To wonder what people really thought of Jimmy Savile when he was alive?

[BarmyBrunhilde]

I'm a millennial, and was only really vaguely aware of who he was really, so watching the recent Netflix documentary I was fairly bemused to see how popular he seemed to be. Obviously he was beloved by the establishment, including the royals, Thatcher etc but he seemed to have massive following among the public.

Everyone now seems to say 'oh yes I always knew he was creepy' but I have to wonder - for those who grow up in the 60s-80s how was he really seen? In the documentary it seems like he had always had crowds of screaming and adoring fans, and they generally seemed none the wiser? It seemed like industry people and his poor victims were the only ones who really had any idea.

Born 1975. I remember thinking Jim'll fix it was a bit shit tbh but not that he was particularly creepy, just kind of annoying and boring. He was always seen as odd, but in a celebrated British eccentric way, so people had an affection for him as a character. Tbh when everything started to come out initially I did wonder if he was a target because he made a point of not conforming to social norms, then it became apparent just how badly he had taken the general public in. It was shocking as was the realisation that so many people had suspected and had not been able to do anything.

I found watching the documentary incredibly disturbing as he really did hide in plain sight and his victims must have felt so utterly helpless. It made me realise again that this tidy narrative of people only being one thing, good or evil is over simplified bollocks tbh. He got away with so much because he was labelled "good". The sooner we understand that bad people can do good things the better imo.

Born mid 50s I always thought it was weird hanging round with three glamorous women at a time, that sort of thing. The clothes and the cigar, he was just yucky but I had no idea what was really going on until I read articles about him by people who knew

John Lydon/Johnny Rotten outed him but ended up being the one reviled and seen as a danger to young people's morals while Savile was still a National Treasure.

A relative of mine, an intelligent, well balanced, and ordinarily articulate person, used to go puce-faced and leave the room if he came on the TV. Another relative has since explained that what we took as revulsion at a 'creep' given his constant comments about women, wasn't the source of this person's ire, more that they were convinced they knew exactly what Savile was, but weren't about to go spelling it out in front of the entire family when there were children present.

I always thought he was creepy, but John Lydon was just playing to the cameras with his on-screen allusion to Savile being more that was apparent. Then Jerry Sadowitz spelled it out, unequivocally, and at that point I finally understood why my relative used to get so angry at the sight of JS.

I remember him on TOTP. I hated it it when he was on. I was a 70s child and an 80s teenager and really really hated him hosting Totp. I watched jim'll fix it and always wanted to be on it but never wanted to sit in the chair next to him!

@CandyLeBonBon

100% this - I was slightly older than you - born in 1962.

He always gave me the creeps and can't believe I ever wrote to the programme tbh - when everything came to light my mum said that she'd never have let me go even if chosen - there were people who saw through him.
When I watched the Netflix documentary I was really shocked at some of his lewd comments and "jokes" they truly were vile and outrageous.
The BBC "the establishment" and West Yorks Police have never been held accountable which is a complete travesty.

There were hundreds of "fans" lining the streets to pay their respects at his funeral. At the time I didn't know of his abusive behaviour so I thought the funeral procession around Leeds was normal for a celeb.

Don't think I had any thoughts about him at all. I used to enjoy Jim'll Fix It as a child. Bit irritating/weird on TOTP maybe.

Gross and creepy but I was too young to understand why.

I'm older and always thought Saville was creepy and unpleasant. I never understood why he was always on TV and never met anyone who liked him. My 80s born son says he always remembers me, and his DF, saying Saville was a bad person.
Despite this, I never expected the truth to be quite so bad.

I actually met him once. Hit was during the time he was supposedly jogging for charity - Stoke mandeville hospital I think. He ran in an Adidas tracksuit , with his cigar. He was creepy even then- probably the 70s or early 80s. My sister and I both remember it very clearly. He offered to give us his autograph- like came right up to us - we were 12/14 max. It makes me shudder to think of it. We probably thought it was amazing to meet a famous person, but it's interesting that we both recall how oddly weird looking/ acting he was. ☹️

My ex boss grew up in Leeds and it was widely known by the local girls the go indoors when he was seen running…

Born early 60's. Never liked him always thought he loved himself so much always bigging himself up and loved the glory of it all.

Hated when he hosted TOTP he just looked like a pervy sex pest to me and when he started JWFI he looked like he didn't even like children.

Looking back there was something not right about him and now we all know the truth.

Vile and evil 4 letters rearranged describe him perfectly.

I thought he was just a funny TV guy when I was a kid in the 80s. By the time I was an adult I felt there were was something grotesque and wrong about him I got the real ick from his leery face.

