WEBVTT - Part Two: Jimmy Saville: Britain's Unending Nightmare 0:00:01.680 --> 0:00:07.520 All Media, Hey everybody, Robert Here and the International Academy 0:00:07.520 --> 0:00:10.960 of Digital Arts and Sciences have announced that three different 0:00:10.960 --> 0:00:14.440 Cool Zone media shows have been nominated for awards at 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:17.520 the thirtieth annual Webby Awards. You can vote on these 0:00:17.560 --> 0:00:20.440 now if you just google the name of the podcast 0:00:20.640 --> 0:00:23.919 and the category. Behind the Bastards has been nominated in 0:00:23.960 --> 0:00:28.080 the Experimental and Innovation Podcasts category. It Could Happen Here 0:00:28.280 --> 0:00:32.440 is in the News and Politics Podcasts category, and James 0:00:32.440 --> 0:00:36.160 Stout's mini series Migrating to America A Dream Worth Dying 0:00:36.200 --> 0:00:40.680 For has been nominated in the Podcasts Documentary category. And 0:00:40.760 --> 0:00:42.960 you can find links to vote for each of these 0:00:42.960 --> 0:00:46.760 podcasts in the episode description and in the posts on 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:48.920 social media for episodes that It Could Happen Here and 0:00:48.960 --> 0:00:58.840 Behind the Bastards, Thank You, Welcome pod. Behind the Bastard's 0:00:58.960 --> 0:01:03.800 cast Robert Evans with Courtney Kosak and Sophie Lichterman. How 0:01:04.000 --> 0:01:04.920 Everyone be? 0:01:05.319 --> 0:01:05.880 We are good? 0:01:06.000 --> 0:01:06.360 Is that good? 0:01:06.400 --> 0:01:06.720 Sophie? 0:01:06.760 --> 0:01:07.479 Is that to get intrail? 0:01:09.200 --> 0:01:11.560 I liked it. I just gave Anderson my dog, like 0:01:11.600 --> 0:01:14.280 a really big treat and she's enjoying it, which makes 0:01:14.280 --> 0:01:14.760 me happy. 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:19.360 Good good. I just scarfed a bunch of trail mix. Uh, 0:01:19.520 --> 0:01:23.000 I thought for you tidied up slightly upstairs? Hey, Courney, 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:24.440 what's we're now recording part two? 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:27.920 What's that cute thing behind you? 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:28.440 This? 0:01:28.440 --> 0:01:31.560 This is my book cover our Girl Gone Wild? 0:01:32.840 --> 0:01:35.120 Yeah? Do you want to tell the audience about it 0:01:35.160 --> 0:01:36.960 a little before? We talked about a pedophile more? 0:01:37.959 --> 0:01:40.520 Well, hopefully you listen to the first episode, but it 0:01:41.080 --> 0:01:43.800 if that would be weird. 0:01:44.520 --> 0:01:47.319 Yeah, it's called Girl Gone Wild. It's about when I 0:01:47.319 --> 0:01:49.680 sold t shirts on the Girls Gone Wild tour. It's 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:54.560 about acting in independent films. It's basically about learning about 0:01:54.640 --> 0:01:57.000 what society thinks of women, which is a lot like 0:01:57.080 --> 0:01:57.760 this episode. 0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:10.760 Yeah. Yeah, unfortunately, So well, I guess let's get back 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:11.560 into it, shall we. 0:02:12.120 --> 0:02:13.080 Yeah. 0:02:13.120 --> 0:02:16.840 So when we left off, Jimmy had just mate tried 0:02:16.880 --> 0:02:19.160 his hand, or at least his legs, at becoming a 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:22.959 professional cyclist and found out that he wasn't quite good 0:02:23.040 --> 0:02:25.400 enough for that, but he was really good at being 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:28.760 a weirdo, and that got him a gig commentating for 0:02:28.880 --> 0:02:33.520 bicycle races. Right, So his first proper media job was 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:36.400 calling races for the Daily Express, because that was the 0:02:36.440 --> 0:02:39.520 newspaper that was funding the first tour of Britain race 0:02:39.919 --> 0:02:42.560 Back in the day, newspapers used to have money and 0:02:42.600 --> 0:02:46.400 they would like fund or support stuff like big races 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:50.239 in the like for a while. Since newspapers worked that way, 0:02:50.520 --> 0:02:50.919 that was. 0:02:50.880 --> 0:02:53.400 Like a pain laugh. That was like a was like 0:02:53.440 --> 0:02:54.680 a triggered cackle. 