Rolf: A life well lived... until the end

Rolf: A life well lived... until the end                                                                
CHARLES MIRANDA   The Daily Telegraph  July 05, 2014

“I’ve lived a magical life,” an emotional Rolf Harris mused as he stared down at the royal crown-topped gold disc starring up at him from his palm and hanging around his neck.

It was late 2012 and having just been appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in recognition of his decades of entertaining, he was in a reflective mood....

In that respect he was yesterday virtually handed a death sentence as he prepared to be jailed after being convicted of 12 counts of indecent assault.

No more big concerts, no more art shows, no more TV hosting, no more feted by the royal family and no more molesting children.

What a difference 18 months can make.

At the time he was bestowed his OA, he had just sung for the Queen at that year’s Diamond Jubilee, had another hit TV show on British television with Animal Hospital, a BAFTA British film industry lifetime achievement award and 50 years of memories of topping the music, art and television industries.

Within days of getting his Order of Australia, he would also be getting a telephone call from the Australia Day Foundation asking him whether he would accept being the 2013 Australian of the Year in the UK at the following year’s Australia Day gala in central London....

his long-held sexual desire for little girls in bikinis and finally his ritual penchant for giving one girl bear hugs before spitting on his fingers and digitally assaulting her.

And most of these admissions made by the man himself as he apparently made the conscious decision to give a blow-by-blow account of his years of sordid liaisons and infidelity albeit of women rather than girls in a bid to detract from what he was really there accused of — being what the court heard was a manipulative, perverted deviant child abuser who groomed at least one girl like a pet dog to respond without questions to his sexual advances....

His hit tune Sun Arise was only pipped to the Number 1 chart spot by Elvis Presley in 1962 but then there was Two Little Boys, a worldwide hit in 1969 which in the UK alone was the last song to top the charts for the 1960s and the first to top the charts in the 1970s.

Then there was his painting of the Queen’s portrait, his OBE, his MBE, his CBE and his OA received just days before police started to look at his background....

When he was first arrested “Rolf Harris is Innocent” Facebook page attracted hundreds of “likes” and comments calling for people to get behind the star, branding the allegations and charges a witch hunt, some calling on him to take the “scum” trying to persecute him down.

The page attracted 727 likes but that was mostly in 2013 and by June 2014 the messages had well and truly dried up....
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/rolf-a-life-well-lived-until-the-end/story-fni0cx12-1226976734754