Icon no 6: Jimmy Savile (Part B)
(DJ, TV presenter, campaigner, wrestler: 31/10/1926 –29/10/2011)
Warning: this post contains references to trauma and abuse.
Savile presenting Top of the Pops
In part A of this post, I looked at the contradictory stories about Savile’s childhood and the development of a complex, charismatic persona. This blog is about narcissism and so I will not be going into detail here about the sexual abuses that have now been uncovered. Dan Davies’s remarkable biography gives a profound overview of this. In the Charles Chaplin post I described how sexual exploitation, whilst not a defining feature of narcissism, can be a symptom of it. Like Chaplin, Savile grew up knowing poverty layered with emotional neglect. Like Chaplin there are accounts of Savile being treated as the special child. But Savile’s criminality was extreme – and there may have been traumatic experiences beyond the narratives that have been so carefully controlled. Here, I will take a look at how Savile’s grooming of individuals at the top of the British establishment related to a phobia in himself of vulnerability. I will also look at how institutional narcissism might have helped him escape justice.
Children, charity and empathy
If we had been at the charity auction of the belongings, after his death, of ‘Sir James Savile’, we would have seen a grossly oversized burgundy velvet armchair. It was fitted with an ashtray and two button-operated concealed trays that would have contained medals to be awarded – or a cup of tea. This was a feature of the prime-time TV show Jim’ll Fix It, which, over 20 years on screen, turned Savile “from a star to a national institution”1 The medals were given to children for whom Jimmy had made a dream come true. Now that we know that Savile was a sex-offender who compulsively avoided adult intimacy, this over-sized armchair looks different.
The map of narcissism2*
The map of narcissism describes how, having experienced emotional vulnerability as unsafe, a strategy of emotional distance combined with the finding of vulnerability only in others, can develop (see theory post). This emotional distance usually shows up as a lack of empathy. Jimmy Savile confessed that during the war, he “wondered why people wept…when their relatives had been killed…I was much more inquiring than affected”. But most psychologists believe that in narcissism, the lack of empathy for others stems from a disconnection with the person’s own emotions3. This comes up in Savile’s interview with the TV psychiatrist Dr Clare for BBC radio:
Dr Clare: “Now what about your feelings?”
Savile: “I haven’t found them yet.”
Dr Clare: “Seriously.”
Savile: “No. I haven’t found them yet.”4
After the interview, Dr Clare listened back to the tapes and was struck by two things that stood out: “an emphasis on money and a denial of feelings”4. Clare observed that “there just does not seem to be anybody…who knows this man intimately4. To have his own vulnerability – his own emotions – seen and understood, was not an option. Speaking to a psychiatrist then, could not have been very comfortable. Savile once boasted,
“if a psychiatrist would think that I was strange, it would take me absolutely no effort at all to completely unsettle him and maybe show that he himself needed some treatment.”1
Everyone, in Savile’s hands had to become the vulnerable one. But did this mean that he empathised with them?
Just prior to his interview with Dr Clare, Savile had been confronted by journalist Lynn Barber about rumours that he was sexually interested in young girls. When Dr Clare tried to take this up with Savile, the celebrity stated coldly that he “actually doesn’t like children very much at all”4. Aware of the rumours, Clare afterwards treads a fine line about this:
“I was inclined to believe him and to believe too that he doesn’t much care for the patients in Broadmoor [hospital], the sick at St James’s [hospital], the physically disabled at Stoke Mandeville [hospital] or the hundreds of thousands of other people and causes he helps by virtue of his publicity, his marathon running, his Jim’ll Fix It approach. This is no Mother Teresa ministering to people’s emotional and material needs.”4
What Dr Clare noticed, was that whilst Savile was spectacularly involved with the vulnerable, genuine interest or empathy for the people was starkly absent. He was struck by the “degree of disinterest”. The distance between these two things was too great to make any sense and this was, looking back, important. Years before the scandal broke, Clare concluded that “there was something chilling about this twentieth-century ‘saint’ which still intrigues me to this day.”4
Biographer Dan Davies makes the connection between the avoidance of vulnerability in Savile and sexual offending, stating that Savile sought, “quick, emotionally detached liaisons… In pliable teenagers he found partners that he could control and manipulate without the prospect of having to confront the emotional void at his core.”1
Institutional narcissism
In 1963 Savile presented his first music-based TV show for teenagers: Go on ITV. In response to its success, the BBC started work on a pop chart TV show: Top of The Pops. But when they considered Savile as a potential presenter, the idea was shot down because Savile was considered “dodgy, there was a feeling that he was heavy, you didn’t cross him, he was a heavy dude”1. This was a “feeling” that the BBC would have done well to take seriously. It was a valuable feeling. For a moment in time, they did take it seriously. And then something over-rode this feeling. One of those over-riding it was Johnnie Stewart Top of the Pops producer. His argument was, “sorry baby, but that man is box office”1. By the time they shot the pilot, Savile was the presenter. Top of The Pops would run as a prime-time TV show for over four decades. A number of Savile’s victims would be groomed or assaulted on this show1.