Remember him in the 1980s.

My mother prevented me from writing to Jim'll Fix It. She did not say why, but it was not allowed. I think a lot of people from West Yorks (where she came from) heard about him, but did not say anything.

Given in the 1980s he had the keys to Broadmoor and was making jewellery out of glass eyes that he'd got on his hospital portering trips, I don't think many people who were "ordinary" thought they would be believed. They were right.

@CaptainMyCaptain this clip?

m.youtube.com/watch?v=v4OzI9GYag0

I've been thinking about this for a while. I'm glad there are people saying "I didn't realise anything was "off" at the time" because all you usually see is "well of course I knew he was dodgy, I wouldn't have gone near him." It's verging on victim blaming IMO, like the people who were taken in by him were naïve and stupid, and had they been as smart and knowledgeable as the posters above they'd have been fine.

Of course there were cover ups for years at a national level, and them and Saville himself (and Harris, and Hall and the rest of them) are responsible for the decades of abuse, but does it really make you feel better to sneer that YOU would have seen through him?

I watched the Netflix documentary and to be honest I felt as though they made him out to be more popular than I remember him being.

He was always a big head and very showy and ugly and I can remember even as a kid thinking that 'Jim'll Fix It' would be better if someone else presented it.

I don't recognise the universal love that the Netflix programme showed.

Now everyone is saying how creepy he was but if you find the thread about the Netflix documentary you will see it links to a thread from when JS was still with us. The OP said he was a creep and the whole thread was a pile on and praising him for his charity work
People change history all the time

Just watched the documentary yesterday and I’m foreigner-he looks like the biggest creep

^^ I posted that I’d searched back on MN pre revelations on that thread before that link was added and it had a lot of positives about Saville including someone suggesting he run for parliament!

There will be somebody in public life now doing something very similar, good works, eccentric, outrageous, with similar motives to Savile. The report on his offending said similar - its just true that predatory people find it easier if they are "helping". Helping puts us at ease.

The thing is, gut instinct is useful but you don't really see that on telly, there's so much distance and he was paid to be this character - up close, I imagine Savile was much more unnerving.

He always gave me the ick from being a kid, growing up in Leeds where he was sadly hero-worshipped.

It was very odd, my Grandparents had known of him since his DJ days in dance halls in the 50s, and always knew he was a creep and not someone to be left alone with, but they still got suckered in the by the 'local hero' bit and the fame, pointing out his flat near Roundhay to me, and talking about it if someone had seen him out and about.

I watched the documentary the other day, and a similar on one Channel 5. Christ how I wish he'd been exposed before he died, I'd have loved to have seen justice served.

I was a teenager during his Top of the Pops & Jim’ll Fix It stints. My little brother wrote in to Jim’ll Fix It. I thought he was irritatingly show-offy but had absolutely no inkling of the criminal behaviour.

After the Louis Theroux interview, I thought he was weird and unpleasant but, again, had no idea that he was so much worse than that.

I was born in the 50s, never liked him on TOTPs, hated his crap one liners, the way he dressed and his lecherous ways with the young girls on the show. I remember seeing him jogging along the road several times when he was staying at a local hotel, he was in one of thous hideous track suits he wore, he kept looking round to see if anyone recognised him, yuck.

I think @PermanentTemporary has captured the zeitgeist of the era very well. I remember the tension between finding him repulsive and unsettling and the intense conditioning to be polite.

The gaslighting that went on back then is hard to convey now. JS being on tv, and feted was an obvious example but pervy old men in everyday life weren’t unusual by any stretch. And making a fuss about men being men was almost seen as an anti feminist thing. For years men had kept women out of circles of power and influence because they had to be protected and cherished (always assuming they were the right kind of woman), and a part of claiming space in the workplace involved pretending not to see the harassment. It was the generation of women coming of age in the nineties that shone a light on sexual harassment and that was a steep, steep climb to the me too watershed.

I find a lot of older men and powerful men quite creepy - maybe more than deserve it (or maybe not), but I think it comes back to those mixed messages when I was a child.

It must be me, but I really don't remember having any vibes about him at all.

I used to like Top of the Pops but mostly for the music, ( sixties and seventies music was brilliant). I didn't really care who the presenter was.

He was just there, part of my childhood, like the documentary said, part of everyone's childhood. Like the 'clunk, click, every trip' advert.

If I'd thought about it at all (and I wasn't much of a deep thinker, either then or now) I would have thought him eccentric, but nothing else.

Looking back in hindsight I can see all the clues and why some people did think there was something wrong somewhere. But that's only in hindsight.