Death
Diana Dors died aged 52, on 4 May 1984, from a recurrence of ovarian cancer, first diagnosed two years before. Having converted to Roman Catholicism in spring 1973 following Alan Lake's release from a 12-month period in jail for affray, at her funeral she was dressed wearing a gold lamé evening dress with cape, and a gold "dors" necklace, which she was wearing when she died. After a service at the Sacred Heart Church in Sunningdale on 11 May 1984, conducted by Father Theodore Fontanari, she was buried in Sunningdale Catholic Cemetery.
After her death, Alan Lake immediately burnt all of Dors' remaining clothes, and then fell into a depression. On 10 October 1984, after taking their son to the railway station, he returned to their Sunningdale home, and undertook a telephone interview with Daily Express journalist Jean Rook. He then walked into their son's bedroom, and committed suicide by firing a shotgun into his mouth. He was 43. This was five months after her death from cancer, and sixteen years to the day since they had first met.
Her home for the previous 20 years, Orchard Manor, was sold off by the solicitors. The house's contents were bulk-sold by Sotheby’s, who sold off her jewellery collection in a bespoke auction. After solicitors' bills, outstanding tax payments, death duties, and various other outstanding cost distributions, the combined estate of Dors and Lake left little for the upkeep of their son (age 14), who was subsequently made a ward of court to his half-brother Gary Dawson in Los Angeles.
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“hung up like a pig on exhibit,
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hooked to your own weight,
jolting toward death under your nameplate.”
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