Let’s stop for a moment. What happened here might be symptomatic of many of the failings of the UK establishment and entertainment industry to stop Savile’s sexual offending career. Let’s pretend the BBC were not an institution but just a person. There was a feeling that he was “heavy”; bad news, connected with criminality. Taken on its own this would have led them to reject him – to refuse him fame and power – or at least to properly investigate this ‘feeling’. But there was a conflict. There was the idea of “box office”. This could not have been simply about money. No one paid to watch Top of The Pops. The Nation paid their TV license, and they got Top of the Pops if they decided to ‘tune in’. So, what was this “box office” that over-rode the feelings of those making this decision?
Savile, the Radio Luxemburg DJ, promised credibility with the youth and ultimately success for the producer and the BBC. So, whilst there was a feeling that he was ‘heavy’, there was also a (less emotional more intellectual perhaps) calculation that he was ‘box-office’. In narcissism itself, is this same phenomenon – that feelings that tell the person who they are, how they are, and signal danger – are dismissed and neglected. Feelings are distanced in favour of intellectual or rational ways of dealing with things – and the drive for admiration. If the BBC needed to suspect and investigate Savile, they failed to do so because of their own narcissistic strategies.
In the lives of other icons, I have found that things got out of control partly because those making decisions around the person were relying themselves on narcissistic strategies (see Marilyn Monroe post). Narcissism is drawn to and flourishes, unchecked, in narcissistic environments. How likely is it that a TV broadcasting corporation will attract a high proportion of people who have narcissistic traits? It is highly likely. Are those in power in such a corporation going to take concerns, welfare and feelings seriously when they need to in conflict with acclaim or success? It may not be their strong point. When narcissism is viewed as a set of strategies and not as a kind of person, we can identify it in institutions– and prevent its destructive consequences. The BBC’s rival channel, ITV, of course, had done something similar even earlier.
Ultimately, admiration from being a DJ and TV personality was not enough. Savile was obsessed with being judged positively and to this end he had two strategies – to be seen as charitable, and to be endorsed by the powerful. With both strategies his perseverance and success were incredible.
Charity champion
Back at the auction of Savile’s possessions, a number of medals and running vests were sold –reflecting 216 marathons he had run - mainly to raise charity funding. He was a high-profile charity campaigner. At Leeds General Infirmary he could be found helping as a porter and also as a celebrity visitor to the sick. Head porter Charles Hillighan said of Savile, “people are his life. You have to see him handling them to realise how deeply he is involved”1. Davies says that throughout his extensive charity work,
“Jimmy Savile’s conviction that he was a ‘chosen one’ had transmogrified into something altogether more horrifying. A self-appointed messiah figure was now among us”1
The 2015 report into Savile’s criminal activities revealed the number of his victims who were patients or staff at Leeds General Infirmary as 601.
Broadmoor Maximum Security Hospital is the UK’s most secure psychiatric hospital - home to the most dangerous mentally disordered offenders in the country. Savile became a visitor, befriending some of the patients, as part of his charity work. On occasion, he would record Top of The Pops and then drive to the hospital and watch the broadcast with the patients. Having learned at a school for girls with challenging behaviour how to groom staff at such an institution, Savile took these abilities to new heights at Broadmoor that are difficult to comprehend. By 1972, Britain’s premier maximum-security hospital had allowed Savile not only to visit, but to have his own set of keys. And then, his own flat on site.
