"The only sex symbol Britain has produced since Lady Godiva."

Born Diana Mary Fluck on October 23rd 1931 in Swindon, Wiltshire, Diana Dors was promoted as "The English Marilyn Monroe" and became the quintessential 1950s blonde bombshell, English style. But it was no fluke. Diana set herself a target to become a film star from a very early age and was greatly encouraged by her mother who sent her to the best private schools she could afford. By the age of thirteen the already developing young lass, only just a teenager, entered a local beauty contest and was placed very well. The following year her mother enrolled her in an acting school where she was the youngest in her class.

She landed her first, un-credited film part in 1947's The Shop At Sly Corner and the following year appeared in no less than six movies. It was 1956's Yield To The Night, a film loosely based on the Ruth Ellis case, that won Dors her first rave reviews for the role of a convicted murderess who relives the events that led to her arrest. Throughout the fifties she appeared in numerous films and was always in demand on television in a host of variety spectaculars. In 1967 she featured on the cover of The Beatles' album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Diana Dors was much more than a sex symbol, though, and continued to work long after her sex-symbol appeal had gone. In 1970 she played the ex-wife of Peter Sellers in the movie There's A Girl In My Soup and by the mid 70s she was quite happy to send up her own image as a former screen siren, mainly playing the older sexy woman in a number of film and TV roles. She published two autobiographical books, "For Adults Only" (1978) and "Behind Closed Dors" (1979).

In 1974 Diana had contracted meningitis but miraculously survived. 8 years later, following her appearance in the film Steaming, she was diagnosed as having cancer. On May 4th 1984 this much-loved British actress passed away at the youthful age of 53. A tribute to Diana Dors, "Good Day", written after her death by Ray Davies, is included on the Kinks Word Of Mouth album.