0:02:54.840 --> 0:02:58.000 It was like yeah, but it wasn't all good because 0:02:58.040 --> 0:03:00.639 clearly that's how Jimmy Savile gets his fucking break, right. 0:03:01.040 --> 0:03:04.840 So this newspaper that's funding the races he's doing like sees, oh, 0:03:04.840 --> 0:03:07.720 this guy might have this guy might have like it. 0:03:08.120 --> 0:03:10.320 You know what it takes to be a sta. So 0:03:10.360 --> 0:03:12.880 they make him a race commentator and he is very 0:03:13.000 --> 0:03:16.040 good at that job. They pay him a sizable fee. 0:03:16.040 --> 0:03:18.480 In nineteen fifty four and this jump starts his career 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:21.200 as a bona fide celebrity. He becomes the face and 0:03:21.320 --> 0:03:24.239 voice of the Daily Express and that starts to earn 0:03:24.320 --> 0:03:27.320 him attention from the BBC and from Radio One, which 0:03:27.360 --> 0:03:31.160 is the BBC's radio thing of a jigger right now. 0:03:31.160 --> 0:03:35.240 Back then, the British media environment was much more restrictive 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:37.640 than it is today, and the BBC has essentially a 0:03:37.680 --> 0:03:42.040 monopoly on legal radio play. Right You're not allowed to 0:03:42.240 --> 0:03:45.160 just have another radio station, right, you can get in 0:03:45.240 --> 0:03:50.240 trouble for that. Now. As a result, the BBC is 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:54.120 like they're very much see themselves as cultural gatekeepers of 0:03:54.160 --> 0:03:58.200 like what should be acceptable and popular in Britain. And 0:03:58.440 --> 0:04:03.120 this pisses off every because people who run the BBC 0:04:03.280 --> 0:04:06.240 are old, stuffy, rich assholes and they have terrible taste 0:04:06.280 --> 0:04:08.520 in music. And this is the moment in which pop 0:04:08.600 --> 0:04:11.880 music is starting to explode. You know, you have this 0:04:11.920 --> 0:04:14.240 period of time like the mid to late fifties, early 0:04:14.360 --> 0:04:17.880 sixties where we've talked We talked about this on our 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:21.480 episodes about Phil Spector with my buddy Will Greasy Will. 0:04:22.160 --> 0:04:24.800 This is the first time in which teenagers are like 0:04:24.839 --> 0:04:29.640 a demographic that you're marketing towards and selling towards, and 0:04:29.680 --> 0:04:34.719 that music is angled heavily towards the teen set because previously, 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:38.120 you go back fifty years, teenagers are all working in 0:04:38.160 --> 0:04:41.440 the minds or something. They're not dancing at party clubs 0:04:41.520 --> 0:04:44.960 or whatever. They're not they're certainly not like a chunk 0:04:45.000 --> 0:04:47.880 of the of the populace that you are like trying 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:49.039 to sell stuff to. 0:04:49.440 --> 0:04:49.600 Right. 0:04:50.080 --> 0:04:53.040 That is also started to change right now now because 0:04:53.080 --> 0:04:55.599 the BBC has essentially this monopoly on what can be 0:04:55.640 --> 0:04:59.600 on the radio. There's this vibrant community that pops up 0:04:59.800 --> 0:05:04.000 of pirate DJs who are like very literally pirate DJs. 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:06.320 This is some very cool stories that come out of 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:08.719 this because these guys are like living on boats and 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:13.800 old defense platforms in this scene broadcasting youth music illegally 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:15.920 to the island. It's fucking awesome. 0:05:16.760 --> 0:05:19.800 They're legit pirate DJs. 