Diana Dors

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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 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.

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]).

[edit] Death

In a 1977 episode of the British TV show Parkinson with the actor Kenneth Williams and the anthropologist Desmond Morris (with whom Dors said she had dated when they were teenagers in Swindon). Dors commented on what seemed to be the common young tragic deaths of blond sex symbols such as Jean Harlow and Jayne Mansfield. Dors said she would base herself on Mae West in living a long life. She died 7 years later on 4th May 1984 from a recurrence of ovarian cancer, first diagnosed two years earlier. She was 52.

Dors left a mark on popular culture; the "50's blonde bombshell look" popularized by Dors, Jayne Mansfield and Marilyn Monroe. She was married three times:

• Dennis Hamilton (3 July 1951-3 January 1959)
• Richard Dawson, (a future Family Feud host and Hogan's Heroes star), (12 April 1959-1966); two sons Mark Dawson and Gary Dawson
• The actor Alan Lake (23 November 1968-10 October 1984); one son Jason Lake

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

[edit] 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."

[edit] 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.

At age twenty she was the youngest registered owner of a Rolls Royce in the country.

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.

[edit] Filmography

[edit] External links

• Find-A-Grave profile for Diana Dors
• Diana Dors at the Internet Movie Database
• Diana Dors - Diana Dors Memorial Homepage
• Diana Dors - Screen Online
• Diana Dors Style and Beauty Page