Quotulatiousness

December 8, 2012

The predator who hid in full view of the cameras

Filed under: Britain, Law, Media — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 00:02

Mark Steyn on the Jimmy Savile investigations:

It’s tempting at this point to offer some musings on the price of fame, the burdens of celebrity. But Savile was cheerfully unburdened. Rather than a celebrity who happens to be a pedophile, he seems to have been a pedophile who became a celebrity in order to facilitate being a pedophile. Robbers rob banks because that’s where the money is. In the Sixties, Savile became a star disc jockey in Britain’s nascent pop biz because that’s where the 14-year-old nymphettes are. In the Seventies, he became a kiddie-TV host because that’s where the nine-year-old moppets are. He became a celebrity volunteer with his own living quarters at children’s hospitals and homes because that’s where the nine-year-olds too infirm to wiggle free or too mentally ill to protest are. He persuaded various institutions to give him keys to the mortuary because that’s where the nine-year-olds unable even to cry out are. (Stoke Mandeville Hospital is now investigating whether he “interacted inappropriately” with corpses.)

His persona was tailored to his appetites: The child-man shtick meant no one would ever ask him to host grown-up telly shows or move to the easy-listening channel. He motored around the country in a famous silver Rolls with a caravan on hand should he espy a comely schoolgirl at the edge of the road. When opportunity for a quickie struck ten minutes before a recording of Savile’s Travels, it was easier to drop the gold lamé sweatpants than unbuckle a belt and unzip a pair of trousers. And he more or less hid in plain sight. When Fleet Street reporters seeking a quote on something or other called him up and said “Is that Jimmy Savile?” he’d shoot back: “I never touched her!” On the one occasion we met, I remember being struck by the physical strength he projected, even at his then-advanced age. A few years ago, an interviewer asked, “You used to be a wrestler, didn’t you?”

“I still am.”
“Are you?”
“I’m feared in every girls’ school in the country.”

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