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:23.560 Like literal pirates. Yes, there is a movie called Pirate 0:05:23.640 --> 0:05:26.279 Radio that's at least ostensibly about this. I don't remember 0:05:26.360 --> 0:05:28.400 how good a job it did, honestly, I just remember 0:05:28.440 --> 0:05:32.520 it exists. So the very idea again of youth culture 0:05:32.600 --> 0:05:35.080 is new and scary to a lot of influential people 0:05:35.120 --> 0:05:38.279 in British media because these are members of the upper 0:05:38.320 --> 0:05:41.599 class and they're kind of worried in part because they're 0:05:41.600 --> 0:05:45.719 all everyone who's got money in the Western world is 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:49.520 terrified of the communists, right, and so there's this fearful 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:53.640 understanding that these young people have different values, maybe it'll 0:05:53.760 --> 0:05:56.880 lead them towards like socialism and all these other scary things. 0:05:56.880 --> 0:05:59.400 And there's also just this aspect of this has never 0:05:59.440 --> 0:06:02.680 been a thing that existed before teenagers and they're being 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:07.080 a whole media industry geared towards teenagers. Is it good for? 0:06:07.160 --> 0:06:09.120 Is it making them bad? Is it going to damage them? 0:06:09.200 --> 0:06:11.360 You know, there's a lot of concern about that sort 0:06:11.400 --> 0:06:14.839 of thing, and unfortunately the concern is focused on like 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:17.080 the kind of music as opposed to maybe the people 0:06:17.120 --> 0:06:19.200 making the music and playing on the radio, which is 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:21.440 who they should have been scared of harming the youth 0:06:21.480 --> 0:06:26.280 of Britain. The music itself isn't really doing any damage. 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:30.000 But I bring all this up to point out that 0:06:30.440 --> 0:06:33.240 it is very difficult and is a very strange and 0:06:33.320 --> 0:06:37.520 noteworthy historical fact that within this kind of sclerotic and 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:42.760 very much like not welcome, not open to newcomers, not 0:06:42.920 --> 0:06:46.440 open to like different ideas, this list like media culture, 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:52.359 that a guy like Jimmy Savile becomes prominent because Jimmy 0:06:52.839 --> 0:06:55.960 talks like a working class man from Leeds and he 0:06:56.080 --> 0:06:59.320 dresses well like this. Sophie'll show you one photo of 0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:01.719 the guy where he he's got like he's wearing like 0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:04.919 a black velvet mask around his face, he's got his 0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:08.400 hair slightly curled, his long white hair, and he's got 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:12.400 like a lace fucking gauntlet around his hand. It looks 0:07:12.480 --> 0:07:14.520 like it's hard to tell what is going on with 0:07:14.560 --> 0:07:16.840 his sleeve there. Yeah, he looks like. 0:07:16.720 --> 0:07:19.360 Hey, Loki loved the sleeve. 0:07:20.240 --> 0:07:23.560 And he's always every time he goes out in public, 0:07:23.640 --> 0:07:26.680 every time he's DJing at an event, every time he's 0:07:26.720 --> 0:07:28.800 like broadcast he's doing because he's going out to these 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:33.040 like races. He's always dressed weird in some way. He's 0:07:33.080 --> 0:07:35.840 always wearing costumes, and he never talks about it. 0:07:36.040 --> 0:07:39.440 I hate to be the person I would wear the 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:41.559 shit that blazer with the lace cup. 0:07:42.360 --> 0:07:47.440 Yes, the mask is an improvement over the just the maskolse. 0:07:47.840 --> 0:07:49.360 The mask helves. 0:07:48.840 --> 0:07:51.520 Weirdly enough, hides his But you know. 0:07:54.120 --> 0:07:57.040 Is he never talks about the way he's dressed, and 0:07:57.440 --> 0:08:00.640 when people ask him, he'll try to deliberately avoid the question. 0:08:01.200 --> 0:08:03.000 And he taught he writes about this. I think it's 0:08:03.000 --> 0:08:05.800 because he knows. Basically, if you talk about it or 0:08:05.800 --> 0:08:08.640 explain it, it's not nearly as it doesn't it's not 0:08:08.720 --> 0:08:11.040 nearly as interesting. If you just show up dressed like 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:14.120 a maniac and pretend like you're a normal person like 0:08:14.160 --> 0:08:18.680 everyone else, that gets you more retention. And yeah, that's 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:21.160 that's what he's doing at this point in time, he. 