Who was Dorothy Squires?

Very few young people know her name today, but Dorothy Squires was the singing sensation of the Fifties and Sixties, and even 30 years ago this talented but difficult star was a regular feature of the headlines thanks to offstage dramas and scandals. But who was the real Dorothy Squires? I first remember meeting Dorothy Squires, as she renamed herself, when I was only three years old.

Edna May (her real name) was born in Llanelli in 1915 into a poor working-class family. As a young girl working in a South Wales tin works, she dreamed of becoming a singing star, only to be ridiculed by all around her. At 14, her uncompromising spirit won her a spot singing with a local band. Her father was set against it but she defied his wishes and sneaked out at night to change in a phone box, before going on to do her gigs. The situation couldn’t last and soon she left for London.

Frightened and alone, she tramped the streets looking for work. She met and fell for the much older Billy Reid, a songwriter who became her lover and mentor. The partnership fuelled an international success story which lasted for 16 years. They had hits on both sides of the Atlantic - including "I'm Walking Behind You" - and lived to the full: a mansion in Kent, an apartment in Beverly Hills. The dream was shattered when Billy went back to his wife.

Dorothy Squires sings "Say It With Flowers"

In a vulnerable state, she met and fell for Roger Moore, then a struggling young actor 12 years her junior. So infatuated was she that she neglected her own career to promote his. She took him to America and began an uphill struggle to establish him on the international film scene. When they married in New York in 1953, she had only $8 left in her pocket, having spent all her money on promoting him.

She single-mindedly succeeded in setting her husband on the road to stardom, but the conflicts along the way were legendary. After eight years of marriage, Moore left her for a younger woman in 1961. Alone and broke, she had to pick up the threads of her career. It was hard; she had been out of the public eye for a decade. She approached the biggest showbiz agency in the country but they were not convinced that she could still hack it. No one believed in her any more – except, of course, herself.

Dorothy decided to go it alone. She did the unthinkable and hired the London Palladium. Everyone in the business thought she was mad, but it seems the public love a fighter and word of mouth gathered momentum and the show was a sell-out. Her performance won her a standing ovation and suddenly at the turn of the 1970s she was back at the top.

Dorothy’s elation was short-lived. Her beautiful mansion, the venue for so many famous showbiz parties, burnt to the ground in 1974. She was dogged by bad publicity: when the BBC payola scandal broke, her name was splashed all over the front page of the News of The World, linked with bribes paid to disc jockeys and the Janie Jones sex scandal. She was arrested and brought to the Old Bailey on corruption charges. She was acquitted, but it proved to be the beginning of her downfall. Her dependence on amphetamines increased and she became more and more paranoid and obsessed with litigation - in 1987 she was even declared a vexatious litigant - which left her bankrupt.

When evicted from her new home in Bray, Dorothy tenaciously broke back in, changed the locks and spent the loneliest Christmas of her life, barricaded in with only candles for light and warmth. In the end she was evicted and made homeless. A fan from Wales offered her the use of her house. The girl from Llanelli Tin Works was back in the valleys of Wales and still fighting, this time against the cancer that finally brought down the curtain on a remarkable woman’s life when she was 83.

• Say It With Flowers at Sherman Theatre, Cardiff from 15-25 May, then touring to Mold, Milford Haven and Llanelli