Series / Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story

Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story is a documentary covering real events. This page exists to trope that documentary, not the real events it's based on or the people in it.

It was good while it lasted.

"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."

—Jimmy Savile [edited], episode 1 (voiceover)

Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story is a True Crime documentary about the life of Jimmy Savile, a popular British entertainer who was revealed to be one of the country's most prolific sexual abusers and pedophiles after his death. It was released onto Netflix in 2022.

For nearly 60 years, Jimmy Savile had been a fixture of British media. Known for his eccentric mannerisms and dressing in outlandish outfits, he hosted the music program Top of the Pops during much of its 42-year run and was the most popular DJ in the country. On Jim'll Fix It, he granted the wishes of countless British children. He raised millions of pounds for charity, rebuilt hospitals, and was recognized with a knighthood. When he died, he received the kind of funeral that was reserved for royalty. But a year after his death, allegations emerged that he had used his long career to abuse children. This documentary interviews Savile's colleagues, friends, and members of the British media and establishment, all of whom had no idea what a monster he was, while a handful of his victims discuss the horror they experienced.

Part 1 ("Making a Monster") covers Savile's rise to fame, with sporadic references to the rumors into his private life. Part 2 ("Finding the Monster") features his final years while journalist Meirion Jones describes his investigation which ultimately exposed him.

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This series includes examples of:

• Abusive Parents: While interviewing his mother, Savile asks why she beat him so much in his youth, and she replies that she "didn't beat him enough."
• Alliterative Title: One of Savile's shows was called Clunk Click, named for a series of road safety PSAs that he did in the 70s. It was on this program that Meirion Jones spotted one of Savile's victims and was able to substantiate her story.
• Bags of Letters: Savile is shown surrounded by mail bags on the set of Jim'll Fix It, which received around 20,000 letters a week and upwards of 250,000 letters a year. In one interview from the 1970s, Roger Ordish explains that they don't reply to every letter because the postage would cost more than the show's entire budget.
• Believing Your Own Lies: Savile seemed to truly believe that his charity work meant he never harmed anyone and would outweigh his numerous offences when he died.
• Beneath the Mask: Savile's blokey, charming persona consumed his entire public life to the point that interviewers discussing books that Savile has written can't help but notice that he doesn't seem to give away his real self in any of his anecdotes; rather tellingly, when this is discussed with Savile, he immediately falls back on joking rather than address the subject. Even his coworkers and apparent friends only ever knew him by the performance he put on in public, and up until he died, the only people that knew what kind of a person Savile really was behind his Mask of Sanity were his victims.
• Berserk Button: One of the few times Savile ever comes close to dropping his persona and getting genuinely angry is when an interviewer describes his charity work as publicity, implying it was simply for his own benefit and image. Likely because Savile knew that's exactly what he was doing.
• Bittersweet Ending: The documentary concludes on a particularly bittersweet note for those interviewed. Roger Ordish and Alison Bellamy were scapegoated for years simply because they worked closely with Savile and considered him a friend. Those who helped Savile with his charity work and even benefited from his charity work feel a deep personal sense of betrayal, unable to reconcile how a man who did so much good was so horrendously evil. Andrew Neil comments that the media failed the country by not exposing Savile, but also that it played a role in creating him, turning him into such a beloved figure that he became untouchable. On the other side, Meirion Jones is relieved that the truth finally managed to get out there at all, vindicating his years of suspicions and investigatory work, and Sam Brown, one of Savile's many victims, is now at peace because she was finally heard.
• Blatant Lies: Everything Savile says to deflect scrutiny into his personal life. One particular example, Savile would repeatedly boast about his recent conquests with women. But there were never any candid pics by paparazzi, no kiss-and-tells given by these supposed women and one journalist failed to find even a single woman who he'd ever slept with.
