Fluck, it's Monday again!

Another weekend flies by - a very jolly one, with not one, but two extended pub crawls! - and here we are again, immersed in the "joys" of work.

Thank heavens for the fact it's Miss Diana Dors' birthday. She always cheers us up!

On this Tacky Music Monday, she's in her element, vamping it up against a piano in the old East End of London:

Diana Dors - Make Someone Happy [Stars and Garters, 1965]

How we miss her.

Diana Dors (born Diana Mary Fluck, 23rd October 1931 – 4th May 1984).

Have a good week, dear reader.

Fluck! Fluck! Fluck!

[click to embiggen]

And so, a generally grotty weekend - the storms yesterday were apocalyptic! - is over. It's time to welcome the world of work with open arms again. As if!

To cheer ourselves up on this Tacky Music Monday, let us celebrate the talents of yesterday's birthday girl and "national treasure", the sadly missed Diana Dors, shall we?

Diana Dors - Hooray for Love

Hooray, indeed!

Diana Dors (born Diana Mary Fluck, 23rd October 1931 – 4th May 1984)

Fluck me!

"Diana Dors represented that period between the end of the war and the coming of Lady Chatterley in paperback, a time when sexuality was naughty, repressed and fit to burst." - David Thompson in The Independent.

Indeed she did...

Diana Dors - How Long Has This Been Going On

...and the divine Miss Dors would have been 90 years old today!

We still miss her.

RIP, Miss Diana Mary Fluck (aka Diana Dors), 23rd October 1931 – 4th May 1984)

Fluck-ing Monday

Oh, dear. Monday again.

It is, however, the birthday today of our adored and sadly missed Diana Mary Fluck - better known, of course, as Diana Dors!

What better way to cheer ourselves up on this Tacky Music Monday, that with one of the lady's most glittering musical moments...?

Diana Dors - Hooray for Love

Diana Dors (23rd October 1931 – 4th May 1984)

The original party animal

It would have been the 85th birthday today of the simply wonderful Diana Dors...



Always a gal that knew how to be the "life and soul of the party", here she is proving that fact - with the Hokey Pokey Polka!

Diana Dors - Hokey Pokey Polka

We still miss her.

Diana Dors (born Diana Mary Fluck, 23rd October 1931 – 4th May 1984)

More Diana here, here, and here - and over at my other half Madam Arcati's own blog here.

All the sweet years

Miss Diana Dors - once "Britain's answer to Marilyn Monroe" would have celebrated her (84th) birthday yesterday.

Let's hark back a few years, and join Russell Harty, her houseboys and some chums (including Adam Ant, Tom O'Connor and Olympic swimmer Duncan Goodhew) at her house party...

Russell Harty at Diana Dors' party

Where did they go, all the good times?
And the flowers and the wine
The young men who held me
All the lovers who were mine
Where did they go, all the sweet years
Filled with laughter ev'ry day
When time went on forever
Oh, when did they slip away?

Indeed.

RIP, darling.

Diana Dors (born Diana Mary Fluck, 23rd October 1931 – 4th May 1984)

The man-by-man story of a lost soul

"I am not ashamed of anything I've done. I would hate to be ashamed of anything. I would hate to look back on my life and say, 'Oh, if I only had it over again, I would be different, and I would do this differently'."

Diana Dors (born Diana Mary Fluck, 23 October 1931 – 4 May 1984)

Fluck - nearly forgot!

Just enough time left today to remind ourselves Miss Diana Mary Fluck (aka Diana Dors) was born this day 81 years ago...

In tribute, here's Swindon's own Blonde Bombshell with her take on the standard Let There Be Love:

Diana Dors - Let There Be Love

Diana Dors archive and website

We'll drink to all our wishes now, wherever they may be

Today would have been the 80th birthday of the delightfully camp Miss Diana Dors.

I posted a glowing tribute to the former Miss Fluck back in 2009, but recently I have discovered this fine single of hers from 1982, and just had to share...

Diana Dors - Where Did They Go

The lyrics of the song Where Did They Go? are all the more moving when you realise that when she recorded this Miss Dors was battling ovarian cancer, the disease that was to take her from us all too soon, just two years later.

Remember dancing to the velvet summer nights
Stars that softly flickered through a thousand colored lights
Sitting patiently until the sun began to rise
When morning turned our laughter to good byes

Where did they go, all the good times
And the flowers and the wine
The young men who held me
All the lovers who were mine
Where did they go, all the sweet years
Filled with laughter ev'ry day
When time went on forever
Oh, when did they slip away

Driving through the midnight streets in gently falling rain
A man might offer everything except, of course, his name
Leaning close he'd whisper how his love would never die
Till once again the morning meant goodbye

Where did they go, all the good times
And the flowers and the wine
The young men who held me
All the lovers who were mine
Where did they go, all the sweet years
Filled with laughter ev'ry day
When time went on forever
Oh, when did they slip away

Now it's time to light another candle on the cake
Join me in a glass of wine, if just for old time's sake
We'll drink to all our wishes now, wherever they may be
If one or two come true just think of me

Where did they go, all the good times
And the flowers and the wine
The young men who held me
All the lovers who were mine
Where did they go, all the sweet years
Filled with laughter ev'ry day
When time went on forever
Oh, when did they slip away

Diana Dors archive site

Oh, Fluck!

"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..."

It would have been the 78th birthday today of Britain's answer to Jayne Mansfield, Miss Diana Dors.

Born in unprepossessing Swindon - it's grim today, imagine what it would have been like for an aspiring glamour-puss in the 1940s! - by the age of sweet sixteen, Miss Fluck was already under contract to Rank Studios and was appearing in small parts in their films. By the time she was 20, she was famously the youngest registered owner of a Rolls Royce in the UK.

Yet despite this promising start Diana Dors never quite achieved the huge success of other famous blondes with whom she was often compared (Jean Harlow, Marilyn Monroe). Eventually she became typecast in either tarty roles, or later, as a bawdy rotund maneater. Not so far for the truth, in real life, actually. Her infamous drunken parties and alleged orgies were manna from heaven for the tabloids, and discredited her completely in Hollywood. She only sold modest numbers of her (now cult) album Swinging Dors - a shame as it is rather fabulous.

In Britain however she became, and remains, one of our best-loved characters in the world of entertainment. Numerous TV appearances (Morecambe & Wise, Two Ronnies, variety shows and even her own comedy series Queenie's Castle) reinforced her popularity, and inevitably she became a camp cult figure - famously appearing as the Fairy Godmother in Adam & The Ants' Prince Charming video.

The whole country mourned her untimely death from ovarian cancer in 1984. I remember feeling like I had lost a relative, a naughty auntie perhaps - the one your Mum doesn't talk about. A fabulous and legendary woman! RIP.

Diana Dors - Just One Of Those Things

Diana Dors - So Little Time

Diana Dors official website