Ex-Jimmy Savile lookalike tells how he was taunted with ‘paedo’ and ‘child molester’ remarks during BBC star scandal (but he still hasn’t thrown out the shellsuit)
DRESSED in a bright shellsuit, gold jewellery and with a huge cigar in his mouth, John Barry was having the time of his life posing for pictures and entertaining a crowd.
The 61-year-old was the centre of attention as he met with men, women and children – all eager to have their photo taken with one of Britain’s best-loved entertainers.
But it was after a football fan shouted "child molester" at him, the Jimmy Savile lookalike began to question his career choice.
It was 2010 - a year before the disgraced broadcaster's death and two years before the chilling truth about the Jim’ll Fix It star being one of the UK’s most prolific sex attackers would come out.
John, from Northwich, Cheshire, had been booked by a TV channel to welcome fans as they arrived at Blackburn Rovers’ Ewood Park ground for a football match.
Speaking exclusively to The Sun Online, John said: "They had wanted the Sven Goran Eriksson lookalike but he’d got stuck travelling up the motorway from down south and it was around the time there had been really bad, thick snow.
"So my agent called and said, ‘can you get to Blackburn? They want Jimmy Savile.’
"I travelled up in costume so I got a few funny looks in the car and it was absolutely freezing – the shell suit isn’t that warm."
The producers had told him to chat to members of the public and ask them if Jim could "fix it" for their team what result would they want, when he heard his first taunt from a fan.
He said: "I was going up to the police force and pretending to be Jimmy and they were laughing and that.
"And it was at that point I heard a member of the public shout ‘child molester’.
"They weren’t calling me a child molester but when the general public see you as a lookalike, they do believe that is real."
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John said this was the beginning of a traumatic period he had no idea was coming as in the wake of the DJ's death, his career crumbled with each new chilling revelation about vile Savile’s paedophile behaviour.
The eccentric TV personality is estimated to have sexually abused hundreds of women and children in television dressing rooms, hospitals, schools, children's homes and his caravan.
He said: "That was the first inclination I got that something was amiss. Before that point I had no idea."
Already an extras actor, John had forged a decent career as an Austin Powers lookalike but work was drying up.
Just a year before Savile’s death, at the age of 84, he received a call that would change his life forever.
He said: "I’ve always been good at voices and I’ve done some theatre and TV so I started doing lookalike work and signed with an agency as Austin Powers.
"One day my agent rung and asked if I could do Jimmy. So I did the voice and went ‘now then, now then’, and she said ‘can you look like him?’ and I said 'yes' – I’ve just got one of these faces, and I love a transformation.
"I got a costume and two days later I was doing my first job as Jimmy Savile.
"It was a charity event at the Old Trafford Cricket Ground and I’d been asked to present a Top of Pops tribute - but I had these glasses on and they were so dark I couldn’t see the cards I had prepared.
"I was trying to memorise what I’d written when Denise Welch walked out with Tim Healy, who I know, but they just didn’t recognise me.
"So I dropped the voice and they couldn’t believe it.
"When I came out with my hands in the air you could hear people gasp – they loved it.
"There were photos galore and I thought to myself ‘This is big’. It was my first show as Jimmy and I absolutely loved it."
With his first performance a huge hit, work began pouring in for John, who would go on to become Britain’s top Savile performer – charging hundreds of pounds for appearances.
Austin Powers was shelved as the actor dropping the crushed velvet shirt for the crumpled shellsuit of Savile and starred at retro parties, reunions and conferences.
John was busier than ever, but his world was about to come crashing down around him with the 2012 ITV documentary The Other Side Of Jimmy Savile.
As each new chilling revelation came out, John told how his concerns grew about how this would impact his career.
He said: “If you love doing what you do and you get paid for it, it doesn’t feel like working.
"Austin Powers has taken me around the world and I love it, and I felt the exact same way with Jimmy.
"He’s a lively character and I was having great fun with it.
"At the beginning I didn’t want to believe it – I was enjoying doing the character – but things started to snowball and I realised it was no longer appropriate.”
Suddenly, where once he was fending off calls because he was too busy, now John was receiving a flood of calls with clients pulling out.
He said: “I had jobs in the book for a little while after and I was surprised when they didn’t cancel immediately.
"Then a few weeks down the line my agent would call and say ‘John, so and so has cancelled’, and then she’d ring again later, ‘so and so has cancelled’, and those calls kept coming.
"I kept thinking was how could all this have happened?"
For the few remaining gigs he did have as the now-widely loathed Savile, John had to steel himself for abuse from people at the parties – revealing how some would mutter “paedo” and give him a dirty look as he walked by.
He said: "I was thinking I've opened a can of worms here. I've been doing this long enough to know that people have opinions, but I'm not Jimmy Savile.
"I was worried I'd be associated with him because people are fickle. I lost a lot of bookings."
He finally decided to hang up the cigar just weeks after the scandal broke – fearful of how it could impact his other work and aware that he had bills to pay.
John has now returned to his former character Austin Powers but despite his frustrations, he has still kept hold of his Savile shellsuit.
He said: "People asked if I’d get rid of the suit but I said ‘no'.
"I’m not saying Jimmy Savile is going to come back but I’m an actor, and if the time comes when a director is making a documentary and needs someone to play him then I’ve said I’d do it.
"People have asked me if they can borrow the suit for Halloween, which I was quite surprised but it’s a big character now."
John, who never got the chance to meet the man he mimicked, described the abuse as "sick" and "sad".
He's now turned his attentions to other potential lookalike work and says his dream is to become Robin William's famous nanny character Mrs Doubtfire.
"I love big, vivacious roles and I think Mrs Doubtfire would be perfect," he said.
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