Diana Dors in QUEENIE'S CASTLE

No, it's not a fondly remembered show. Diana Dors was pretty unsinkable until the big C got her, though. She was more talented than most of the Hollywood blondes.

Diet with Diana. She was said to lose few lbs each weigh-in by removing a piece or two of jewelry.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

She had lost weight by her final weigh-in, but by this time she was battling cancer.

Wow! Thanks OP!

I was familiar with Diana Dors, but had never heard of or seen QUEENIE'S CASTLE. took a peek, seems like a really interesting early 70's british sitcom. Must investigate!

I mostly know her from being referred to by Adam and the Ants a few times in their lyrics and videos from "Prince Charming." But mostly by her hysterical part as a bizarre sexual molester in the Jerzy Skolimowski film DEEP END (1971).

She was the Lady Bunny before the Lady Bunny.

She used to host orgies at her house, which had rooms with two way mirrors for the voyeurs.

Here's the scene R5 is referring to, from the film DEEP END. Best link I could find. It's really funny, and shows her comic talent.

DEEP END is from 1971, meaning it was done during QUEENIE'S CASTLE's run.

A young Keeley Hawes (Bodyguard) starred as Dors in a TV biopic.

'She became even more excited when I told her we had been talking for half an hour. Remembering the High Court judge who asked, "What are Diana Dors?" '

She was in a funny episode of The Sweeney, from the 1970s.

She looks like Catherine O'Hara in OP's pic.

Fun fact: her original surname was "Fluck."

It's a sitcom about bullies.

I watched it a few years ago and enjoyed it.

Did women really look like that in the early 70s???

She was good in Yield to the Night

[quote]Did women really look like that in the early 70s?

R16 That was the goal!

Looks blowsy to me. Was she supposed to be a sex symbol?

You had to put coins in a meter to keep your cooking gas on? Never knew that. England in the early 70s always looks so dreary in films from that era.

That's what struck me R20. Very depressing, ugly, grimy and Dickensian looking.

I had an ex from London who confirmed the odd metered gas and electricity thing.

What a fatty. This was a sex symbol?

She looks like a blonde Divine.

The former Mrs. Richard Dawson.

Wonder how she got along with Crawford during filming of "Berserk".

This can’t be the one from “Sargent Pepper”?

Coin metres were completely normal in the bedsits I lived in when I first moved to London in the 80s.

R25, Yep.

The first outbreak of Clinical Depression occurred in 1970s London.

I had never heard of Queenie's Castle, thankfully, until today. Depressing. She had a bright beginning, though, as a student at LAMDA.

Diana Dors (DD) was Britain's answer to Marilyn Monroe, but I always thought her face was kind of busted.

Yes, R16, ALL women looked like that in the early 70s. Dipshit. Rolls eyes.

My face is up here, R30.

Coo!

Queenie's Castle was co-authored by Keith Waterhouse, who I assume must have been short of cash at the time. Waterhouse went on to do better with Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell: "Bernard wrote the "Low Life" column in The Spectator. The play's title refers to the magazine's habit of printing a one-line apology on a blank page when he was too drunk or hung-over to produce the required copy and a substitute article could not be found before the deadline for publication."

More like Lola Heatherton, r12...

I didn't ask if ALL women looked like that, retard. R31 Learn how to read.

She could also sing a bit.

R37, Big deal! So could I.

Waterhouse's novel "Billy Liar" is good too.

Queenie's Castle could be the title of Lindsey Graham's reality show

Let's hope Lindsey Graham don't get lynched.

Can someone explain the coin thing to me?

Who gets the coins? How do they get them? Did they have to come into your apartment to get the coins or was there a system in the walls?

Honestly, this one of the weirdest things I have heard of on DL.

UK broads don't age well.

R42, there were coin meters attached to the gas or electricity lines, and you had to constantly feed the meters lest the power go out or the heater or stove. The gas or electric company would then enter the premises each month to collect the coins. However, by the 1970s, with the downturn in the economy and rising unemployment, burglars and even residents themselves would break these meters open and steal the coins. Also, the staff who came collecting were getting robbed.

Another platinum blonde from the period, Joi Lansing, who really could sing and she was a fine actress.

R45, The poor man's Mamie Van Doren.

She looks more like Mansfield than Monroe. The same slightly coarse looking face

People remembered Dors looking like this in the 1950s, but she was a terrible actress and always looked a little trashy and off somehow. But so did other starlets like Jane Mansfield and Joey Heatherton so it's not like she was an outlier.