• Book Dumb: Savile had little formal education, having left school at fourteen like many men of his generation, but was very intelligent, being a member of Mensa, and extremely skilled at using his intellect and charisma to build his career and get away with his crimes.
• Broken Pedestal: Pretty much all of Britain felt this way about learning what the once beloved Savile was truly like. One of those interviewed helped Savile during his appeal to rebuild Stoke Mandeville. She saw him do good and says in a way that she loved him for doing so much good. Once the scandal erupted, she felt betrayed.
• Character Catchphrase: In addition to his famous phrases "now then, now then," "as it 'appens," and "'ow's about that then," Savile had a phrase he would utter any time someone tried to probe into his private life: "My case comes up next Thursday!"
• Character Tics: In her interview with Savile, Lynn Barber describes him as going into a flurry of "Jimmy Savile patter," saying he does this when he's getting his bearings. He did this after she asked him if he liked little girls.
• Child Hater: Despite hosting a hugely popular children's show, Savile repeatedly claimed he actually disliked children. Louis Theroux once asked him why he claimed this despite his public image, and Savile says it's to deflect accusations of pedophilia.
• Cigar Chomper: Savile was never seen without a cigar in his hand, which was one of his trademarks. At his wake, the funeral director managed to get hold of the last cigar he smoked and set it up in an ashtray.
• Confess to a Lesser Crime: Sorta - Savile deliberately stated that he had a darker, more aggressive side (accompanied in the documentary with footage of him in a boxing match) in order to throw off suspicion of him having other, even darker secrets to hide. As the narrator and interviewees note, this succeeded, as even the tabloids stopped trying to look any further into him after this.
• Contractual Purity: Invoked. Savile was a beloved man thanks to his charity work and being a Cool Old Guy out of an Enlightened Self-Interest. His posthumous reputation quickly tanked once the ITV documentary exposed his true colors.
• Cool Old Guy: This was the image Savile crafted in the 2000s, as he was frequently brought onto panel shows and other television appearances despite his fame having peaked decades earlier.
  Ian Hislop: In Britain, at a certain point in your life, you change from being eccentric and weird to being a national treasure. Everybody decides you've been around so long that you're marvelous and you should be feted.
• Creepy Physical: Savile worked as a voluntary helper at various hospitals across the UK, particularly Leeds Infirmary and Stoke Mandeville. In recognition of his efforts to help these hospitals, he was often given his own keys, apartment suite, and unsupervised access which he used to molest countless patients, many of whom couldn't even respond to what he was doing to them.
• Dark Reprise: The documentary's main leitmotif is a slow and darker version of the Jim'll Fix It theme.
• Deadpan Snarker: Savile had a very sharp sense of humor which he used to hide his malevolent side, and shows often invited him for his wit.
  Craig Charles: All the New York rappers want to look like you, Jimmy. I mean, you were bling before bling was bling.
  Jimmy Savile: I was bling just after Henry VIII.
• Denied Food as Punishment: During the Stoke Mandeville appeal, an interviewer asks Savile if he's doing this for publicity as they share a meal of chips at a restaurant, to which Savile indignantly replies that publicity is "about making money for yourself" whereas he's doing a service to the country. Savile then takes away the rest of the interviewer's chips.
• Dishonored Dead: After the allegations came out, Savile's massive granite headstone was quietly removed and taken to a landfill for destruction, leaving him in an unmarked grave. The opening credits for Part 1 show the animated creation and then destruction of the headstone.
• Double Entendre: Savile was dripping with these, most of which have become much clearer in hindsight. One such comment was about him working at a hospital, and he said, "I help the lads, and sometimes, when nobody's looking, I help the lasses." It reaches its zenith when the epitaph on his headstone was "It was good while it lasted," and the funeral director in Leeds immediately realized its implications after the scandal broke. As such, the headstone was quickly removed in the middle of the night and destroyed.
• Driven to Suicide: Meirion Jones shows a number of comments from remote websites which discussed Savile. One of them said that their friend was abused by Savile and committed suicide a few years later.
