THE NEW TV SERIES THAT CLAIMS TO TELL THE WHOLE STORY OF DIANA DORS - BRITAIN'S ANSWER TO MARILYN MONROE Blonde ambition.

Coventry Evening Telegraph

April 17, 1999

THOROUGHLY modern Keeley Hawes underwent a complete transformation to play the young Diana Dors in her pin-up days.

Her own dark hair was bleached white so it would not show through the 50-style wig and she had to wear contact lenses to change her own brown eyes to Diana's blue.

Most importantly of all she also had to pile on the weight to recreate Diana's generous curves. It meant eating a lot of junk food and led to Keeley tipping the scales at more than a stone heavier than normal.

''I loved putting on all that weight,'' she laughs. ''It was one of the most enjoyable experiences of my life.

''I had huge fried breakfasts and three course meals on location every day, and every time we had a coffee break I would eat as many doughnuts as I could manage.''

Keeley, whose other TV roles include The Beggar's Bride and Our Mutual Friend, was delighted with her new calorie-boosted figure and enjoyed throwing out the diet sheet for a while.

''I felt so much sexier with all those curves,'' she beams, ''I had spent so much time worrying about my weight as a model, that to eat what I wanted was a very liberating experience.

"People expect you to be rake thin these days, and yet in Diana Dors' day having a few extra pounds was OK.''

However, she had to quickly shed the excess weight after filming The Blonde Bombshell. ''I had to lose weight for my next role and that was difficult,'' sighs Keeley.

It wasn't just the curves that completed the Dors look. Make-up artist Paul Hayley, who had worked with the real Diana years ago, helped to create the authentic air.

''When I was first made-up as Diana it was quite scary as there was an amazing resemblance,'' recall Keeley.

''It sent shivers down my spine when I saw myself in the mirror.''

THE first memory Amanda Redman has of Diana Dors is of watching her famous film Yield To The Night at school.

39;'My class watched it as part of a project about capital punishment,'' she explains.

''Diana played a character on death row and I remember being amazed at how good she was.

"Until then I had only known her as a television star and just thought of her as someone who appeared on chat shows and game shows like Celebrity Squares.''

The former Dangerfield star has gone on from playing the love interest of the Warwickshire police surgeon to step into the role of Dors during her last years.

''It was the first role of my career that I took home with me,'' says Amanda. ''Normally I can leave a character on the set, but Diana definitely stayed with me and in some ways I felt that her presence was with me all the time that we were filming. She was definitely looking down on us.''

Playing a real person also had a big impact on Amanda in other ways. She found herself in the hospital where Diana had almost died and filming in many of her old haunts.

''We were shooting some publicity pictures at the house where Diana lived and everything was exactly as she had left it 15 years before,'' says Amanda.

''We were trying to recreate a picture that she had done 20 years before and someone just produced this blanket. As soon as we saw it we knew that it was exactly the same one as in the original shot and it was weird to think of her using the same blanket for the same picture years beforehand.''

The Blonde Bombshell is based on Diana's own autobiography Dors By Diana and is a project that has long been close to producer Trevor Hopkins' heart.

''I met Diana in 1984, just three months before she died,'' says Trevor. ''I was producing a show for LWT that she was a guest on and I was completely struck by her warmth and charisma.

''When she died a few months later I decided to find out more about her life.

''THE LIFE AND LOVES OF DIANA DORS

1931: DIANA Mary Fluck born October 23 at a nursing home in Swindon.

1946: ATTENDS drama school in London and lands a role in Oliver! Signs a 10 year contract with J Arthur Rank.
1947: GOES to Rank Charm School and wins parts in several more films including A Girl,A Boy And A Bike.

1949: FIRST leading role in Diamond City.

1950: RANK make Diana redundant.

1951: MARRIES Dennis Hamilton.

1954: A LULL in her career is followed by A Kid For Two Farthings. The police fail to ban her film Dors In 3D for being obscene.
1955: DIANA'S mother dies. A Kid For Two Farthings receives rave reviews and is followed by Yield To The Night.

1956. WINS Variety Club Award for showbusiness personality of the year and clinches three picture deal with RKO in America. Has an affair with film actor Rod Steiger andreturns to Britain following media outrage.

1957: DIANA and Dennis split up.

1958: TOURS variety theatres with Dickie Dawson in the Diana Dors Show.

1959: DENNIS Hamilton dies and Diana marries Dickie Dawson.
1960: DIANA gives birth to first son, Mark, and flies to America to star in a cabaret review in Las Vegas.
1961: DIANA returns to London and gives birth to second son Gary a year later.
1964: TOURS working men's clubs to earn desperately-needed cash.
1967: DIVORCES Dickie Dawson
1968: DECLARES bankruptcy and meets Alan Lake on the set of The Inquisitors. They marry in November.
1969: JASON Lake born on September 11.
1970: DIANA receives rave reviews for the Royal Court's Three Months Gone. Alan is jailed for being an accessory to a drunken stabbing.
1971: ALAN released from prison.
1972: DIANA and Alan renew their wedding vows.
1975: DIANA falls pregnant but the baby is stillborn.
1982: IS told she has cancer.
1984: DIANA dies on May 4. Alan says he has lost his soul mate and takes his own life on October 19.