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:25.120 Learned his lesson from the coal mine situation. 0:08:25.680 --> 0:08:27.560 He really did. And part of what he's learned is 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:31.920 that if you're dressed like a weirdo, not only does 0:08:31.920 --> 0:08:34.240 it get you attention and can't quote unquote pay off, 0:08:34.880 --> 0:08:39.120 but people don't poke too much around you. They're not 0:08:39.160 --> 0:08:40.680 gonna look to see they're not. No one's going to 0:08:40.720 --> 0:08:43.600 investigate to see if you're like a dangerous weirdo, because 0:08:43.640 --> 0:08:46.319 they already know you're some kind of weirdo. Right, That's 0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:49.800 something he starts to realize about about this, about like 0:08:49.960 --> 0:08:53.839 dressing this way, is it weirdly enough? Standing out and 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:57.960 looking like a maniac divert suspicion and interest away from 0:08:58.000 --> 0:08:59.120 his actual behavior. 0:08:59.600 --> 0:08:59.880 That's it. 0:09:01.000 --> 0:09:05.160 Jimmy is immediately successful as a broadcaster. People love him, 0:09:05.200 --> 0:09:08.800 particularly teenagers, even though by this point he's well into 0:09:08.800 --> 0:09:12.920 his twenties. He talk, he understands their slang, He talks 0:09:13.040 --> 0:09:15.880 like a teenager. He understands the music they like, He 0:09:15.960 --> 0:09:19.400 understands how they're spending their time because he socializes almost 0:09:19.480 --> 0:09:23.760 exclusively with teenaged girls. Right, and he's doing this because 0:09:23.760 --> 0:09:27.400 he is having sex with slash molesting them. The legal 0:09:27.440 --> 0:09:30.720 definition is dependent upon the age that they are. Again, 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:36.040 as I've noted, but that's exclusively who he hangs out with. 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:40.199 So he does understand them, right, And at the time, 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:42.320 other people in the media are just like, well, he's 0:09:42.320 --> 0:09:44.880 the only one these kids seem to really like get 0:09:45.240 --> 0:09:48.120 you know, he understands the kids, and we know there's 0:09:48.160 --> 0:09:51.240 a lot of money there, so we better keep paying 0:09:51.320 --> 0:09:54.920 Jimmy Savile because he's the only adult we know who 0:09:54.920 --> 0:09:56.839 can communicate with the teenagers. 0:09:57.040 --> 0:10:00.560 Right now, nobody thinks to go and I wonder that is. 0:10:01.559 --> 0:10:03.880 And I will no doubt not at this point in time, 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:06.480 nobody's concerned about that they. 0:10:06.480 --> 0:10:07.800 See in the twenties. 0:10:08.040 --> 0:10:09.880 Sorry, yeah, he's in his twenties. He's in like his 0:10:09.880 --> 0:10:12.280 mid twenties by this point, Okay, mid to late twenties 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:15.600 during this period, and part of what's happening is they're 0:10:15.640 --> 0:10:19.120 scared of the teenagers, right This is a frightening and anarchic, 0:10:19.160 --> 0:10:22.200 seeming new segment of the culture, and Jimmy can control them. 0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:25.200 So a big part of his early success and famous 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:28.600 his ability to convince people in the media who come 0:10:28.640 --> 0:10:32.160 from money and who are part of this like, you know, 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:35.800 this rarefied air of people who got to do that 0:10:35.920 --> 0:10:39.600 job back then, that I can make these kids less 0:10:39.600 --> 0:10:42.640 scary and uncontrollable to you. I know how they tick 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:48.000 and I can control them. Right, that's why they're hiring him, right, 0:10:49.360 --> 0:10:54.040 So that's great. Basically, he he provides these media elites 0:10:54.040 --> 0:10:56.000 in Britain at the time with a degree of