaker in a girls' school
or something like that, and…
[clears throat] He's laughing again.
[Selina Scott] Look how everyone
reacts positively towards Jimmy Savile.
And if you want to see
more of Jim's work first-hand,
I had a wonderful day
at Stoke Mandeville recently.
Thanks for being with us.
-God bless you.
-Thanks, Jim.
[Selina Scott] Television protects itself.
Television can construct
its own performance
and carry on doing it
over and over and over again, to applause,
and there's nothing that can stop it.
Everybody here
will go along with me in saying
that you do a terrific job,
really marvelous.
No, that's all front. That's all lies.
[laughter]
Talking of where we are,
how was 1987 for you?
Every day was Christmas,
every night was a birthday,
and my case comes up next Thursday.
[laughter]
[applause]
[applause fades]
[Lord Butler] Margaret Thatcher
wasn't giving up.
A recommendation
for a knighthood for Jimmy Savile.
She wonders, "how many more times
his name is to be pushed aside."
[marching band playing]
[Lord Butler] Summer of 1990,
he was included on the last list
that Margaret Thatcher
put forward to the Queen
before she ceased to be prime minister.
There was still a feeling of unease.
Are we, if we give him the highest honor
that the system can provide,
um, are we going to…
Are we going to live to regret it?
[reporter] From now on, it should be
Sir Jim who'll have to fix it.
Jimmy Savile's been at Buckingham Palace,
where he was knighted by the Queen.
I'm up on a cloud.
Can you tell me where I am
and can you tell me who I am?
-[man] You're Sir James Savile.
-Am I really?
So it was no mistake, after all?
No mistake.
[Lynn Barber]
He'd just been given a knighthood.
-No, it really is mine.
-You sure?
It is mine, I'm telling you.
Tell him it's mine. It is mine.
He thought I'd nicked it.
I said, "Can I come and interview you?"
and he said, "Yes."
He was still sort of buzzing.
Sir James? No, just a minute,
he's not here. Hang on a sec.
[posh voice] Hello?
[Lynn Barber] The fact he got a knighthood
was sort of guarantee of respectability.
I went to his pokey little flat,
near the BBC.
I had decided that I must
try and ask whether he likes little girls,
but, you know, couldn't work out how.
Actually, he gave it me
on a plate, in a way,
because he said
that getting the knighthood was a relief.
And I said, "Why was it a relief?"
And he said, "Oh, 'cause, you know,
there's always been these nasty rumors."
And so then I was able to say,
"You mean the rumor
that you like little girls?"
Still, I was nervous when I told him,
"What people say
is that you like little girls."
"He reacted with a flurry
of funny-voice, Jimmy Savile patter,
which is what he does
when he's getting his bearings."
"Ah, now, sure. Now then, now then."
"First of all, I happen to be
in the pop business, which is teenagers,
that's number one."
"So when I go anywhere,
it's the young ones that come round me."
"Now, what the tabloids don't realize
is that the young girls in question
don't gather round me because of me,
it's because I know
the people they love, the stars."
[whooping]
The locomotion ♪
The locomotion ♪
♪Everybody's doin'
A brand new dance now ♪
Come on, baby, do the locomotion… ♪
[Lynn Barber] I…
I thought he answered the question well.
[cheering]
[Lynn Barber] I thought,
"Oh yes, that explains it."
"If they know it,
why haven't they published it?"
"The Sun or The News of the World
would hardly refuse the chance
of featuring a Jimmy Savile sex scandal."
"The fact that the tabloids
have never come up
with a scintilla of evidence
against Jimmy Savile
is as near proof as you can ever get."
-[kisses]
-[Savile] Ah!
Ladies and gentlemen,
what else can we say?
Look after yourselves for the whole week,
and see you for some more
Jim'll Fix It next week. Bye-bye!
Your letter is only the start of it ♪
One letter… ♪
[producer] What was the reaction
to your article when it was published?
[Lynn Barber] Well, I was quite told off
by quite a lot of readers, saying,
"This wonderful man who does all this work
for charity and is now a knight,
and you dare to ask him
if he likes little girls?"
You know,
people were offended by the question.
There was a feeling it was sort of cheeky.