Savile with prime minister Margaret Thatcher promoting the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.
Counsellor to the royals
Another lot at the auction of Savile’s possessions was a set of gold Asprey cuff links - a gift to Savile from Prince Charles, the future king of England. The card message read,
“No one will ever know what you have done for this country Jimmy. This is to go some way in thanking you for that.”1 (Prince Charles)
Biographer Davies refers to Savile as a psychopath with a “grandiose self-image”1. As I said in the post about it, psychopathy is not necessarily narcissistic. It does not always seek admiration, fame and is not always preoccupied with intellectual or physical performance. But in Savile’s case, psychopathy did appear in type, as a severe extension of narcissism. Savile certainly was more complex and acted in more extreme ways than most of the other celebrities on my list. And his double life was managed with high levels of sophistication and manipulation. Two groups of people with power were important to him: those who could potentially send him to prison and those with power who could endorse him as a trusted object of idealisation.
It is clear that Savile did not stumble into finding acceptance with the British royal family. He told biographer Davies about his role saying,
“I am the man who knows everything and says nothing. I get things done but I work deep cover”1.
The level of Savile’s need for this connection to power is betrayed in the fact that connection itself was not enough. He moved from acceptance to influence. And then, he established in himself power - in relation to their own particular vulnerabilities.
The royal marriage of the future King was in turmoil. Diana celebrated her 30th birthday without Charles. The next day, Savile was seen to be speaking to both of them – a man seen to “carry weight in both camps”. By the late 1980’s both Charles and Diana had sought Savile frequently for help with their royal marriage. A press spokesperson for the Queen later confirmed “Savile was brought in by an aid as a sort of ‘Jim ‘ll fix it’ to fix the state of the marriage”. Diana in public called Savile “Charles’s mentor”. And Diana’s letters to Savile were, according to his PA, along the lines of “it was lovely to talk to you, I feel so much better now…I know where you are when I need you”1.
It is easy to explain Savile’s need for royal endorsement as a smokescreen for covering up his criminality. This is true. But I think this drive for powerful connections and the charitable image had a second purpose. The first clue to this is that association with people of influence was not enough. With his victims he was power in relation to vulnerability. And faced even with the power of the royal family, he could not help but find again vulnerability in the other, in relation to power in himself. And so, whilst many of his victims were patients, the future King Charles also referred to Savile as “my health adviser, Jimmy Savile”1.
Secondly, if we look at the life of another iconic celebrity, Marilyn Monroe (see previous post), we see the same obsessive drive to be associated with powerful public figures including the US president, without the need to cover up crime. I think for Savile the associations served as a smoke screen but also as a source of huge distance from vulnerability and shame. For Marylin, we know the horrors of her childhood that might motivate this. For Savile, a question remains unanswered – what happened that would explain such a complex and prolific career of assaults on the vulnerable?
In 1972, Savile was awarded an OBE. He took the opportunity to be dismissive, saying
“Little did I think in those super starving days [as a child], that I would finish up dropping cigar ash on the Queen Mother’s carpet”1.
But the real prize and sign of approval eluded Savile for some years to come. He wanted a Knighthood. However, stories and rumours were starting to circulate about another side to Savile. He needed more influence. More power. He needed the Prime Minister.
When Savile was the subject of a TV special celebrating his life, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher wrote a personal message; “Jimmy, I and millions more salute you. God bless you, Margaret Thatcher”1. She later dismissed concerns about Savile’s persona, saying “So many great Britons have a touch of eccentricity about them, and Jimmy is truly a great Briton.” Thatcher, it seems, had been seduced just like so many hospital staff. Perhaps she too, a powerful showcase of intellect as she was, had a tendency to put feelings to one side.