Thank you, R44.

I am still trying to figure out how that system would ever be considered preferable to just metering gas use.

Dors seemed to me very aware of her overweight, trashy image later in her career and easily played it up to appeal to a certain audience. QUEENIE'S CASTLE almost comes across like ROSEANNE. Doors fans at the time must have imagined it liberating for her to shed all that fussy glamour and trying to stay thin all the time, and "get real."

I lived in a small flat in Earl's Court, London for a few months in 1988 that had a tiny coin-operated gas meter in the closet. I remember going out to get the correct change to put into it.

I realized I couldn't turn on my gas heater in the fireplace and the old landlady was like, "Put a few shillings in the meter dear." I'm sure that hadn't been the first time she'd had to tell an American traveler that.

I thought it was weirdly ingenious way to pay utility bills. Like you just put some money in a meter. Done. Lights go out? Ooops forgot to pay the electric bill! Put some money in the meter and on they go. Not sure if it was easier or not. Like something out of the film BRAZIL.

R44 shows a pre-decimal meter: slots for a shilling (12 pence, written 1/-) or sixpence (written 6d). In those days, there were 20 shillings to the pound or 240 pence to the pound. The meter was a pay-as-you-go thing: the customer didn't get a big bill from the nationalized utility company not willing to extend credit. After decimalization, when R51's stay in London occurred, old people were still talking about the old money including shillings; shillings were out of circulation by then but the meters still existed. The new 5 pence coin (written 5p) was the same size as the old shilling so could be used in the meter instead of the old shilling. The old 6d coin was not replaced in the decimal currency. Decimal Day was 15 Feb 1971, supposedly the quietest day in the year for some reason.

R44 shows a pre-decimal meter: slots for a shilling (12 pence, written 1/-) or sixpence (written 6d). In those days, there were 20 shillings to the pound or 240 pence to the pound. The meter was a pay-as-you-go thing: the customer didn't get a big bill from the nationalized utility company not willing to extend credit. After decimalization, when R51's stay in London occurred, old people were still talking about the old money including shillings; shillings were out of circulation by then but the meters still existed. The new 5 pence coin (written 5p) was the same size as the old shilling so could be used in the meter instead of the old shilling. The old 6d coin was not replaced in the decimal currency. Decimal Day was 15 Feb 1971, supposedly the quietest day in the year for some reason.

R49, well, the utility company didn't have to worry about delinquent bills each month, and it saved HMO landlords the trouble of collecting utility fees and regulating use.

Can I still post?

You wrote,” Did women really look like that in the early 70s???“ Women, with no qualifier. You could have put some, but, no , you lumpedielumped just “women.” Learn to write with clarity, scemo.

Not getting the money stuff....but it is okay....

Sorry you're so bothered, R56.

The Archbishop of Canterbury Geoffrey Fisher denounced Dors as a "wayward hussy". Which makes her DL fabulous.

Diana Dors looked lovely with her natural brown hair. It brought out her best features. The Marilyn Monroe blonde hair was a disaster because it highlighted her flaws. She looked tawdry and fake during those years. I’m not familiar with her acting talent, but I read she was a good actress in her later years. In this pic, oddly, she looks more like young Marilyn Monroe; before Marilyn went blonde.

I met Diana once.

It was a charity event my mum organised. Strangely for me (a young gayling) I actually had the first inclination of straighthood (that I could be attracted to a woman) The fact she was my mum's age was irrelevant...

She was warm, kind and REALLY funny - and sexy as hell. Only a few months later she died

In her early publicity shots with fellow blonde glamour girl Belinda Lee, Belinda was clearly the beauty among the two. Miss Dors' face was always a little "off" to me, and she came across more as a nightclub hostess/gun moll type than an actual movie sex symbol.

I agree. She had a lovely body but the facial features were off.

WTF? Here's the proper link.

The two sons she had with Richard Dawson are not attractive.

I can only imagine what hell Diana Dors endured with Richard Dawson.

Hello?

Diana Dors is all over TCM right now. Just watched The Long Haul with Diana Dors and Victor Mature: it's good! Now they're going to show her in The Weak and the Wicked.

Catherine O'Hara is a national treasure.

Isn't sure German or something?

Loving her marathon.

Dame Sybil Thorndike excellent in The Weak and the Wicked with Diana Dors.

That ended up being a feel good movie.

Unlike Caged.