'Hiding in Plain Sight': All About Jimmy Savile, Disgraced Royal Confidante Featured in Netflix Doc

Prince Charles was close to him and sought his public relations advice. Princess Diana was just a phone call away. And former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher entertained him at her country home and pushed for him to be knighted.

Jimmy Savile was a staple as a presenter for the BBC, on radio and TV for decades, from the 1970s to the turn of the millennium. But all along, he had been a serial sex abuser and pedophile — which came to light publicly after his 2011 death.

Saville was a light entertainment staple in the UK for decades, helming the long-running BBC show Jim'll Fix It (in which children would write in and have their wishes granted), and helping to front the Top of the Pops show.

Always eccentric — with a shock of platinum hair and oversized rings and bangles that jangled as he puffed on huge cigars — Savile cultivated a comic and family-friendly image. But his public persona hid the threat he posed to the many young girls who came under his gaze. He met some of his victims — who were mostly young girls — during charitable endeavors, including on hospital visits. Some, he met on the set of his TV show, encouraging them to come to his dressing room.

Savile was a serial predator: In the immediate aftermath of his death at age 84, police investigated nearly 500 allegations of abuse. Two years later, an official report produced by authorities, titled Giving Victims a Voice, concluded: "It is now clear that Savile was hiding in plain sight and using his celebrity status and fund-raising activity to gain uncontrolled access to vulnerable people across six decades."

He was, the report said, "a mainly opportunistic individual who used his celebrity status as a powerful tool to coerce or control them, preying on the vulnerable or star-struck for his sexual gratification," the BBC reports. Savile's sex abuse lasted until two years before his death.

There is no indication that Charles, or any other royals and politicians at the time, knew anything about Savile's crimes, which didn't become public knowledge until decades later. Clarence House, which represents Prince Charles, declined to comment when reached by PEOPLE.

Away from the world of entertainment, much of Savile's wider reputation as a good-natured do-gooder came from his charity work, which saw him run marathons and host mammoth fundraisers. He brought in an estimated $60 million for various causes, most notably for Stoke Mandeville Hospital, a facility specializing in spinal injuries. (It later emerged that he had abused a young girl at Stoke Mandeville multiple times while he volunteered as a porter.) He was knighted after being nominated by Thatcher, who once invited him for Christmas at her official country home, Chequers.

Prince Charles was reportedly so enamored with Savile and the impact he was having on healthcare that he asked for him to attend meetings with some hospital executives, the Daily Mail reported.

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Savile's story has come to prominence again due to the new Netflix documentary Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story, which analyzes in part how "people are deceived and how people beyond the victims are groomed," producer Rowan Deacon told The Times.

The documentary shows how Charles, seeking to enhance his own popularity, sought out Savile's public relations advice, and even urged him to meet with his sister-in-law, Sarah Ferguson: "I feel she could do with some of your straightforward common sense!" Charles wrote in a letter to Savile.

The Dec. 22, 1989, letter was referenced in Princess Diana's infamous taped phone call on New Year's Eve, 1989. In the so-called Squidgygate Tape, Diana tells her friend James Gilbey (who nicknamed her Squidgy), "Jimmy Savile rang me up yesterday, and he said, 'I'm just ringing up, my girl, to tell you that His Nibs has asked me to come and help out the redhead, and I'm just letting you know, so that you don't find out through her or him. I hope that's alright by you.' And I said 'Jimmy, you do what you like.'"

Savile's popularity among the royals and other prominent figures help mask his true nature. Charles "was duped, like we all were," Deacon told The Times. Charles's letters shown in the documentary "show the trust Prince Charles put into Jimmy Savile. He was trying to appeal to the British people, trying to modernize and he saw Jimmy Savile as his conduit to that," Deacon says.

He adds, "We're not suggesting for one moment that Thatcher or Prince Charles knew what he was really up to. Nonetheless, that seal of approval meant that the weight of his respect and trust was a planet compared to the tiny voices of these women."