control 0:10:56.080 --> 0:10:58.800 and predictability over a bunch of teenagers who scared the 0:10:58.840 --> 0:11:04.000 living shit out of them. Now, good stuff. Nothing like 0:11:04.040 --> 0:11:07.880 this has ever happened since his main job was still djaying, 0:11:07.960 --> 0:11:10.240 and by this point he's helping to manage the Mecca 0:11:10.320 --> 0:11:12.440 dance hall. He is like the manager of the whole 0:11:12.520 --> 0:11:15.400 dance hall, and he's often doing shows and he hits 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:18.600 upon the brilliant idea in nineteen fifty five of playing 0:11:18.679 --> 0:11:21.240 top pop hits for his audience while they waited for 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:25.200 the house band to rest between sets. So normally you 0:11:25.320 --> 0:11:27.440 just have the band stop and I either maybe you 0:11:27.480 --> 0:11:30.120 have a secondary band do something or whatever. But Jimmy 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:32.520 comes in and he starts DJing and just putting on 0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:34.880 playing the hits for these kids. And he's really good 0:11:34.920 --> 0:11:36.480 at knowing what they want to hear, and he's good 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:39.160 at you know, he's talking in between putting on these songs, 0:11:39.160 --> 0:11:40.960 he's getting the crowd amped up. You guys know what 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:44.240 a DJ does, right, but very few people are doing 0:11:44.280 --> 0:11:46.920 that at this point. He's one of the first generation. 0:11:47.440 --> 0:11:50.160 He's not. He'll often claim to have been the first DJ. 0:11:50.720 --> 0:11:53.160 I don't think that's really true. But he's part of 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:56.200 the first generation of guys doing this right. And this 0:11:56.240 --> 0:11:59.240 proves to be extremely popular and it earns him a promotion. 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:02.600 So he's a job managing a different, much larger dance 0:12:02.600 --> 0:12:05.480 hall in London. So he's now moved from Leeds to 0:12:05.520 --> 0:12:08.520 London and he's running this big dance hall and he's 0:12:08.520 --> 0:12:11.320 got access to this full size ballroom and the power 0:12:11.320 --> 0:12:14.640 and funding to try something more ambitious than that crude 0:12:14.679 --> 0:12:19.200 gramophone wired to a speaker that he'd used previously. According 0:12:19.200 --> 0:12:21.680 to the book in Plane Sight, he was connected to 0:12:21.720 --> 0:12:25.760 the company Westrex, who made turntables, and quote he said, 0:12:25.800 --> 0:12:28.240 he walked into the pala which is the dance hall 0:12:28.280 --> 0:12:30.960 he's running to find an electrician fitting a record deck 0:12:31.000 --> 0:12:33.280 in the box from which the lighting was operated. He 0:12:33.360 --> 0:12:35.679 told the man he wanted two turntables and for them 0:12:35.720 --> 0:12:38.040 to be installed on the stage, one next to the other. 0:12:38.360 --> 0:12:41.840 It was. He claimed the first twin turntable system in history. 0:12:42.720 --> 0:12:46.000 Now it wasn't an article I found on CNN notes 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:49.600 commentators have pointed out they were available decades earlier, But 0:12:49.760 --> 0:12:52.600 he was one of the very first guys to do this. 0:12:53.040 --> 0:12:56.360 Jimmy is legitimately quite novel. I'm sure he saw someone 0:12:56.360 --> 0:12:58.560 else do it, maybe, but there aren't a lot of 0:12:58.600 --> 0:13:01.920 people who did that before. Or Jimmy Savill who had 0:13:01.920 --> 0:13:05.680 a twin turnsable system running right, probably a black guy. 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:08.760 Everybody in music's ripping off right, right black people at 0:13:08.800 --> 0:13:09.319 this point. 