• Due to the Dead: The Leeds funeral director discusses how he created the viewing for Savile, including a crucifix because he was Catholic and also the last cigar that he smoked. Thousands of people viewed his coffin and so many people attended his funeral that there were giant screens set up outside the cathedral so that everyone could attend. With all the formal pomp and circumstance afforded him, a foreign visitor might have thought it was a funeral for someone in the royal family or even a prime minister.
• False Friend: Savile ended up being this to the whole of Britain. Because he hosted a show centered around children, everyone thought he was a safe person to be with. Some even called him "Uncle Jim." After the allegations came out, the people who genuinely considered him to be a friend felt deeply betrayed.
  Alison Bellamy: You know, we did have a friendship. A valid friendship that, um... that was real at the time. I can't reconcile the Jimmy I knew with the abuse.
• Friend to All Children: Savile cultivated this image through Jim'll Fix It, as a beloved children's show host and a cross between an eccentric but lovable grandparent, Peter Pan and Santa Claus. At one point, he is shown delivering presents while dressed as Father Christmas. He even wrote the preface to a book meant to warn children about stranger danger. The whole of Britain viewed "Uncle Jim" as a safe person.
• Funny Character, Boring Actor: Invoked. Despite his outlandish persona, Savile would claim that he was "very boring" in interviews as a way of deflecting scrutiny into his private life.
• Good Samaritan: TV critic Mark Lawson describes Savile's ability to "fix things" as being Jesus Christ crossed with Father Christmas, as children would write to Savile what they wanted most of all. When Stoke Mandeville hospital, a renowned spinal injury center, suffered severe damage to its older buildings following a blizzard, Savile showed up to raise millions of pounds to build a brand-new unit.
• Hated by All: When it was announced that ITV would air a documentary accusing Savile of molesting children, many people accused his victims of attempting to dirty his name. But as the days and weeks continued, and more people started coming forward, it became clear that this was bigger than a single incident at one school, that Savile had abused children everywhere he went. Soon afterwards, he became one of the most hated men in British history.
• Heaven Seeker: It's discussed that one reason Savile was so active in charitable causes was that he believed his good deeds needed to outweigh his bad deeds to ensure his salvation.
• Hidden in Plain Sight: It was obvious that Savile was creepy and weird, but people dismissed it as him simply being "our Jimmy." Perhaps most shockingly, he actually grabbed a woman's ass while the camera was rolling on Top of the Pops, looking directly at it while the woman was clearly trying to get away.
• Hope Spot: In 1994, Paul Connew and the Sunday Mirror interviewed a pair of women who had been abused by Savile when they were girls. They were about to publish when the husband of one of the women called him and said they had lost their nerve, meaning they couldn't do the exposé. Shortly afterwards, Connew received a call from George Carman saying that Savile thanked him for not running the article. He would later share what the women told him with a police contact, but he was then informed that they couldn't investigate without literally catching Savile in the act.
• Insane Troll Logic: It is apparent that Savile believed that "the more he did on the bad side, the more he had to do on the good side." This was the reason for him raising so much money for charity, believing that doing so would make God and St. Peter overlook his crimes when they judged him.
• Insistent Terminology: Savile repeatedly insists that his charity work and volunteer work are not gimmicks or for publicity, but he did it because he loved it unashamedly.
• It Will Never Catch On: Savile was one of the few broadcasters who was able to make the switch from radio to television in the 1960s.
• It's Personal: Meirion Jones spent years investigating Savile because he had seen him repeatedly coming to the approved school that his aunt ran and found it odd that Savile would be hanging out with the young girls. When he read Lynn Barber's interview in which Savile acknowledged the pedophile rumors, Jones realized that his childhood instincts may have been right and there was more to Savile than he let people see.
• Jekyll & Hyde: According to Ian Hislop, Savile somehow managed to coexist the image of being a deeply loved national treasure and also the image of being "a deeply creepy bloke who was up to no good."
