Some other shows had over-the-top themes too, including Sophia Webster's "Dolly Birds of Paradise" spring show, that featured models in oversize birdcages sporting the only other tropical-theme heels that could rival Olympia's next season.
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The name of the group was suggestive of "dolly birds", a rather impersonal term which, in the 1970s journalist Christopher Booker associated with "girls [being] transformed into throwaway plastic objects".Booker, Christopher (1980) The Seventies, Penguin Books, .
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Author Terry Pratchett chose to name a part of his fictional city Ankh-Morpork on the Discworld "Dolly Sisters". The exploits of the Dolly sisters and their respective relationships with Harry Selfridge are chronicled on the TV series Mr Selfridge. It was indicated the expression 'dolly birds' arose from this period.
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Alan, Benny, and Rita hold auditions for dolly birds, hostesses and strippers at Benny's flat as the decorators are still at the club. Len asks Rita to drop the idea of being hostess. She wonders why he's changed his mind. Billy Walker (Ken Farrington) and Rita embarrass Len in front of Mayor Alderman Chapman at the opening of The Capricorn.
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The book is divided into 8 chapters entitled 'White slavery and the seduction of innocents', 'Unwomanly types New Women, revolting daughters and rebel girls', 'Brazen flappers, bright young things and 'Miss Modern', 'Good- time girls, baby dolls and teenage brides', 'Coming of age in the 1960s: beat girls and dolly birds', 'Taking liberties: panic over permissiveness and women's liberation', 'Body anxieties, depressives, ladettes and living dolls: what happened to girl power?' and 'Looking back'. The book is prefaced by an introduction.
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The series charted the ups and downs of two "dolly birds" sharing a flat on Liverpool's Huskisson Street, concentrating on the two young single women's dealings with boyfriends, work, parents and each other. Dressed in the best 1970s fashions, they looked for romance in a loose female equivalent of The Likely Lads. The pilot and Series 1 starred Pauline Collins as Dawn and Polly James as Beryl Hennessey. In Series 2, Nerys Hughes debuted as Sandra Hutchinson, replacing Dawn for the rest of the programme's run.
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Doris Hare was his Mum (originally played by Cicely Courtneidge), Michael Robbins his brother-in-law Arthur, Anna Karen as his plain sister Olive. Stephen Lewis as bus inspector Cyril Blake, usually referred to as 'Blakey', delivered the series' catchphrases "I 'ate you, Butler" and "I'll get you for this, Butler". Both Varney and Grant's characters were womanisers; it was a decidedly un- politically correct series, with women objectified and ethnic minorities used inappropriately for humour. As David Stubbs wrote for The Guardian in 2008, Grant and Varney were playing "two conspicuously middle-aged men" pursuing "an endless array of improbably available 'dolly birds'".
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After studying drama at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in Bristol, Steed left the theatre for several years. She stated: "Actresses in those days had to be "dolly birds" and I was just Margaret Baker from Plymouth, tall with very gappy teeth, so I became a secretary instead. It was only years later, when I'd grown up politically and become interested in theatre, that I started again and ended up at the Coventry Belgrade Theatre with Clive Russell and Sue Johnston."The Independent, 22 March 2000 Maggie Steed has worked on the stage, and has performed with the Royal National Theatre and Royal Shakespeare Company and as a comedian.
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From 1969 onwards, the fashion industry largely returned to longer skirts such as the midi and the maxi. Journalist Christopher Booker gave two reasons for this reaction: firstly, that "there was almost nowhere else to go ... the mini-skirts could go no higher"; and secondly, in his view, "dressed up in mini-skirts and shiny PVC macs, given such impersonal names as 'dolly birds', girls had been transformed into throwaway plastic objects".Christopher Booker (1980) The Seventies Certainly this lengthening of hemlines coincided with the growth of the feminist movement. However, in the 1960s the mini had been regarded as a symbol of liberation, and it was worn by some, such as Germaine Greer and, in the following decade, Gloria Steinem.
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These included "hiring dolly birds [pretty young women] for above the usual rate" for the visa department, although Murray said that the department had an all-male staff, and Murray was accused of granting British visas to Uzbek women in exchange for sex in his office. The FCO gave him a week to resign and told him that discussing the charges would be a violation of the Official Secrets Act 1989. Representatives of the US embassy in Tashkent and the British Foreign Office later denied the American government had any involvement in Murray being recalled to London. However, a "local analyst" in Tashkent told Nick Paton Walsh, that Murray and the American ambassador John Herbst (who left his Uzbekistan post in 2003) were regularly in heated disagreement.
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Wiggins, Lizzie, p. 113 There were initial fears that Richard's glamorous image would not work for the character and Smith also feared that Richard would be apprehensive about playing Pauline, who would be anything but glamorous, but these fears were swept aside when Richard announced that she was sick of glamour and wanted to play her own age. Richard has commented, "although it would be such a huge transformation of my screen image, it was after all my twenty-fifth year in showbusiness, and I'd realised that I couldn't go on playing dolly birds forever ... I knew right away I would be mad to turn down the part of Pauline." After she accepted the role, Richard was told by Julia Smith that she would have to change her appearance, to make it more in keeping with Pauline's unglamorous lifestyle.
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