Never knew anyone who did that much good.
Simple as that.
[studio applause]
["This is Your Life" theme playing]
Well, Sir James Wilson Savile OBE,
this is your life.
I should say "lives"
because you are a man of many faces.
Here tonight, as you will have observed,
are friends and colleagues.
Roger Ordish, producer of Jim'll Fix It,
you have a closer insight than most people
into the real Jimmy Savile.
-I think so, but you can't be sure.
-[Savile] Goodbye.
I know this much, my wife, Susie,
is chief letter reader on Jim'll Fix It,
and the fact that she gets through
about 250,000 of them a year
is proof, I think,
not only of the popularity of the program,
but the high regard people have 
for the man himself.
There is one hospital that has
a special place in your affections,
Stoke Mandeville Hospital.
[woman] Hi there, Jimmy.
Thanks for everything.
Here's a message
from just a few of your friends here.
-Well done, Jimmy.
-[Savile] The team!
How's about that, then?
[Savile laughs] The team!
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
She's asked me
to read this personal message to you.
"So many great Britons have had
a touch of eccentricity about them,
and Jimmy is truly a great Briton."
"Miner, wrestler, disc jockey,
hospital porter, fundraiser,
and knight of the realm,
Jimmy, I and millions more salute you."
Signed, "Margaret Thatcher."
[applause]
[suspenseful music playing]
[man] Of the many things that you are,
what would hurt most if you lost it,
or it was taken away from you?
[Savile] Oh, uh, freedom.
[man] Freedom?
[Savile] Yeah. I've got the freedom
to do pretty well anything… now.
[man] What do you do?
What is it that really gives you a kick?
[Savile] You don't know.
You are constrained by certain things.
I'm not in your world.
I'm not constrained,
pretty well, by anything.
[sinister music playing]
[sing-song] La-la la-la la-la,
ho-ho ho-ho…
[Savile] The tough thing in life
is ultimate freedom.
[sing-song] Ho-ho ho-ho ho-ho…
That's when the battle starts.
Because you've got to be very strong
to stand for ultimate freedom.
[Savile] Has anybody…
seen Jimmy Savile anywhere?
[children shout] Over there!
[Savile] But I'm alone in the world now.
But I'm quite happy
because I borrow everybody else.
I borrow their joys.
I borrow their sorrows.
I've got 56 million people
in this country,
and the country
is like a big front room to me.
So I'm quite happy with them,
and it would appear
that they are quite happy with me.
[Lynn Barber] Insofar as my article
had any importance,
it was the first time
that this had actually been in print.
You know, I'd sort of launched
that idea on the world, as it were.
This was a key moment.
When I read that interview
that Lynn Barber had done,
she was the best interviewer
in the business at that point,
I just thought, "Ooh."
Suddenly, she's mentioning
these pedophile rumors.
It's there in black and white.
It turns out, of course,
this was far more horrific
than I could ever have imagined.
[tape rewinds]
-[woman] He fooled everyone.
-The scale of it…
-He groomed an entire nation.
-This is the stuff of a horror movie.
[sinister music playing]
[Meirion Jones] From that moment on,
I was ears open.
What was the real story
about Jimmy Savile?
[tape recorder clicking]
[woman] This interview
is being tape-recorded.
I'm Detective Constable
[bleep] from Surrey Police.
[Savile] I'm proud that, in 83 years,
I have never ever done anything wrong.
[detective] Are you sexually attracted
to girls under 16?
[Savile] Impossible and untrue!
[detective] Have you ever
sexually assaulted any girl
under the age of 16?
[Savile] Never! Never.
Out of the question. Never 'appened.
This is starting to sound
like the Mad Hatter's tea party, this.
["Take a Heart" playing]
First you take a heart ♪
Then you break a heart ♪
But before you do ♪
You make it fall for you ♪
Then you give it back ♪
Ahh, you shouldn't do that ♪
You seen me walk that floor ♪
Just a-thinking of you ♪
You seen me walk that floor, baby ♪
Right out of my shoes ♪
Somebody help me, please ♪
Tell me what to do ♪
Just send an SOS ♪
Yeah, my heart's in distress ♪
Won't somebody please… ♪