• Juvenile Hell: In the 1970s, Meirion Jones's aunt ran an approved school called Duncroft, which was essentially a prison for girls who had done very bad things. When he was a kid, some of the girls even babysat him while the grownups were having drinks.
• Knighting: An interview reveals that Margaret Thatcher apparently spent years trying to get Savile knighted, only succeeding when she sent in her last list of recommendations before her term ended.
• Long Last Look: After hosting the final episode of Top of the Pops, Savile goes backstage, takes a last look around, and then shuts off the power.
• Long-Runners: Savile was a fixture of British television for over 50 years. He hosted nearly a quarter of the episodes of Top of the Pops during its 42 year run and hosted Jim'll Fix It for 19 years. One recording has Saville boast that he's been a part of British culture for a hundred years.
• Look Ma, I Am on TV!: A former BBC secretary reacts fondly to seeing herself in the opening of Top of the Pops.
• Lovable Sex Maniac: Savile claimed to be this, frequently making vague mention to sexual conquests in interviews. However, Andrew Neil's research team, many of whom were veteran tabloid journalists, were unable to find a single woman he had legitimately dated. Roger Ordish also explains that Savile would frequently talk about having one-night stands, mentioning it in such a way that people wouldn't ask for any details or elaboration.
• Loved by All: In his life, Savile was universally beloved in Britain, especially after he raised £10 million to rebuild the spinal unit at Stoke Mandeville Hospital. He raised millions more for various other charities, often through huge events.
• Mama's Boy: In the words of Andrew Neil, the only woman who they could find who had played any role in Savile's life was his mother, and they had a very unhealthy relationship at that. Savile called her "the Duchess", and they lived together for several years as his fame started to rise. According to a former BBC secretary who worked with Savile, the only time he ever showed real emotion was when she died.
• Manipulative Bastard: Mike Hames, who headed Scotland Yard's pedophile unit in the 1990s, describes pedophiles as being very different from other criminals. For starters, they aren't unintelligent. They're able to manipulate the people around them whether they're friends, family, or colleagues. They live in a sort of parallel existence from the horrific things they are doing, and, in general, "fuck with your head."
• Mask of Sanity: Savile worked hard to hide his inner dysfunction throughout his career, but a few interviews with both him and his coworkers indicate that there were occasions where he let the mask slip for a moment or so. On one occasion, Savile referred to an incident in which he'd been working as an assistant ambulance man and had to retrieve a severed head from under a truck, seemingly oblivious to the horrified reactions of the audience he was discussing this anecdote with.
• Meaningful Echo: Savile's gravestone is marked with the words "It was good while it lasted!", intended as a humorous comment on his life. As the allegations come out, it takes on a new meaning as everyone's image of him as a beloved icon is destroyed forever.
• Missing Episode: Invoked. Meirion Jones explains that he interviewed one of Savile's victims, a woman named Karin Ward. Savile extorted sexual favors from her so that she could appear on one of his shows, which was called Clunk Click. Unfortunately, it aired during the 1970s, when the BBC still routinely wiped their tapes. Jones and his team managed to find a handful of surviving tapes for Clunk Click, which confirmed that the program at the very least existed, and happened to find Karin on a "best of" episode, thereby substantiating her story and broadening the picture that there had been abuse everywhere Savile went.
• My Greatest Failure: In the words of many of those interviewed, from police to journalists, the pieces were all right in front of them, but no one was able to connect the dots together. A number of Savile's victims also regret not coming forward sooner, with each believing they were the only one.
• Mysterious Informant: Mike Hanes reads an anonymous letter that Scotland Yard received in the 1990s, describing Savile as a deeply committed pedophile who must be investigated by the police. Despite it being from an anonymous source, the police couldn't just throw it away and it was sent up to Leeds for further investigation. However, Savile was close with several Leeds police officers, who happened to be the ones to receive the letter and it was quietly buried.
