British “entertainer” Jimmy Savile was extremely friendly with royals, prime ministers and captains of industry. He was also one of the most prolific sexual predators in British history. While some people knew about – and covered up for – Savile’s predation, the bulk of what is known about him came out after his death in 2011. While it’s worthwhile to examine how a predator like Savile hid in plain sight, a lot of information “coming out” about Savile these days has already been known for years. Still, I guess it’s good to remind people. There’s suddenly a glut of new documentaries and even one BBC dramatization about Savile. One of those docs is a Netflix documentary called Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story. In it, filmmakers went through Savile’s documents and they found a lot of correspondence with Prince Charles.
The Prince of Wales sought advice from Jimmy Savile shortly after the Duke of York made ill-advised comments about the Lockerbie bombing, according to newly unearthed letters. Savile, the late BBC presenter now known for his prolific sex offending, wrote a media relations “handbook” for Charles, 73, who went on to “incorporate” some of the advice in a memo that was shown to the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh. According to letters spanning a period of 20 years, Savile, the former Top of the Pops host, appeared to take on a role as unofficial adviser to the future king.
On January 14, 1987, the Prince of Wales sent Jimmy Savile a letter. “Perhaps I am wrong,” he wrote from Sandringham in his spidery script, “but you are the bloke who knows what’s going on. What I really need is a list of suggestions from you. I so want to get to parts of the country that others don’t get to reach.”
It was not a one-off request. The prince and the presenter corresponded for 20 years, between 1986 and 2006, with Savile apparently acting as unofficial adviser to the heir to the throne. The depth and intimacy of their correspondence is revealed in a new Netflix documentary, Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story, which uses archive clips to explore how Savile did what he did, grooming a nation into believing he was a talented broadcaster and tireless philanthropist when, off-camera, he was a serial sexual abuser and paedophile. After Savile’s death in 2011, aged 84, the police investigated about 500 allegations of abuse, taking place from 1955 to 2009, the vast majority from victims aged under 18.
The makers of the documentary — the director Rowan Deacon (The Case of Sally Challen) and 72 Films — gained access to dozens of letters in which the prince regularly sought guidance from Savile on his public speeches and on family matters. Among them is an extraordinary five-page dossier titled Guidelines for Members of the Royal Family and Their Staffs, handwritten by Savile in 1989 for the prince, then aged 40, in which the broadcaster lays out his vision for how the royal family should respond to significant incidents.
The prince and the royal family, like the rest of the nation, had no idea of Savile’s crimes. “He was duped, like we all were,” Deacon says. “The letters show the trust that Prince Charles put into Jimmy Savile. He was trying to appeal to the British people, trying to modernise. And he saw Jimmy Savile as his conduit to that. In hindsight, that was catastrophic.”
Honestly, Prince Charles has a bad radar for people. Diana knew that about him, lots of people know that about him – he tends to buddy up with sycophants, gurus and, yes, serial sexual predators. In Savile’s case, Charles wasn’t alone – Savile was beloved by the British establishment at every level. Is it really surprising that Charles would ask Savile to provide some PR/communications advice to the Windsors? Eh.
Photos courtesy of Getty.
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