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The whole town [Hollywood] was dead for me now. There were no plans for a new film. Socially I was no longer an interesting or even desirable person; just a blonde from Britain who made a bid for Monroe's title and lost the fight! There was only one thing to do, and dejectedly, on a grey November day, I flew home to England, vastly different from the star who had left in a blaze of glory months before. (Dors 1981: 167)
The way that she later recalled her departure from LA in her autobiography Dors by Diana suggests that the actress left in 1956 feeling deeply despondent. During that flight on 14 November, she had time to contemplate what the rest of her career might consist of now that her hopes of Hollywood stardom were dashed. She also had time to mull over how her five months in the USA had been transformed from the exhilarating high point of her career at the end of June to one of the lowest points in her life. Like so much about this ambitious and talented young woman, her fall from favour had been truly spectacular and, consequently, it was very hard to forget. Indeed, it would haunt her for the rest of her life.
Diana Dors’ film career was no different to most other movie stars in that it consisted of highs and lows. Almost every major star experiences troughs in her or his career, however great or versatile. The onset of middle age often diminishes a glamorous female star's output, reducing offers of work and undermining her appeal for most moviegoers other than gay men. This makes forty a turning point in the working life of most leading actresses. The tragic deaths of Marilyn Monroe in 1962 and Jayne Mansfield in 1967 at the respective ages of 36 and 34 cut short their film careers but also spared them from the ravages of time and the indignities of being ageing sex symbols. Diana Dors’ relative longevity, on the other hand, not only brought about the accretion of wrinkles and extra pounds of flesh but also made her a laughing stock as a grotesque blonde bombshell that had exploded in a most unfortunate way.
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