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Harris, 84, indecently assaulted girls as young as seven or eight, doing so "with impunity", often when others were nearby, seemingly finding the risk of discovery an extra sexual thrill, prosecutors said.
Harris was known at one Australian TV channel as "the octopus" because of the way he put his hands all over women, Southwark crown court, in south London, was told.
One of the alleged victims was the daughter of a family friend, who Harris first assaulted when she was 13, continuing to do so for many years, the court heard, grooming her "like a pet". The jury was read a letter from Harris to the girl's father in which he admitted a sexual relationship - while insisting it began when the girl was of legal age - and begged for forgiveness.
"When I see the misery I have caused [the alleged victim] I am sickened by myself. You can't go back and change things that you have done in this life - I wish to God I could," Harris wrote.
The Australian-born TV star, also a respected artist, was a Jekyll and Hyde character, said Sasha Wass QC, opening the prosecution case.
Harris could be kind and was undoubtedly talented, she said. "But, concealed behind this charming and amicable children's entertainer, lay a man who exploited the very children who were drawn to him.
"There is a Jekyll and Hyde nature to Rolf Harris and this dark side of Rolf Harris was obviously not apparent to all of the other people he met during the course of his work, and it was not apparent to those who may want to testify to his good character."
Harris listened impassively from the glassed-in dock, using a hearing loop headset. His wife, Alwen, sat with other relatives and supporters.
The prosecution case spans 25 years from the late 1960s and covers 10 complainants, none of whom can be named for legal reasons. Harris faces charges in connection with only four of these - the remainder allege offences which took place outside the UK before 1997, the date before they could be prosecuted in a British court.
Seven of the 12 indecent assault charges are connected to the family friend, who alleges she was first groped by Harris while on a holiday in the late 1970s. Wass described the first alleged assault, at a hotel, which began when Harris pretended to hug and tickle the girl, then 13, after she emerged from a shower. Wass said: "You will see a pattern during this case of Mr Harris approaching girls in a purely friendly way and then, once he is in close physical contact with them, he takes advantage of the situation in order to indecently assault them."
The girl was assaulted two days later, with similar events occurring when she returned to England, often taking place when Harris visited her family home, the court heard. They happened even if others were nearby, Wass said. "Maybe that was part of the excitement for him, knowing he could do this and knowing he could get away with it."
The alleged victim was left anxious and panicky, and aged 14 she began to drink gin when she knew Harris was due to visit, according to the prosecution. Before long she had an alcohol problem, Wass said.
The girl presumed she would not be believed if she made allegations against "a pillar of society, a well-respected man and someone who was known as being fond of children", Wass noted. She added: "He never treated her as an equal or a human being. He never had a meaningful conversation with her. She felt she was just his little toy."
When the alleged victim finally told her family in the 1990s, her father wrote to Harris, and he replied saying he was in "a state of abject self-loathing".
The alleged assault on the youngest victim, who was seven or eight at the time, happened after Harris signed an autograph for her in the late 1960s in southern England, then sexually touched her, the court was told.
Even though the girl was young, she knew the touching was wrong, and threw the autograph to the floor, feeling "all the happiness had gone", Wass said.
The prosecution led the jury through a series of other alleged assaults in the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Malta, involving girls and women aged 11 or 12 to 24.
The oldest alleged victim was a TV makeup artist whose first thought, after Harris allegedly repeatedly groped her in front of other people, was, "Oh my God, this man works with children."
The most recent alleged assault saw Harris grope a 15-year-old girl and her mother at a public event in New Zealand, the jury was told. When the mother complained, Harris whispered: "She liked it," indicating the daughter, Wass said.
The great majority of the allegations place the testimony of the alleged victims against the denials of Harris, Wass told the jury. But she stressed that none of the women knew each other and almost all only went to the police in the wake of the Jimmy Savile case.
They all told strikingly similar stories, Wass said, showing "a persistent pattern of sexual offending by Harris over a 25 year period", in which he repeatedly touched young girls in public with no warning.
She told the jury: "You have to ask yourself: have all the girls, unknown to each other, made it up? Or are they telling the truth and they are describing the dark side of Mr Harris, the Mr Hyde that lies within."
Harris, from Bray in Berkshire, denies 12 charges of indecent assault. The trial continues on Monday.
Would this be the same Rolf Harris who recorded Sun Arise and Tie Me Kangaroo Down, using Australian aboriginal instruments, back in the early 60s? They were rather interesting recordings. Pity to hear they might have been performed by an uber-perv.