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Diana Dors Profile
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| (Diana Mary Fluck) |
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| 23 October 31 | is born in Swindon, England, to Bert Fluck, a railway worker, and Mary Fluck, a housewife. Her real father may be Swindon man Gerry Lack, a close friend of her parents. |
| 13 December 31 | she's christened |
| 42 | her drunken great-uncle Arthur tries to make a pass at her |
| ? | at school she befriends 17-year-old Desmond Morris, future writer and anthropologist |
| ? | attends LAMDA, London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art |
| 47 | arrives at The Company of Youth, Rank's charm school, housed at Highbury Studios in Islington |
| befriends married actor Guy Rolfe |
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| 48 | while filming Oliver Twist, director David Lean tries to give her very private rehearsals |
| loses her virginity at age 16 to Gil |
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| Anthony Newley, her co-star in A Boy, a Girl and a Bike, falls head over heals for her and looses his virginity to Diana |
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| 31 December 48 | falls for 17-year-old Chelsea kid "Kim" Michael Caborn-Waterfield, who will end up in jail |
| 51 | while filming Lady Godiva Rides Again she meets Dr Stephen Ward, who will later gain notoriety in the Christine Keeler-John Profumo scandal |
| 3 July 51 | marries Dennis Hamilton, age 26, at Caxton Hall, England |
| November 52 | Hamilton announces she is to become a limited company |
| 53 | is arrested in Blackpool |
| 53 | spends a pleasant afternoon with comedian Bob Monkhouse at an apartment off Oxford Street, claiming her husband Dennis is in New York City |
| August 54 | Diana and Dennis move to their new huge Thameside house in Bray |
| 55 | attends the Royal Command Film Performance and is introduced to the Queen |
| an Arabian sheik offers Dennis Hamilton 23 camels in exchange for her |
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| attends a dinner party given by the Aga Khan at the Cannes Festival. Susan Hayward, Richard Todd, and Ginger Rogers also attend. |
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| 3 September 55 | arrives in her powder-blue Cadillac at the Venice Film Festival |
| 17 October 55 | is slightly injured in a car crash |
| 15 December 55 | passes her driving test in Slough |
| 56 | moves to Woodhurst, a huge sprawling mansion at Thameside Maidenhead |
| Spring 56 | as Yield to the Night is chosen as the UK's only entry to the Cannes Film Festival, she is off to the Riviera |
| she refuses the leading role opposite Bob Hope in the upcoming Beau James because she would have had to dye her hair black. The role goes to Vera Miles. |
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| 20 June 56 | boards the Queen Elizabeth for her first American assignment, an RKO picture opposite comedian George Gobel, I Married a Woman |
| in New York she and Dennis check into the Sherry-Netherland Hotel. RKO sends an air-conditioned Cadillac. They lunch at the exclusive 21 Club. |
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| a few days later they fly to Hollywood and stay for three days at the Beverly Hills Hotel, until an apartment can be found. RKO arranges a cocktail party at which she is to debut in front of feared columnists Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons. |
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| the Hamiltons move into a Spanish-style villa off Sunset Boulevard, formerly owned by Marlene Dietrich |
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| causes a riot in the press when it becomes known that she has flown in British hairstylist Raymond "Teasy-Weasy" Bessone to bestow on her the most expensive hairdoo of his career, for 2,500 pounds |
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| the Hamiltons try to buy Lana Turner's house but can't afford it. Finally, they settle in the Coldwater Canyon area of Beverly Hills. |
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| 19 August 56 | Lana Turner, Liberace, Greer Garson, George Sanders, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Doris Day, Eddie Fisher, Debbie Reynolds, Adolphe Menjou, and George Goble attend their housewarming party. At 8:00 p.m. there's a commotion, and the Hamiltons, agent Louis Shurr, and dress designer Howard Shoup fall backwards into the pool. Afterwards, with Dennis looking for a culprit, a fight emerges, and a United Press photographer has to be carried away unconscious. The press covers the incident with bad remarks about the behavior of Mr. Dors. Lawyers at RKO look hard at Diana's contract for a reason to fire her. |
