The Fall Of One Of Britain's Best-Loved Stars
Updated: 6:09pm UK, Monday 30 June 2014
By Nick Pisa, Sky News Reporter
Despite being born in Australia, Rolf Harris' lengthy career in show business, spanning almost six decades, has ensured he is one of Britain's best-known and, until now, best-loved stars.
From his humble beginnings as a swimming champion in his native Western Australia, he moved to London in 1952 after deciding to abandon a teaching career and study art instead.
Within weeks he was singing in ex-pat clubs and two years after stepping off a liner, he signed a contract with the BBC which marked the start of a lengthy association with the broadcaster.
Artist, singer-songwriter and TV star, his legendary career earned him an MBE, OBE and CBE and Australian honours as well.
He was given a BAFTA fellowship, painted a portrait of the Queen and has met other members of the royal family countless times.
Harris also made numerous TV commercials and appeared at Glastonbury six times - opening the event in 2010 - and singing in front of a crowd of almost 100,000.
Countless generations of children and adults know him through iconic programmes from the 70s, 80s and 90s, such as The Rolf Harris Show, Rolf Harris Cartoon Time, Animal Hospital and Rolf On Art.
His wife of 56 years, Alwen, and daughter Bindi, 49, supported him in court throughout the seven-week trial, although only Bindi was called to give evidence in the case.
She described how she wanted to ''stab herself with forks'' after discovering Harris had been having a relationship with her best friend, who was the subject of seven of the charges.
In his 2001 autobiography, titled after his catchphrase "Can You Tell What It Is Yet", there is a telling passage in which he explained his feelings about his family.
He wrote: ''Alwen and Bindi have to come first. It has only been in the last five years that I have realised this. Late, but better than never.''
Telling, because it was in 1997 Harris wrote to the father of Bindi's best friend to tell him of the affair he had been having with his daughter when his own daughter found out.
He also wrote of how, as his career took off in the 60s, he found himself ogling women in backstage dressing rooms set aside for dancers he worked with.
Harris wrote: ''I tried not to watch - or be seen watching - but it wasn't easy, I spent most of my time reading the same page of a book 14 times realising I was holding it upside down.''
It's also clear he had a difficult relationship with his daughter and wife - blaming himself for not being with them as he devoted his time to his career - leaving them a painful second.
In the early 1960s as his career hit the big time, Alwen visited Australia with him and it later emerged she had contemplated suicide, Harris only finding out about it 30 years later when he found her diary.
Harris described how ''the words struck me like hammer blows'' adding that he ''felt terrible and I kicked myself for my selfishness''.
His awards and honours count for nothing and he will now swap his luxury Thames-side home in Berkshire for the cold harsh surroundings of a prison cell, as a convicted sex offender.
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