• Nightmare Fuel Coloring Book: In a horrifying film clip, Savile mocks a young hospital patient who had made a drawing depicting him as an evil monster. "What did I ever do to make you draw me like that?" he asks. The child tearfully replies, "Everything." Years later, it's all too clear what must have inspired the child's drawing.
  Savile: If you don't work in a hospital, you really are missing something. In fact, you're missing everything.
• Off with His Head!: Savile once casually recounted how, when he was working as a hospital porter, a head came off a body and rolled under an ambulance before he retrieved it.
• Oh, Crap!: The closest Savile comes to breaking his blokey persona is when Andrew Neil probes into his past relations, pointing out that he's never photographed with any women despite all his claims to the contrary.
  Savile: (nervous laugh) You can't win here! Um, it's all part of a façade, and (hesitates) I am very boring. Thank God.
• Old Shame: Invoked. Selina Scott can barely look at herself in an old interview with Savile, where she had thought he was being creepy but couldn't do anything about it. Roger Ordish is also unsettled by his repeated praise of Savile, especially on This Is Your Life.
• Oop North: At the time that Savile started to rise to fame, British presenters spoke in a very posh version of Received Pronunciation. Savile maintained his Northern accent, as these are generally seen as the more "authentic" British accent and helped in his appeal to the British people.
• Open Secret: Allegations of Savile being a sexual predator follow him throughout his career, from as early as the 1960's with police suspicions as late as 2009, only two years before his death, and his behavior is known among those at the BBC and various institutions and are even asked about openly by a few journalists but aren't openly confirmed until after his death.
• Police Are Useless: Over the years, British police received a number of anonymous tips regarding Savile's behavior, all of which were dismissed. Mike Hames says that he had only 16 officers at Scotland Yard's pedophile unit, and often had as many as 100 operations going on at any one time.
• Rags to Riches: Part of Savile's appeal was his humble origin. He came from a working-class family, worked as a miner in his youth, and spoke in a distinct Northern accent. This made him appear to be a Working-Class Hero who rose to the point that he regularly dined with the Prime Minister and the Royal Family, and greatly helped the country seemingly relate to him.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: Jim'll Fix It received about 250,000 letters a year. In one interview, Savile jokes that those who "misbehave at the BBC" are assigned to opening the mail for his show.
• Refuge in Audacity: Savile was able to get away with his crimes for so long by being openly leering, inappropriate and generally creepy and always making reference to unspecified shady acts but in a theoretically harmless way, acting more like an lovably eccentric grandparent who tells raunchy jokes and is a bit behind the times, and would often speak about his offenses in a manner that everyone assumed was simply self-depreciating humor as people assumed that if Savile actually was engaged in such acts, he'd likely try to distance himself from such rumors as much as possible and no one would ever believe that a national treasure and beloved icon could really be a monster. Added to this was his knowledge that anyone who did come forward would be dismissed right away due to his public image, allowing Savile the confidence to engage in his acts of abuse.
• Sarcastic Confession: A number of clips are shown in which Savile makes jokes that, in hindsight, are basically him admitting to what he's done. During a segment on Have I Got News for You, he says that he is "feared in every girl's school in this country."
  Ian Hislop: Extraordinary. I mean, I had forgotten how much the audience liked that joke.
  • In another appearance, Savile comments that if you speak to the miners in South Kirkby and say how well Savile has done, the miners will say "He's not what you think, you know. The forces of darkness are at work there." Host Michael Parkinson, guest Alan Alda, and the audience all laugh.
• The Scapegoat: With Savile long dead, people tried to look to his associates to punish, including Jim'll Fix It producer Roger Ordish and Savile's biographer Alison Bellamy as well as those in his orbit who committed similar offenses such as Rolf Harris.
• Screwed by the Network: Invoked. Meirion Jones had a broadcast date set for his documentary exposing Jimmy Savile, but the BBC pulled the plug at the last minute. A year later, he went to the rival network ITV just to ensure his story got out there at all.