0:13:10.080 --> 0:13:13.520 Yeah, yeah, But Jimmy does get that reputation as being 0:13:13.559 --> 0:13:15.520 like the first DJ to do this, like, and he's 0:13:15.559 --> 0:13:19.440 got that reputation for quite some time. He also develops 0:13:19.440 --> 0:13:22.720 a reputation for always traveling with a security team of 0:13:22.880 --> 0:13:26.160 large and angry bouncers, which he bragged about for years, 0:13:26.280 --> 0:13:28.760 using to brutalize people who stepped out of line during 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:31.360 his shows. He had a zero tolerance policy, and he 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:34.280 talks about this a lot in interviews and stuff because 0:13:34.280 --> 0:13:37.640 he was he really liked telling stories about having these big, 0:13:37.720 --> 0:13:42.360 dangerous men beat the shit out of people at his command. Now, 0:13:42.480 --> 0:13:46.160 the fact that Jimmy was always surrounded by dangerous men, was, 0:13:46.360 --> 0:13:49.520 Davies suggests, probably due in part to the fact that 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:51.920 at night he would pick out one or more of 0:13:51.960 --> 0:13:54.760 the girls at his shows to invite backstage, and he 0:13:54.800 --> 0:13:58.400 was scared of their parents. Right, So Davy suggests he's 0:13:58.480 --> 0:14:00.679 kind of lying about the fact that he needed these 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:03.720 guys to keep ordering his shows. He wanted a bunch 0:14:03.760 --> 0:14:06.400 of scary, big guys around him because he's fucking a 0:14:06.440 --> 0:14:10.480 bunch of teenagers and their parents get angry. Right, And 0:14:10.559 --> 0:14:13.200 at this point this is when this stopped by the 0:14:13.320 --> 0:14:15.200 I mean it had happened at some point previously, but 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:18.000 by this point he's like twenty eight years old. It 0:14:18.080 --> 0:14:20.920 is no longer. Even within the standards of the time, 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:23.840 people think it's a bit weird that he's pretty much 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:27.800 exclusively going after like sixteen year old girls, sometimes young. 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:33.040 So he's molesting a bunch of teenagers. He's sexually abusing 0:14:33.120 --> 0:14:35.080 a bunch of teenagers. 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:37.400 Some of them for in legal I would say, in 0:14:37.440 --> 0:14:40.280 moral terms, yes, in legal terms, a lot of these 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:43.680 are still sixteen year year old girls, and that is legal. Right. 0:14:43.840 --> 0:14:46.040 This is important in terms of like why nothing is 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:50.160 done right. So one of his first victims was Kathy Kirby, 0:14:50.240 --> 0:14:53.720 who became a prominent singer later herself, but at age sixteen, 0:14:53.800 --> 0:14:56.200 went to see twenty eight year old Jimmy Savile at 0:14:56.240 --> 0:14:59.680 the Palais. She claims he pursued her and her even 0:14:59.760 --> 0:15:02.960 young her sister, which is not legal now. She turned 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:05.640 him down, but the next year, in nineteen fifty six, 0:15:05.960 --> 0:15:08.320 Kathy got to perform on stage at the Palais and 0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:11.400 was invited to tour with the band leader Bert Ambrose, 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:14.520 and she says that she hit on Bert, but he 0:15:14.560 --> 0:15:17.000 turned her down because he was forty years older than her. 0:15:17.400 --> 0:15:20.160 And I don't know if this is Burt actually trying 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:21.760 to be a good guy or just being creepy, but 0:15:21.760 --> 0:15:24.440 the way he frames the way he explains turning her 0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:26.240 down is that like, you need to get some experience. 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:26.920 Now. 0:15:27.720 --> 0:15:29.880 He may have just meant I don't I'm not gonna 0:15:30.640 --> 0:15:33.920 get with a teenage girl. That's fucked up, but she 0:15:34.040 --> 0:15:36.040 interprets this as, oh, I need to go have sex 0:15:36.040 --> 0:15:38.120 with somebody else first, that that's what he wants. And 0:15:38.160 --> 0:15:40.440 maybe that's what Burt did want. I don't know the guy, right, 0:15:41.680 --> 0:15:44.480 but Kathy, because again she's a teenager and she's using 0:15:44.480 --> 0:15:47.520 the logic of a teenager, decides not to say no 0:15:47.600 --> 0:15:49.960 the next time that Jimmy propositions her so that she 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:53.000 can get experience. And again, she's seventeen at this point. 