For three years from 1983, Thatcher wrote to the Queen’s Birthday Honours Committee, to request a Knighthood for Savile, but without success. In 1985, the committee respond saying that “The lapse of time [since the idea of a knighthood for Savile had first been rejected] has served only to strengthen the doubts…that were strongly felt”1. But Thatcher was determined. In 1986, Thatcher’s private secretary wrote to the committee expressing disappointment:
She [The prime minister] wonders how many more times his name is to be pushed aside, especially in view of all the great work he has done for Stoke Mandeville [Hospital]. She would therefore like you to consider further the inclusion of his name in the list”1
Again, as with the BBC, perhaps here the feelings of suspicion about Savile, which we now know were important, were eventually put to one side. Again, a kind of narcissistic strategy – of giving charisma and performance primacy over ordinary feelings of suspicion can be seen at the top of the British establishment.
Journalist Lynn Barber interviewed Savile for The Independent after he was given a Knighthood by the Queen in 1990. Savile now had the ultimate distance from condemnation he had been looking for. He expressed this with some sarcasm:
“I had a lovely couple of years with the tabloids sniffing about, asking round the corner shops – everything – thinking there must be something the authorities knew that they didn’t. Whereas in fact I’ve got to be the most boring geezer in the world because I ain’t got no past, nothing. And so, if nothing else, it was a ginormous relief when I go the knighthood, because it got me off the hook”.5
Savile with Princess Diana
If narcissism is a kind of phobia of vulnerability, then a person with this phobia must find power. Or otherwise, vulnerability in other people. Or both. Savile did this, and also used powerful, charismatic and glamourous endorsements systematically to avoid another place on the map of narcissism: condemnation. So, he surrounded himself with people who were either very powerful or very vulnerable. In the British royal family, he found people willing, it seems, to be both.
“We don’t have anyone like that in here”
The auction of ‘Sir James’ Savile’s possessions said many things about him, but the most incredible thing about the man was not yet known. Interviewers had tried and failed to get past the sophisticated facade. We now know that the level of difficulty they found in doing this, and the contradictions between Savile’s professed interests and his actual emotional interests, were clues.
The creator of the Psychopath Checklist6 points out that those on the psychopathic end of narcissism flourish in workplaces that are free of beaurocracy, checks and governance. The entertainment world is a haven perhaps of this kind. Suspicion is not guilt, but this post contains a number of warning signs that could have triggered systematic checks and investigations.
Being surrounded by narcissism in particular (in entertainment, in politics) may have served Savile in a second way: alarm bells about him – feelings, concerns – were dismissed in institutions that were orientated towards performance and admiration. Have the institutions of our western societies come to put narcissism and charismatic intellect on a pedestal, systematically neglecting what can be called emotional intelligence and its vital functions? If so, what are the costs of doing this?
With his intellect and charisma, Savile capitalised on the confusing nature of narcissism – something that unlike madness or the impulsive recklessness of antisocial psychopathy, fosters admiration and applause. And so, in his own flat – the one located inside the most secure psychiatric hospital in the UK - he was interviewed about his friends at this hospital who were detained against their will. He wanted to emphasise their madness. In contrast to this, he added “a true psychopath really enjoys what he’s doing…We don’t have anyone like that in here.”1 All thoughts, no feelings, always in control of the narrative.
Savile filming Jim’ll Fix It for the BBC
Disclaimer: All views expressed are my own unless otherwise stated, and do not necessarily reflect the views of any institution I have been employed by. The content here is for information and should not be interpreted as advice.
*Ryle did not apply this approach only to narcissism. If this mapping approach has been used in your own therapy, this does not mean that you have narcissistic difficulties.
References
1. Davies, D. (2014). In Plain Sight: The Life and Lies of Jimmy Savile. Quercus.
2. Ryle, A. & Kerr, I.B. (2002). Introducing Cognitive Analytic Therapy. Wiley.
3. Lowen, A. (1985). Narcissism: The Denial of the True Self. Touchstone
4. Clare, A. (1993). In The Psychiatrist’s Chair. Mandarin
5. Barber, L. (1990). Independent on Sunday, 22 July 1990.
6. Babiak, P. & Hare, R.D. (2006). Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths go to Work. Harper
Just incase we thought the entertainment industry had learned lessons from the Savile disaster, here is a BBC report from two weeks ago:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67483902