Diana Dors and Ginger Rogers at Cannes, 1956 by John Chillingworth
"An enormous press party was held in the Crystal Room of the Sheree Netherlands Hotel, where we had a sumptuous suite, to introduce me to the American press, and I did my best to describe who I was, and had been, in England- long before Monroe was even heard of. But all the time her name kept coming up, for nothing I had done- apart from the Bob Hope TV special- meant anything to these hard-boiled American reporters. So different from the ones we left behind at home! Yield to the Night, the Cannes Festival, films, plays, variety- it all meant nothing as they compared me with her. This made me extremely insecure. For the first time in my life I experienced the sensation of people thinking and implying I had copied someone else to attain success. In the minds of the American press, and soon the public, I was merely some British blonde without any talent who had jumped on Monroe’s band-wagon. Even worse, to them I was a beginner in show-business!"–Diana Dors on being compared to Marilyn Monroe (Dors by Diana, 1981)