0:15:53.240 --> 0:15:57.520 This is legal, right, But that's one of the first 0:15:57.520 --> 0:16:01.440 stories we have of she's very uncomfortable. She's particularly uncomfortable 0:16:01.440 --> 0:16:03.560 that he's hitting on her fifteen year old sister. But 0:16:03.640 --> 0:16:07.440 she does eventually sleep with him because basically she thinks 0:16:07.480 --> 0:16:09.600 it'll get her in with someone in the industry she 0:16:09.680 --> 0:16:12.760 really like wants to have a relationship with and work with. 0:16:12.880 --> 0:16:15.400 And this should get to kind of how murky a 0:16:15.400 --> 0:16:17.520 lot of it is at this period of time, right, 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:19.720 this is this is not at all something we can 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:22.400 talk about directly using all of our modern terms. 0:16:22.760 --> 0:16:27.320 Right. Well, actually, people today love to cite that this 0:16:27.520 --> 0:16:29.240 was quote unquote normal. 0:16:29.880 --> 0:16:34.400 Back it's not normal, we can say, because again she 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:37.200 thinks it's weird that he's hitting on her sister, right, 0:16:37.480 --> 0:16:39.480 But she also doesn't think it's weird when she's seventeen 0:16:39.560 --> 0:16:41.320 to hit on like a forty year old guy. Right, 0:16:41.440 --> 0:16:45.200 So there is this is a different time with different values. 0:16:45.600 --> 0:16:47.960 But what you should note is that by this point 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:51.280 in time. This early in the story, people know it's weird, 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:54.120 and that Jimmy likes some young and that that is weird, 0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:57.840 even within a time period in which it's not at 0:16:57.920 --> 0:17:01.440 nearly as abnormal for older men to have sex with 0:17:01.840 --> 0:17:05.040 much younger women. Right, even in that period of time, 0:17:05.280 --> 0:17:07.800 Jimmy is weird and gets a reputation for liking them 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:12.800 young women and girls, right because he's doing both, you know, professionally. 0:17:12.880 --> 0:17:15.479 During this period, Savill seems to go from strength to strength. 0:17:15.640 --> 0:17:19.119 He starts mixing popular songs together when he's on stage, 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:22.440 in a manner much more familiar to modern day listening 0:17:22.480 --> 0:17:25.919 as DJing. But again, he's not interested in making music 0:17:26.080 --> 0:17:29.080 or the artistry of any of this. The appeal to 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:32.840 him here is always control. Hence, once he turned his 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:35.919 second dance hall into a hit, he started stopping shows 0:17:35.960 --> 0:17:39.119 regularly to announce Smooch Time, in which he gave the 0:17:39.119 --> 0:17:42.520 teenage participants permission to grind and make out with each other. 0:17:43.359 --> 0:17:46.920 This was totally novel, As one regular this is someone 0:17:46.920 --> 0:17:49.240 who was attending these shows as a teenager at the time, 0:17:49.359 --> 0:17:53.119 later told biographer Dan Davies he was giving teenagers the 0:17:53.240 --> 0:17:55.960 chance to get together. Teenagers had the chance to hug 0:17:56.040 --> 0:17:58.520 each other and fall in love. It was a romantic, 0:17:58.640 --> 0:18:02.880 fantastic time. And I can see how for the teenagers 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:07.159 at the time this would be really nice. Right, You've 0:18:07.200 --> 0:18:10.280 got a culture that's much more repressed, and there's you're 0:18:10.280 --> 0:18:12.720 suddenly getting this permission in a public space that like 0:18:12.760 --> 0:18:16.680 it's okay to make out with other teens. Right. It's 0:18:16.720 --> 0:18:18.440 like you're with your boyfriend, you're out at the club 0:18:18.440 --> 0:18:20.080 and he's like, okay, it's not you can