Diana Dors: Britain's Blonde Bombshell

Diana Dors is one of Britain's most celebrated screen actors. She was probably best-known in her lifetime as a 'blonde bombshell' and pigeonholed as Britain's answer to Marilyn Monroe. Changing circumstances forced Diana to be a queen of reinvention.

Her career embraced theatre, film, TV variety shows, easy-listening records, sitcoms, cabaret tours and even stints as a TV presenter and chat show host.

As a woman awaiting execution in the 1956 movie Yield To The Night, she is credited with giving one of the best performances in British cinema. Her death in 1984 from ovarian cancer, at the age of 52, prompted critics to speculate that her talent never quite found a proper expression.

Diana's private life was as well-known to the public as her career, given that she married three times and enjoyed numerous affairs. The bad behaviour of her first husband, Dennis Hamilton, wrecked her chances of Hollywood stardom, and led to the couple being kicked out of Tinseltown. In a bid to recoup money that Hamilton stole from her, allegedly at gunpoint, she sold the story of his steamy sex parties to a tabloid newspaper for £35,000. In turn, the Archbishop of Canterbury denounced her as a 'wayward hussy'.

This documentary charts the highs and lows of Diana's career, presenting her finest moments on screen alongside contributions from her surviving family, friends, fans and co-stars. We get to know the real Diana Dors and celebrate all that she achieved, from her big break with Sir David Lean in 1948, as part of the cast of Oliver Twist, to her final film, Steaming, released posthumously in 1985.