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Diana Dors

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Diana Dors
Born
Diana Mary Fluck
Spouse(s)Dennis Hamilton (1951-1959)
Richard Dawson (1959-1966)
Alan Lake (1968-1984)

Diana Dors (October 23, 1931 – May 4, 1984) was an English actress and sex symbol.

She was born Diana Mary Fluck in Swindon, England. She was considered the English equivalent of the blonde bombshells of Hollywood. She also had significant acting ability, which was destined never to be fully utilised (most of her later work is made up of sex-themed comedies that featured scenes near to soft-core pornography). Her success was such that, aged 20, she was the youngest registered owner of a Rolls Royce in the UK.

According to film buffs, her best work as an actress may have been when she played a murderess in the 1956 film Yield to the Night. She was also willing to play repulsive characters in such films as The Amazing Mr. Blunden and Timon of Athens.

Dors never had quite the same following in the U.S., but recently has made a comeback due to her films having been shown on classic movie channels such as Turner Classic Movies. She also worked under the name of Diana d'Ors.

During the summer of 1961, she filmed an episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Show (based on Robert Bloch's story "The Sorcerer's Apprentice", which co-starred Brandon De Wilde) which was so grisly that it was barred from airing and not released for many decades (see [1]).

Career

Diana Dors appeared in many Rank Organisation Films. It appears that from a certain period, her appearance changed markedly similarly if not identical to Marilyn Monroe, as her career progressed. Often she has been acting in roles of characters often having unrequited love, perhaps an unfortunate parallel to her private life.

File:Doraindiamondcity.jpg
Playing Dora in Diamond City (1949). Finding Stafford Parker's (David Farrar) true feelings for her is not love as she had hoped.

Death

In a 1977 episode of the British TV show Parkinson with the actor Kenneth Williams and the anthropologist Desmond Morris (whom Dors said she had dated when they were teenagers in Swindon), Dors commented on what seemed to be the common tragic deaths of young blonde sex symbols, such as Jean Harlow and Jayne Mansfield. Dors said she would base herself on Mae West in living a long life. Unfortunately, however, she died seven years later on 4 May 1984 from a recurrence of ovarian cancer, first diagnosed two years earlier. She was 52 years old.

Dors left a mark on popular culture; the "50s blonde bombshell look" popularized by Dors and, in the US, by "The Three 'M's'" Jayne Mansfield, Mamie Van Doren and Marilyn Monroe.

Family

File:Vanessacolebrook.jpg
As Vanessa Colebrook alongside Peter Westen (Donald Sinden) in an An Alligator Named Daisy (1955). Again she plays the role of a woman having unrequited love for the leading character, having to give up the relationship in the end. The similarilies between Marilyn Monroe and her seem evident here.

She was married three times:

She also left three grandchildren: Lindsay Dors Dawson, Tyler Emm Dawson, and Emma Rose Dawson.

Quote

"They asked me to change my name. I suppose they were afraid that if my real name, Diana Fluck, was in lights, and one of the lights blew..."

According to Dors` autobiography, she was once asked and readily agreed to open a fete in her home town of Swindon, England. Prior to the festivities, Dors lunched with the local Vicar, during which she informed him that her real name was Diana Fluck. The Vicar became somewhat worried about his planned speech. After lunch, they arrived at the fete at the appointed time. The Vicar, totally unnerved about mispronouncing "Fluck", introduced Diana with these immortal words:

"Ladies and gentlemen, it is with great pleasure that I introduce to you our star guest. We all love her, especially as she is our local girl. I therefore feel it right to introduce her by her real name; Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome the very lovely Miss Diana Clunt."

Recordings

The earliest recordings of Diana Dors were two sides of a 78 rpm single released on HMV Records, in 1951. The tracks were "I Feel So Mmmm" and A Kiss And A Cuddle (And A Few Kinds Words From You)." HMV also released sheet music featuring sultry photos on Diana on the cover.

Diana also sang "The Hokey Pokey Polka" on the 1954 soundtrack for the film "As Long As They're Happy."

Diana Dors only recorded one complete album, Swinging Dors, for the Columbia Records/Pye label, in 1960. The Lp was orginally released on red vinyl. The orchestra was conducted by Wally Stott, who later underwent a sex change and became a woman. Swinging Dors was, obviously, a swing album, and Diana Dors demonstrated a likeable, unaffected singing voice.

In 1964, she recorded a single for the Fontana label, "It's Too Late/So Little Time."

In 1966, she recorded a single for the Polygram label, "Security/Gary."

In 1977, she recorded a single for the EMI label, "Passing By/It's A Small World."

In 1982, she recorded a single for the Nomis label, "Where Did They Go/It's You Again" (A duet with son Gary Dors).

Trivia

Dors is included on The Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover art as the blonde in the front row on the right in the gold dress and white gloves. She's also featured on the cover of The Smiths 1995 compilation album, Singles.

Dors appeared in the 1981 Adam & the Ants music video "Prince Charming" as the "fairy godmother" opposite Adam Ant, who played a male Cinderella figure.

Dors was a close friend of Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in Britain. In fact, Ellis has a cameo in Lady Godiva Rides Again, four years before she was executed by Albert Pierrepoint.

Alleged Fortune

Before she died, Dors apparently hid away what she claimed to be over two million pounds in banks across Europe. Eighteen months before her death, she gave her son Mark Dawson a sheet of paper, which she told him was a code that would reveal the whereabouts of the money.

Her widower, Alan Lake, supposedly had the key that would crack the code. But Lake committed suicide only five months after Dors died, leaving Dawson an apparently unsolvable code. Dawson, however, was determined to discover his late mother's fortune. He sought out computer forensic specialists Inforenz, who recognized the encryption as the Vigenère cipher. Inforenz then used their own cryptography software to suggest a ten-letter decryption key, DMARYFLUCK (short for Diana Mary Fluck, Dors' real name).

Although the company was then able to decode the entire message and link it to a bank statement found in some of Lake's papers, the location of the money is still unknown. Some speculate whether there may have been a second sheet, whose information might have led to the discovery of the money. Channel 4 did a television programme about the mystery and created a website where users can read more and help solve the mystery.

Filmography


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