• Self-Deprecation: Horrifyingly used by Savile who would regularly admit to being less than trustworthy and using his positions of power for nefarious ends. It was generally assumed that this was simply good-natured joking and everyone laughed at the idea that beloved uncle Jim could be anything besides that but now in hindsight comes across as him openly flaunting his crimes, both as a tactic and because he knew he could get away with it.
• Self-Made Man: Savile came from a working-class background and worked as a miner for years, before becoming a DJ and getting into broadcasting where he often had a weekly audience of about 20 million people.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Savile once said he would threaten to break St. Peter's fingers if he was denied entry into Heaven.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: The documentary uses news footage of Savile's charity work and clips from his light entertainment show, Jim'll Fix It, but adds ominous background music. The Netflix subtitles directly mention "[suspenseful music]" at several points.
• Standard Female Grab Area: During one of Princess Diana's visits to Stoke Mandeville, Savile notices a woman off-camera who he describes as "lurking in the corner," and when she refuses to come over, he grabs her to bring her out.
• Stock Unsolved Mysteries: Part 2 opens with Savile at Loch Ness while looking for the monster. He explains that Nessie isn't coming out because "monsters don't like opposition."
• Tabloid Melodrama: The latter half of Part 1 shows that Savile had legions of tabloid reporters trying to hound him for anything that could damage his reputation, but also notes that they stopped after he publicly admitted to having a darker side. The tone of the interviewees in that segment shows that many wished they had kept digging.
• Teacher/Student Romance: Downplayed. The Jim'll Fix It segment focuses on the wish of Steven Phillips, who wanted to take his grade schoolteacher out for a nice meal. The dinner is entirely platonic and was nothing more than a sweet gesture from a kid to his teacher with the uncomfortable nature being Savile's involvement in "fixing" it.
• Technologically Blind Elders: When asked by what his thoughts are of comments about him said online, Savile replies that he doesn't have a computer or anything connected to the Internet.
• This Is Gonna Suck: Just before the ITV documentary aired, Roger Ordish was warned by a friend that "a whole hornet's nest is about to come out."
• Time-Compression Montage: The first episode begins with a Cold Open in which Savile explains the premise of the new Jim'll Fix It show, followed by a montage of scenes from his later career, including chat-show appearances, charity fundraising and meetings with royalty, and politicians. Voiceover snippets reinforce his fame and all the good he did for charity. Then, as the credits begin, the soundtrack and the voiceovers shift, launching a very different montage — this time about the investigation into his crimes.
• Unperson: Due to his extensive charity work, Savile was recognized with plaques across Britain adorning everything from hospitals to Leeds city hall. The documentary explains how these were quickly removed after he was exposed. The Leeds funeral director describes the process in which he and the caretakers removed Savile's headstone. In one of the news clips, filmed just before it was removed, a woman calls for its destruction because "[Savile] doesn't exist anymore."
• Visual Innuendo: While being interviewed by Andrew Neil, in which he tries to dig deep into his personal life by mentioning how he's never had relationships, Savile begins munching on a banana.
• What Does She See in Him?: The documentary asks this question of an entire country. Everyone in Britain knew that Savile was odd and fairly creepy, and rumors of his private life circulated for decades, but he remained a British institution until his death. Even before the allegations came out, people could only give vague answers as to why they found him so endearing.
• Working-Class Hero: Savile was seen as a man of the people thanks to his background as a miner and his accent, and Prince Charles asked him for advice on how to relate to the working class. This made him an unofficial advisor to the Royal Family. Margaret Thatcher also saw him as a model for her vision of society, where people lifted themselves up solely through their own efforts and then helped the less fortunate themselves rather than relying on government assistance.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Marion Jones says he was "utterly shocked" when he learned that Savile had died, just as he was making headway into his investigation.

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