In 1970 Dorothy had two more hit singles, with Till, which spent a further 11 weeks in the charts, and then with her powerful interpretation of the Frank Sinatra hit song My Way which took up a 23-week residency in the Top 50. Till had originally been a million-seller for American pianist Roger Williams, and the Carl Sigman-Charles Danvers ballad had previously been recorded by Tony Bennett and Shirley Bassey among others. However it was Dorothy who took the song to its highest-ever British chart position (until then). Dorothy was also the only female artist to have a hit record with My Way, despite competition from several others.
However Dorothy felt that despite this recording success she was being ignored by television and radio, and so she decided to take dramatic action. In November 1970 she called a press conference to announce that she would be hiring the world-famous London Palladium on 6th December, at a personal cost of £5,000, to stage her own concert. For a short time the cynics had a field day. One Fleet Street columnist, who will remain anonymous, sneered that Dorothy was “making the biggest mistake” of her life. However Dorothy had the last laugh – within hours of the Palladium box office opening all 2,300 tickets for the show had been sold, and she could have filled the venue several times over.
Dorothy walked onto the Palladium stage that Sunday evening and was greeted with a spontaneous standing ovation from the capacity audience. Amid cries of “welcome back” and “you belong here”, she gave the performance of a lifetime. Dorothy sang her heart out and was rewarded with several more standing ovations.
On the strength of this remarkable event, her recording of My Way raced back up the charts and she subsequently embarked upon a nationwide series of sell-out concerts. Dorothy also headlined at The Talk Of The Town nightclub in London again, and the double-album recording of the Palladium concert became a big seller. A year to the day after that historic Palladium concert Dorothy once again returned to the world famous variety theatre for another self-financed concert, which was again recorded for LP release. During another two-hour performance she virtually brought the theatre down with an electrifying Irony Of War medley, which included the show-stopping songs Maman, When The World Is Ready, and Where Have All The Flowers Gone?
Dorothy returned to the Palladium for a third concert in 1972 before switching venues to the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in 1973 (her performance there was also recorded for release as a double-album). She also booked New York’s Carnegie Hall, and the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles (the venue for the Academy Awards) for her own concerts. In July 1974 Dorothy returned to the London Palladium for a two-week season – and this time she didn’t have to book the venue herself. She had made her own point several times over, and agents and impresarios were now queuing up to book her.
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