Oscar Profile #149: Dolores Hart

Born October 20, 1938 to actor Bert Hicks and his former actress wife, Harriett, who divorced when she was three, Dolores Hicks, stage name Dolores Hart, grew up wanting to be an actress. Celebrated singer-actor Mario Lanza was her uncle by marriage, an Army buddy of her father’s who fell in love with Hicks’ sister Betty from a photo he carried of her.

Initially raised in Hollywood, young Dolores made her film debut at the age of eight in an un-credited role in 1947’s Forever Amber. She did not have a speaking part until ten years later. In the meantime she had moved to Chicago to be raised by her grandparents because of her parents’ continuing mental problems. There she attended a Catholic school, not for religious reasons, but because it was closest to her grandparents’ home. She converted to Catholicism when she was ten.

Dolores had her first speaking part as Elvis Presley’s love interest in 1957’s Loving You in which she gave him his first on-screen kiss. She quickly followed it with memorable performances as Anthony Quinn’s daughter in Wild Is the Wind, as Montgomery Clift’s love interest in Lonelyhearts and once again opposite Elvis Presley in King Creole. She took time out to play the ingénue in Broadway’s The Pleasure of His Company for which she received a 1959 Tony nomination for Best Featured Actress. Debbie Reynolds got the part in the 1961 film version opposite Fred Astaire.

By now a full fldeged star, she received top billing in the 1960 mega-hit Where the Boys Are opposite George Hamilton. Other roles followed including those of Saint Clare opposite Bradford Dillman in 1961’s Francis of Assisi and the Jewish refugee in 1962’s Lisa. Although it was widely believed to be her portrayal of Saint Claire that led to her becoming a nun, it was actually her portrayal of Lisa that convinced her that she had a higher calling.

Having visited the Abbey of Regina Laudis on a break from The Pleasure of His Company, she returned to the working farm and retreat several times before deciding to become a Benedictine nun in 1963. She became Reverend Mother Dolores, the Prioress of the Abbey in 2001. Her funding efforts on behalf of the Abbey have been supported by numerous show business friends including Paul Newman, Patricia Neal and Gary Cooper’s daughter, Maria. A voting member of the Academy, Mother Dolores views all screeners and shares most of them with her community of 38 nuns. Although she had retired from acting nearly forty years earlier, Mother Dolorees was once again in the Hollywood spotlight when God Is the Bigger Elvis, a documentary short about her life as a nun was nominated for an Oscar at the 2011 awards. It was released theatrically and on HBO in April, 2012,

In addition to her religious works, Mother Dolores is a spokesperson for peripheral idiopathic neuropathy disorder, which she suffers from, and for which has testified before Congress in an effort to obtain financial support for research. She published her biography, The Ear of the Heart: An Actress’ Journey From Hollywood to Holy Vows in May, 2013. She will be 74 in October.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

WILD IS THE WIND (1957), directed by George Cukor

Anna Magnani and Anthony Quinn were nominated for Oscars and co-star Anthony Franciosa was also nominated, albeit for his performance in that year’s A Hatful of Rain instead, but Dolores Hart also contributes strongly to this family drama in which Quinn marries his late wife’s look-alike sister Magnani and tries to turn her into her sister. Franciosa is the ranch hand Quinn raised like a son who falls in love with Magnani. Hart is Quinn’s college educated daughter who has a lovely scene with him near the end of the film. It’s an actors’ showcase.

WHERE THE BOYS ARE (1960), directed by Henry Levin

Hart, Paul Prentiss, Babara Nichols and Connie Francis are four very different girls looking for a good time on spring break in this major hit which spawned too many imitations to count. The boys they attract include George Hamilton, Jim Hutton, Frank Gorshin and John Brennan.

Connie Francis’ hit song pre-sold the film, but Paul Prentiss is generally credited with giving the film’s best performance.

FRANCIS OF ASSISI (1961), directed by Michael Curtiz

The first film allowed to be made on location in the Vatican controlled city of Assisi is a reverent account of the life of one of Italy’s two patron saints, Catherine of Siena is the other. St. Francis is expertly played by Bradford Dillman while Hart plays his lifelong friend and fellow saint, Clare, founder of the Poor Clares. Hart met with then Pope John XXIII whom she credits with fostering her vocation, but was not the deciding factor in her leaving her fiancé Don Robinson two years later to become a nun, that was Lisa made the following year.

LISA (1962), directed by Philip Dunne

Hart had one of her best roles as the title character, a young Jewish woman stranded in Holland at the end of World War II. Stephen Boyd is the Amsterdam policeman who risks his life to smuggle her into Israel. Hart credits her character’s triumphs over many obstacles and humiliations as the deciding factor in wanting to to become a nun, a dream she realized after completing and next and final film, Come Fly With Me and a guest starring role on the TV series, The Virginian.

GOD IS THE BIGGER ELVIS (2012), directed by Rebecca Cammisa

Nearly forty years after leaving Hollywood behind, Hart, now Reverend Mother Dolores, looks back on her decision and her life since. The film presents Mother Dolores and the other nuns in a more worldly light than most Hollywood films. The short, thirty-six minute film’s most poignant moments belong to Mother Dolores and her long ago finance Don Robinson who remained friends despite her leaving him at the altar. He visited the Abbey for 47 years and they spoke often on the phone. Their goodbye kiss is especially moving when you know that he died soon after.

The film’s Oscar nomination for Best Documentary Short proves that’s it’s never too late to be invited to the annual Academy Awards presentation.