DORA Bryan was such a regular in Dorset that many might have imagined it was her home.

The star, whose career lasted almost 60 years, appeared in so many shows and charity events locally that it was no surprise she was once reported to be house-hunting in the county.

In fact, the Southport-born actress – whose funeral takes place today – mainly lived in Brighton, but loved Dorset.

Born Dora Broadbent, the actress made her film debut in the classic thriller Odd Man Out, after which she appeared in a string of movies including The Blue Lamp, The Cockleshell Heroes and Carry On Sergeant.

The 1961 kitchen sink drama A Taste of Honey won her a BAFTA award, but she recalled years later: “I didn’t do another film for years. I suppose they thought I’d want too much money.”

However, she did become a chart-topping recording star thanks to the 1963 song All I Want For Christmas is a Beatle, and a big star on stage, especially in musicals.

She took a role in the pantomime Babes In the Wood at Bournemouth’s Playhouse, now the Wessex Christian Centre, in 1975, alongside Norman Vaughan and Billy Burden.

She was so busy locally that the Echo built an advertising feature around her that December.

She was pictured at the Hampshire Centre’s Woolco store, modelling a simulated fur jacket and hat (price: £26.50 and £6.49); at Southern Rentasuit at the Triangle; at the shoe department of Boscombe’s Co-Op; with a Daimler 4.2 Vanden Plas, the ‘prestige car for 1976’, at Spink Showrooms, Poole Hill; and trying a kitchen planning service at Homeware Exhibitions Ltd, Winton.

Bryan was back in Bournemouth for the summer season in 1979, playing Miss Marple in A Murder is Announced at the Pier Theatre.

A busy diary that summer included opening a bazaar at a Dorset County Council day centre in Garland Road, Poole.

The summer of 1983 saw Dora reunited with Billy Burden, alongside Wendy Richard of Are You Being Served?, in Let’s Go Camping, at the Pier Theatre.

Along with her husband – the former Lancashire cricketer Bill Lawton – she opened a fete for the Friends of Heathlands at the Fourways Centre, Constitution Hill, as well as a fete in Bovington and a fun day at Milborne St Andrew for the Stars Organisation for Spastics.

Along with her co-stars, she met around 40 elderly people at Bournemouth’s Alumhurst Road day centre.

She also opened Christchurch’s Regent Centre – but only after some confusion.

Bryan initially turned up at the Mecca bingo hall in Boscombe, instead of the former Mecca in Christchurch, which was now renamed the Regent Centre. “I don’t know where I am,” she told the audiences when she arrived.

In the meantime, the organisers had called on BBC Breakfast Time reporter Nigel Farrell, who lived nearby, to stand in, so the pair ended up doing the honours together.

That summer, Bryan was living in a luxury caravan at Coombe, Purbeck, and was reported to have looked at several properties in the Wool area in her search for a Dorset home.

In 1992, Bryan appeared in Kander and Ebb’s musical 70, Girls, 70 at the Pavilion. Her energetic performance at the age of 68 included doing the splits on stage.

Despite her astonishing fitness, she told the Echo she was often first in the queue at Westbourne chip shop Chez Fred. “One of my favourite treats is to stick a couple of tins of treacle syrup pudding in the oven and eat them with lashings of cream,” she added.

In 1996, she finally gave that performance at the Regent Centre – her one-woman show An Evening With Dora Bryan.

She told the Echo: “It’s the first time I’ve ever done anything like this. You have to be very brave to go out on your own without any support apart from a pianist, but that’s where experience counts I suppose.”

Asked whether she had thoughts of retirement, she said: “No, I’m still waiting to be discovered.”

Bryan was full of praise for Royal Bournemouth Hospital after she needed 17 stitches in one hand following an accident in January 1988.

She had been at a charity fundraiser and had invited co-stars Millicent Martin, Michael Medwin and Bernard Cribbins to her suite at the Royal Bath when she injured herself on a TV cabinet.

In December 1998, she starred in Poole’s panto Aladdin, playing Dizzy Dora, Slave of the Ring. One night, she accidentally threw a valuable ring into the audience while tossing fake gems to the audience.

“It was awful. I dropped the ring into my bag and without thinking, took it out with all the toy ones and threw it,” she told the Echo.

The ring was eventually found by usherette Audrey Hitchen, pictured above with Dora.

In the 21st century, Bryan became a regular on TV’s Last of the Summer Wine. In 2000, she presented certificates at Christchurch Volunteer Bureau’s Millennium Awards Day, saying: “I do voluntary work myself. I go round the old folks’ homes in Brighton. I say old folks but some of them are younger than me.”

By 2009, the widowed Bryan was suffering from dementia and living in a Brighton retirement home.

Her Bournemouth friend Tony Hardman, who had been publicity officer for the BIC and Pavilion, organised a gala show in London featuring Sir Cliff Richard, Sir Ian McKellen, Robin Cousins and Joanna Lumley. The magnitude of the stars turning out reflected her status in the business.

When she died on July 23 this year, aged 91, her friend and manager said: “She was razor-sharp with an incredible brain. You were always aware when you were with her that she had been a big star.”