I based psycho on Jimmy Savile, says writer Val McDermid
By Dailyrecord.co.uk, 28-10-2012
BEST-SELLING crime writer Val McDermid has told how one of her most sinister characters was based on Savile.
The ex-journalist was deeply uneasy when she met Savile in 1977 and he later inspired her character Jacko Vance.
The TV celebrity with a secret lust for torture, murder and under-age girls first featured in the 1997 bestseller The Wire in the Blood and returned in two later books.
Vance, a former athlete, hung about hospitals and toured towns in a show called Vance’s Visits – similar to the Savile’s Travels radio show.
Val, 57, said: “People often asked me where I had got the inspiration for the character.
“They never guessed it was Savile. For a start, Jacko is handsome and charming. I assume Savile didn’t recognise himself in that description.”
Val, from Fife, encountered Savile as a young reporter in 1977. She said: “He was a deeply unpleasant man. He was all smiles and laughter for the audience but as soon as we were alone, he was different.
“Savile was very much in the front of my mind when I was creating Jacko.”
Actor John Michie, who played Jacko in the Wire in the Blood TV series, said yesterday: “I’m surprised that it was Savile who inspired the character. Val never told me. But Savile was always an awful presence.”
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