Dors Dozen - Cooking with Diana and Valerie | TV-am 1983

[@glamdolly30]

Just imagine the great Diana Dors turning up as a guest at your wedding - WOW! She was always going to outshine the brie - well to be fair she couldn't help it, she was Diana Dors! I just love this lady, she was two years older than Joan Collins, so could still be here and would be 86 now. She and Joan were sworn enemies and rivals, I guess they still would be!

[@DDandrums]

Outshine the brie? Never heard that one before.

[@seansmith445]

@crazyclive I know, I don't ever remember reading that!

[@glamdolly30]

@@DDandrums Lol! 2 years later, I spot the mis-type!

[@glamdolly30]

@@seansmith445 Neither Diana or Joan ever said they didn't like each other. It's my conclusion after reading Diana's memoirs, and putting two and two together. Diana wrote of playing a rather mean practical joke on Joan when they were both young starlets. She and her partner and manager at the time Dennis Hamilton, felt Miss Collins was getting too big for her boots, and acting like she was a big star when she wasn't. So they decided to take her down a peg or two, and sent her a fake invitation to a red carpet event that didn't exist. Then they got to the venue, hid and watched her arrive in all her finery (expecting to be presented to royalty, I think), and of course there was no one there and she soon realised she'd been had. Diana and Joan were contemporaries and often up for the same movie roles - and men. They both went to America in the 'fifties hoping to break into movies, and both dated Anthony Newley (who went on to marry Joan). So I think there was inevitably a rivalry there. Since her tragic early death at 52, many of Diana Dors' fellow actors and actresses have appeared in TV documentary tributes and spoken warmly of their personal memories (eg Honor Blackman, Petula Clark, Rod Steiger). But you never see Joan Collins on TV tributes to Diana. I could be wrong, but I've seen no evidence the women were friends - or even friendly - despite sharing so much history. Maybe they were just too alike? Had Diana been blessed with Dame Joan's good health, I think she too would still be working, enjoying the limelight, and looking wonderful in old age, as Joan does. Who knows, she too may have received a Damehood - how I would have loved to have seen Diana get older and even more fascinating and glamorous with the years. And Dame Diana Dors has a lovely ring to it too! It's just tragic that she was robbed of decades of life.