LONDON, Oct. 30 (UPI) -- British radio-and-television pioneer Jimmy Savile died just a few days short of his 85th birthday, family members said.
The cause of death was not revealed in the announcement made by Savile's family. However, the BBC reported he had been in the hospital recently with pneumonia.
Savile was a fixture at the BBC for more than six decades. He was Britain's first pop-music disc jockey, a venerable television host and a tireless charity worker.
"One of the essential things about Jimmy was that he was a man of the people," disc jockey David Hamilton said. "He knew his audience and he was very much in touch with his audience."
Savile was born Oct. 31, 1926, and took up the DJ trade a few years after World War II in dance halls around Manchester. That parlayed into a radio gig with Radio One where he was the host of "Top of the Pops" when the music show debuted in 1964.
Savile also was the popular host of the early television series "Jim'll Fix It" and a go-to fundraiser for British hospitals. "I spoke to him last Wednesday and asked him how he was, and he said he was feeling very tired and short of breath," said former hospital executive Alan Franey. "Mentally, he was very alert. But he also said to me: 'I'm coming to the end of the tunnel.'"