all make 0:18:20.119 --> 0:18:24.439 out now, right. It's very popular, I guess, is what 0:18:24.480 --> 0:18:27.200 i'd say, like a lot of people. And again he's 0:18:27.240 --> 0:18:29.399 not this is he's the one on stage. He's not 0:18:29.440 --> 0:18:32.040 making out with anyone at this point in time. He 0:18:32.080 --> 0:18:35.600 will after the shows. But what he's doing here, as 0:18:35.680 --> 0:18:38.119 much as a lot of these kids like it, is 0:18:38.160 --> 0:18:42.760 he's normalizing the fact that it's like it's not weird 0:18:42.960 --> 0:18:47.560 to have sexual and like romantic physical contact at what 0:18:47.720 --> 0:18:51.000 is his place of work. Right, And even though he's 0:18:51.000 --> 0:18:54.040 on stage when he's announcing smooch time, this is going 0:18:54.080 --> 0:18:57.160 to help to normalize what is going to become predation 0:18:57.280 --> 0:18:59.040 from a nearly thirty year old man to a bunch 0:18:59.080 --> 0:19:01.560 of largely fifty to seventeen year old girls. That is 0:19:01.680 --> 0:19:05.200 part of what's happening here, but nobody it's not noticed 0:19:05.320 --> 0:19:07.679 as that because all the teens are just happy that 0:19:07.800 --> 0:19:09.880 someone's saying it's not bad for you to make out 0:19:09.880 --> 0:19:12.760 with your boyfriend a girlfriend, right, Yeah, like you could 0:19:12.800 --> 0:19:14.960 get how that camouflage is it? Right? 0:19:15.440 --> 0:19:19.159 It's excellent camo. I mean it's really good. Kind of 0:19:19.200 --> 0:19:22.520 a genius, yeah, evil genius. 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:26.240 Unfortunately, he is very good at this. In nineteen fifty eight, 0:19:26.280 --> 0:19:29.159 he's hired by Radio Luxembourg, an independent station on the 0:19:29.160 --> 0:19:32.280 continent that was popular with the youths. This gives him 0:19:32.280 --> 0:19:36.200 access to pop musicians, to the biggest stars of the days. 0:19:36.320 --> 0:19:40.000 He's talking with the Beatles, he's talking with the Rolling Stones, 0:19:40.320 --> 0:19:44.040 He's talking with fucking Elvis, right, I mean at varying 0:19:44.080 --> 0:19:46.120 points in time, that's not all starting in nineteen fifty eight. 0:19:46.160 --> 0:19:49.200 But if someone is a pop musician who is famous 0:19:49.240 --> 0:19:53.200 and beloved, he knows them, and you've heard him talk 0:19:53.280 --> 0:19:56.000 to them on air, so you know he knows them, 0:19:56.440 --> 0:19:59.040 and this gives him a huge amount of power over 0:19:59.080 --> 0:20:03.680 the teenage girls his audience. Now to the adults who 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:06.280 are running the business, and who own these venues. This 0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:10.120 helps to reinforce Jimmy's status as a teen whisperer, right, 0:20:10.440 --> 0:20:12.679 although this is largely based on a misconception they have 0:20:12.760 --> 0:20:14.960 about his fame because they see like, oh wow, the 0:20:14.960 --> 0:20:18.199 teenagers love Jimmy. What's really happening is the teenagers know 0:20:18.359 --> 0:20:22.960 Jimmy has access to the musicians they love, and so 0:20:23.200 --> 0:20:28.480 they follow him because he provides access to these pop stars. Right, 0:20:29.080 --> 0:20:31.880 and he increasingly grows skilled when he's talking with these 0:20:31.920 --> 0:20:34.359 teenage girls who are lining up outside of his office 0:20:34.400 --> 0:20:38.560 after the show, at making himself into a gateway between 0:20:38.560 --> 0:20:41.919 these kids who are obsessed with their favorite musicians and 0:20:41.960 --> 0:20:44.920 those musicians. That is what provides him with the bulk 0:20:44.920 --> 0:20:48.120 of his victims. He is the door. If you make 0:20:48.240 --> 0:20:51.280 Jimmy happy, Jimmy can introduce you to the fucking Beatles. 0:20:51.680 --> 0:20:51.880 Right. 0:20:52.280 --> 0:20:54.639 What won't you do for that guy? If you're a 0:20:54.680 --> 0:20:57.720 sixteen year old girl in this period of time, Right. 0:20:57.720 --> 0:20:59.879 It's like Weinstein can get you a part of it. 0:21:00.200 --> 0:21:05.320 Maybe, yep, yep, it's how it works pretty much always right, yep. 0:21:05.440 --> 0:21:06.080 Disgusting. 0:21:07.400 --> 0:21:10.080 One former employee at the Plaza, which is one of 0:21:10.119 --> 0:21:12.639