In 1961 Dorothy teamed up with pianist Russ Conway to record one of her own songs, Say It With Flowers, which she launched with a huge party at her Bexley mansion. The single went into the Top 30 in August of that year and spent a total of ten weeks in the pop charts. On the strength of this, Dorothy became the first British performer to play London’s Talk Of The Town nightclub – quite an accolade as, until then, it had been mainly a headlining venue for top American stars like Sammy Davis, Lena Horne, Eartha Kitt, Tony Bennett and Sophie Tucker.
Sadly these personal triumphs were overshadowed by the break-up of Dorothy’s marriage to Roger Moore in 1961. The couple were not divorced until 1968, and the mid-60s were a bleak period for Dorothy, although she continued to release occasional singles, including Talk It Over With Someone, Whoever?, Are You?, Bless Your Heart My Darling, I Won’t Cry Anymore, Look Around, and Someone Other Than Me. Dorothy penned many of these songs herself and most of them were painfully biographical.
On Saturday 8th October 1966 Dorothy Squires returned to the Regal Cinema in Llanelli to record a semi-autobiographical live album, This Is My Life!, which was released by Decca the following year. This recording helped to set in motion an extraordinary sequence of events that ultimately were to make Dorothy one of the most controversial and talked-about show business personalities of the late 60s and early 70s.
Soon afterwards Dorothy recorded a new studio album Say It With Flowers for President Records – her first in almost a decade - which was released in 1968. It further helped to pave the way for her comeback. Dorothy started working on another new album, The Seasons Of …, which included an emotive interpretation of For Once In My Life. On 20th September 1969, For Once In My Life (which had been a hit for Stevie Wonder earlier that same year, and which Dorothy had been inspired to record after seeing Judy Garland perform the song at Judy’s ill-fated Talk Of The Town season in December 1968), entered the British Top 50 and eased its way into the Top 30, remaining there for 11 weeks. Dorothy was finally back in the limelight.
© 2004 www.dorothysquires.co.uk
