Jimmy Savile was one of the UK’s most serious serial sexual predators. Over several decades the television personality groomed and abused up to 1,000 boys and girls in TV studios as well as patients at NHS hospitals across Britain. That he was able to do so without being apprehended, even being knighted in 1990, is the subject of a new Netflix documentary series by Rowan Deacon.
Deacon uses remarkable archive footage and interviews with survivors, journalists and individuals who worked closely with him, to show how Savile hid decades of sexual abuse in the full glare of the celebrity spotlight. Savile always implied that he had a secret life, even while insisting that he had no secrets. The continuous clips highlighting his ‘wink, wink’ views of ‘young ladies’ and ‘sexual adventures’ confirm that the signs were there for all to see.
“Despite its high production values and impressive use of archival material, it leaves key parts of the scandal under-examined”
Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story presents its subject as a fame-hungry manipulator who, through his carefully cultivated relationships with British elites, was able to abuse and intimidate his victims, evade justice and fool the nation. But despite its high production values and impressive use of archival material, it leaves key parts of the scandal under-examined.
In one segment, Savile’s longtime producer, Roger Ordish, says: “You never really got behind the mask.” And certainly, Savile was a skilled image worker and manipulator of celebrity and morality, people and situations, time and place.
But, as our research shows, he was not alone in constructing his image. Like the official inquiries after Savile’s death, the documentary fails to capture the pivotal role Britain’s core institutions played in producing his “untouchable” celebrity icon mask.
