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Glamorous Ladies of the Silver Screen

Biography

Diana Dors

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Diana Dors
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Diana Dors

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

She was born in Swindon, England as Diana Mary Fluck. She was considered the British equivalent of the blonde bombshells of Hollywood, but many consider 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). According to film buffs, her best work as an actress may have been when she played a murderer in the 1956 film Yield to the Night.

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.

Movie poster for The Unholy Wife
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Movie poster for The Unholy Wife

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]]).

When she died from cancer in 1984, she left a mark on popular culture; the "50's blonde bombshell look" popularized by Dors, Jayne Mansfield and Marilyn Monroe had a tremendous impact on current stars such as Madonna, No Doubt singer Gwen Stefani and pop princess Christina Aguilera.

She was married three times:

She died in 1984 at age 52, from a recurrence of ovarian cancer, first diagnosed two years earlier.

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."

At least he remembered it was a four-letter-word with an "L" in it.

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 also features 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.

Before she died, Dors apparently hid away what she claimed to be over two million dollars in banks across Europe. 18 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 may 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