Rolf Harris, who has died aged 93, entertained children and family audiences alike for more than half a century with harmless, if occasionally ludicrous, homespun television appearances; but to general astonishment – not least, it seemed, his own – he was convicted in 2014 on a dozen charges of child sexual abuse. Also a talented artist he incorporated all this into an interesting prime time Television variety show that featured local and international performers.

Rolf Harris dies aged 93 | Evening Disgraced TV entertainer Rolf Harris dies aged 93 | Evening

But this all stood completely at odds with Harris’s public persona as a virtuoso on the wobble board, piano accordion, Stylophone and didgeridoo, and an artist of considerable talent who in the 1950s had twice exhibited at the Royal Academy. For all this slightly surreal array of accomplishments, Harris had remained grounded, unspoilt by fame and distinctly unglamorous. As the BBC’s light entertainment supremo of the time, Bill Cotton, noted, Harris might have achieved stardom the hard way, but had never lost his Australian earthiness. The Channel 4 show, called Jimmy Carr Destroys Art, was panned by the Telegraph for being “moronic” and “pathetic”. It was meant to provoke debate on the separate-art-from-artist question but merely ended up trivialising Naziism and suggesting that despicable crimes are relative.

It was a measure of Harris’s perennial appeal that in 1971 it was possible to watch two consecutive hours of him performing on two different television channels. On the day the Falklands were invaded in April 1982, the islands’ radio station followed a patriotic blast of Land of Hope and Glory with three hours of Harris’s greatest hits.

Rolf Harris - Can You Tell What It Is Yet? Lyrics and Rolf Harris - Can You Tell What It Is Yet? Lyrics and

Rolf Harris was born on March 30 1930 in Perth, Australia, the son of a frustrated artist who worked at a power station, and spent his early life in what he described as “practising to be a beatnik”. In 1991 Harris diversified again into commercials – not advertising paint (as he had earlier) but extolling the delights of a chocolate bar while sitting in the pouch of a giant puppet kangaroo playing an aboriginal musical instrument. But in March 2013 he was arrested by detectives investigating historical allegations of child sexual abuse as part of Operation Yewtree. After a seven-week trial at Southwark Crown Court he was jailed for five years and nine months. Seven further charges were brought in 2017, but he was cleared of three. His shows were considered odd in the 1950s because they combined jokes, interviews, paintings, songs and numerous appearances with children. Despite attempts by the BBC to vary the material, Harris insisted on keeping his shows as he wanted them and they remained almost unchanged for the next two decades. By the 1960s Harris had established himself as one of the popular entertainers of the day. When he arrived in Vancouver in 1966 for a Canadian tour he was greeted on the quayside by a 200-strong Girl Guide choir singing Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport and was feted as the city’s top nightclub entertainer. By 1968 he had also become the favourite performer in Idi Amin’s Uganda.One apologist customer wrote: “He may be disgraced now but he was an icon of that certain era of my life. He could sing as well as paint, sometimes at the same time. Harris’s successful way with a sentimental ballad was crowned in 1969 with his mawkish single Two Little Boys, which remained at the top of the hit parade for several weeks. In what now seems an inconceivable coup, Harris routed stars of the stature of Elvis Presley, Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye, and kept Kenny Rogers’s song Ruby Don’t Take Your Love to Town from the No 1 position. Australian entertainer and artist who became a star in both his native country and the United Kingdom in the 1950s and 1960s. Part of Harris’s appeal was his unfailing enthusiasm and the air of naivety that pervaded his appearances. In 1973 he agreed to tour South Africa with his show, but it was cancelled when Harris discovered he would be playing to all-white audiences. In 1983 Harris agreed to make an appearance at the Hookers’ Charity Ball in Sydney. On arrival Harris was surprised to discover that the event had been organised, not by TJ Hooker, a noted firm of estate agents, but by the local prostitutes’ collective. The first of these, Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport (Harris’s own adaptation of a Broadway show song from 1954), shot into the charts in 1960. Another success, Sun Arise, reached No 3 in 1962, and in 1965 he scored another unlikely hit with a comedy song about a three-legged man, Jake the Peg.

Can You Tell What It Is Yet?: The Autobiography of Rolf Harris

People buy him because of his celebrity and there will be a decline in interest given people buy for who is." Four others were heard at a retrial, after which he was formally acquitted. Meanwhile, one of his earlier convictions was quashed by the Court of Appeal. He was released from prison in May 2017. His greatest hit, however, came at Christmas 1969 with Two Little Boys, originally recorded by Harry Lauder in 1903, and which Harris’s old friend, a frustrated entertainer called Ted Egan, had sung for him over a dinner table in Australia.Ahead of his time for showing appreciation for the indigenous people of Australia and proudly blending their musical concepts to a wider audience to enjoy. But another raged at Harris, blasting: “Nonce. Can't listen to Tie Me Kangaroo Down in the same way ever again.”