| both married, she and Rod Steiger fall for each other during the filming of The Lady and the Prowler/The Unholy Wife. Louella Parsons questions her and Dennis on the issue. |
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| October 56 | the Hamiltons come to the attention of the Internal Revenue Service for evading federal taxes |
| Confidential reporters break into her Hollywood home to look for incriminating evidence |
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| after a few months, Dennis starts his own affair back in England with Jennifer Bessone, the wife of Diana's hairdresser, Raymond |
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| Steiger breaks off the affair by phone, calling from New York, where his estranged wife Gracie appears on Broadway. Three years later he will marry British actress Claire Bloom. Diana is heartbroken. |
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| 2 November 56 | after learning about Jennifer, she announces her separation from Dennis, who gives a press conference claiming he manages twenty-year-old actress Shirley Ann Field |
| 12 November 56 | is back in England and makes her home at the Dorchester Hotel, London, for one day. After that, she moves in with Dennis at Maidenhead. There are rumors of reconciliation. |
| February 57 | spends a two-week break from The Long Haul in Malaga with her husband Dennis and her old friend actress Sandra Dorne and her husband, Patrick Holt |
| starts a relationship with co-star Victor Mature's stuntman, Tommy Yeardye, while filming The Long Haul. Dennis finds out by taping his wife. |
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| 11 May 57 | her nightclub, El Dors, is due to open. In the last minute it is renamed The Film Extra. |
| May 57 | is off to Majorca with Tommy Yeardye |
| June 57 | is off to Rome for The Girl Who Rode in the Palio |
| 20 July 57 | Rock Hudson feigns interest in her during shooting in Rome |
| October 57 | will marry actor Tommy Yeardye after she gets her divorce from Dennis Hamilton |
| is off to New York for an appearance on Perry Como's TV show. She meets Rod Steiger, who asks her to marry him, but her passion has cooled. When she returns to England, her contract with Rank is cancelled by mutual consent. |
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| 29 November 57 | with Yeardye driving her blue Cadillac, they are involved in a quarrel with a policeman in Hammersmith, London. Yeardye is shortly arrested. |
| 4 December 57 | files for divorce from Hamilton |
| 26 December 57 | her Boxing night party is interrupted by the nearby blaze of Dennis' riverboat she sells her London penthouse and buys a fifteenth-century farmhouse between Horsham and Guildford known as "Palmers" for her and Yeardye |
| 58 | the divorce degree is granted |
| July 58 | Joe Collins, the father of starlets Jackie and Joan, talks her into a variety tour, The Diana Dors Show. Yeardye suggests a young comedian they met recently at the Stork Club in London, Richard Dawson. |
| on tour she falls for Dawson. She asks Yeardye to leave and accuses him of having stolen 18,000 pounds. |
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| Late 58 | is off to Johannesburg and Durban, South Africa, for cabaret work |
| 3 January 59 | she and Dawson are off to New York for "The Steve Allen Show" and, later, to Hollywood |
| 31 January 59 | at the Hollywood home of Roger Moore, she receives a message that Hamilton has died from heart complications |
| 4 February 59 | attends Hamilton's funeral with Sandra Dorne, Jon Pertwee, Paul Carpenter, and starlet Vera Day, who was romantically linked with Hamilton shortly before his death. Hamilton's business partner Perec Rachman and his then girlfriend, Marilyn "Mandy" Rice-Davis, will later emerge at the center of a sex scandal involving the Secretary of State for War, John Profumo. |
| 12 April 59 | marries British comedian Richard "Dickie" Dawson in New York City. She appears on "The Steve Allen Show" that night. |
| February 60 | releases her album Swingin' Doors |
| 4 February 60 | gives birth to her son Mark Richard Dawson |
