In later life, Squires filed multiple frivolous lawsuits. She was banned from the High Court by 1982, and formally declared a "vexatious litigant" from 1987, requiring the court's permission to file any further cases. The legal expenses ultimately led to her bankruptcy.
Biography
Born in her parents' carnivalcaravan in Pontyberem (about 12 miles from Llanelli), Carmarthenshire, Wales, to a steelworker, Archibald James Squires, and his wife, Emily, she wanted a piano as a child. Her mother bought her a ukulele. While working in a tin plate factory, she began to perform professionally as a singer at the age of 16 in the working men's club of Pontyberem.[citation needed]
Career
While working as a nurse[citation needed] in London, Squires sought singing jobs; she met agent Joe Kay, who got her night time work in various clubs. Squires performed at an East End club that gave her the name Dorothy, which she liked and adopted as her stage name. Squires did most of her work with the orchestra of Billy Reid, who was her partner for many years.[2] After she joined his orchestra in 1936, he began to write songs for her to perform.[citation needed]
While working with Billy Reid, Squires lived in Brixton.[citation needed]
Roger Moore
Squires met the actor Roger Moore at one of her parties at her mansion in Old Bexley, Kent. Moore, who was 12 years her junior, later became her husband when they married in New Jersey on 6 July 1953. She later said, "it started with a squabble, then he carried me off to bed."[citation needed] She introduced him to various people in the Hollywood film industry. As his career took off, hers started to slide. Their marriage lasted until 1961, when Moore left her. He was unable to marry legally until Squires agreed to a divorce in 1968 – the day on which Squires was convicted of drunk driving.[3][4]
In 1971, she filed the first of 30 court cases over the next 15 years. In 1971, she successfully sued the News of the World over the story "When Love Turned Sour", and was awarded £4,000. In 1972, she took out a libel action against the actor Kenneth More, who had mistakenly referred to Roger Moore's girlfriend Luisa Mattioli as Moore's "wife" when he was still legally married to Squires. Michael Havers acted for Kenneth More, who won the case.[5] In 1973, she was charged with high kicking a taxi driver who tried to throw her out of his cab. She was also one of several artists charged with bribing a BBC radio producer as part of a scheme to make him play her records; the case was dropped.[6][7]
In 1974, her Bexley mansion burned down, from which she escaped with her dog and all her love letters from Roger Moore. She then moved into a house in Bray next to the River Thames, which flooded three weeks later.[citation needed]
By 1982, she had been banned from the High Court, having spent much of her fortune on legal fees. Her numerous lawsuits caused the High Court on 5 March 1987 to declare her a "vexatious litigant", preventing her from commencing any further legal actions without the permission of the Court.[8] In 1988, following bankruptcy proceedings, she lost her home in Bray, to which she returned the following night to recover her love letters from Moore. Her last concert was in 1990, to pay her Community Charge.[citation needed]
On 20 May 2013, a commemorative blue plaque was unveiled outside Aston House on New Road in Llanelli, where Squires and her family took up residence in her fifteenth year. Financed by Roger Moore, the plaque had been created 18 months previously. The unveiling was performed by Ruth Madoc, who was portraying the older Dorothy Squires in the play, Say It with Flowers, by Meic Povey and Johnny Tudor.[9] Following its premiere engagement at the Sherman Cymru Theatre, Cardiff, in 2013, the play toured across Wales.[10] A previous staged tribute to her, Dorothy Squires: Mrs Roger Moore, written by Richard Stirling and starring Al Pillay in the title role, premiered at the White Bear Theatre in London on 6 June 2012, with a subsequent engagement at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August that year.[11] Welsh singer-songwriter Christopher Rees wrote a tribute song to Dorothy Squires, 'Alright Squires', which appeared on his 2013 album Stand Fast.
^Davies, Hugh (10 October 2000). "Roger Moore pays wife £10m in divorce deal". Telegraph. Archived from the original on 27 October 2009. Retrieved 2 October 2010. When the actor Kenneth More introduced the couple at a charity event as "Mr Roger Moore and his wife", she sued him too, for libel.
^More, Kenneth (1978). More or Less. Hodder And Stoughton. ISBN978-0-340-22603-2. I received a letter from a firm of solicitors claiming that I had slandered their client, Miss Dorothy Squires, who was in fact Mrs. Roger Moore, in that I had called another woman his wife. At that time Louisa was not married to Roger, although she had borne him two children. I knew that he had been married to Dorothy Squires, but so far as the world was concerned, he was living with Luisa as his wife. I wrote a letter of apology, but the solicitors replied that this was not sufficient. Dorothy Squires was going to sue me in the High Court. I therefore consulted my old friend, Michael Havers (the future Attorney General). .... The jury took thirty minutes to decide what I had said was not defamatory ...