| Summer 60 | performs at the Dunes Hotel in Las Vegas |
| has a torrid affair with co-star John Ashley during the filming of the TV series "The Racers," but returns to Dawson shortly afterwards |
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| travels a lot between England and the States |
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| when the new Soho restaurant Bal Tabarin, where she performs, catches fire, she has to climb out of the window, cutting her leg. Three people are killed. |
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| 14 February 62 | leaves London for Hollywood and makes no bones about the finality of her departure |
| 27 June 62 | gives birth to her son Gary at the Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Hollywood. His godparents are Steve Allen, Liberace, Terry-Thomas, and Pamela Mason. |
| January 63 | returns to England for the filming of West 11 |
| becomes involved with a New York playboy called Frankie |
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| 63 | during a tour of Australia, she begins an affair with a singer named Darryl Stewart. Afterwards, she installs him in the flat of her friend Pamela Mason, off Sunset Boulevard. |
| 17 January 64 | files for divorce and claims custody, but returns to Dawson reluctantly shortly afterwards. She begins to hate living in Hollywood. She and her husband drift apart. |
| rents a house in Elyston Place, Chelsea, and falls for singer-musician Troy Dante |
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| Early 65 | gets the title role in the upcoming Avengers-like TV series "The Unusual Miss Mulberry," which is never aired |
| has wild parties at her newly rented house in Sunninghill, Berkshire, known as The Pavilion |
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| 66/67 | divorces Dawson |
| Summer 67 | is sued by the Inland Revenue for the sum of 40,208 pounds |
| buys her own property, an estate in Sunningdale, Berkshire, called Orchard Manor |
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| May 68 | a bankruptcy receiving order is taken out on her |
| 10 October 68 | meets her future husband, actor Alan Lake, during rehearsals for a TV pilot in London |
| 29 October 68 | she and Lake make their engagement official with an amethyst and silver ring. Lionel Jeffries and Sandra Dorne attend. |
| 23 November 68 | marries Lake at Caxton Hall, where she had married Hamilton some years before |
| 11 September 69 | gives birth to her son Jason in London |
| January 70 | has a smash theatre hit with Three Months Gone |
| 70/71 | Lake serves twelve months in prison for his part in a pub brawl |
| Spring 73 | she and her husband convert to the Roman Catholic Church |
| November 73 | meningococcal meningitis is diagnosed, and she is closer to death than life |
| 3 December 73 | she is discharged from the hospital |
| becomes pregnant again, at age forty-two |
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| 28 August 74 | gives birth to a dead son. Lake is beside her. |
| 76 | prepares her biography with director-writer Wolf Rilla, but doesn't like the outcome and decides to write her own version |
| 78 | publishes For Adults Only |
| Lake's drinking hits a crisis point |
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| 79 | publishes Behind Closed Dors |
| 24 August 79 | the Lakes attend the funeral of British porn star Mary Millington, who committed suicide |
| 81 | publishes Dors By Diana |
| 24 June 82 | after a hotel opening, she collapses. Rushed to the hospital, she is operated on, and the doctors discover cancerous tissue. |
| 84 | publishes Diana Dors' A-Z of Men |
| 28 April 84 | collapses on the set of Steaming |
| 4 May 84 | dies from cancer in Windsor |
| at her funeral she is laid out wearing a gold lame evening dress with cape and a gold "dors" necklace, which she was wearing when she died |
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| 10 October 84 | Lake commits suicide with a shotgun, sixteen years to the day he met her. He is buried next to her. |
| Sources: Come by Sunday: The Fabulous, Ruined Life of Diana Dors by Damon Wise, Silver Screen, For Adults Only by Diana Dors, www.IMDb.com | |
| Recommended Books: For Adults Only by Diana Dors Behind Closed Dors by Diana Dors Dors by Diana by Diana Dors | |
| Links: Filmography Bombshells' Diana Dors Glamour Gallery Diana Dors Memorial Homepage Classic Movies: Diana Dors Spooky Tom's Nightmare Mansion JSR Pages: Diana Dors | |