Dolores Hart

Dolores Hart (born Dolores Hicks; October 20, 1938) is an American Catholic Benedictine nun and former actress. Following her movie debut with Elvis Presley in Loving You, she made ten films in five years, including Wild Is the Wind (1957), King Creole (1958), and Where the Boys Are (1960).

At the height of her career, Hart left acting to enter the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Connecticut.

Early life Hart was born Dolores Hicks in Chicago on October 20, 1938. She was the only child of actor Bert Hicks and Harriett Hicks. Her uncle (through marriage) was tenor and actor Mario Lanza. Hart's father followed movie offers and moved his family from Chicago to Hollywood. Hart decided to become an actress after visiting her father on movie sets, including the film Forever Amber.

After her parents' divorce, Hart lived in Chicago with her grandparents, who sent her to St. Gregory Catholic School.

Hart converted to Roman Catholicism when she was 10. By age 11, she was living in Beverly Hills with her mother. She attended the all girls Catholic Corvallis High School. After high school, she studied at Marymount College near Los Angeles where she was spotted by an agent of Hal Wallis in a production of Joan of Lorraine. She starred in the film Francis of Assisi in 1961, in which she played Saint Clare of Assisi. While working on the movie, Hart made a sketch of a St. Francis statue. She not only left behind her fiancé, she left her acting career as well.

Even though she broke off her engagement to Los Angeles architect Don Robinson (April 16, 1933 – November 29, 2011), they remained close friends: she admitted she loved him — "Of course, Don, I love you." But, Robinson said: "Every love doesn't have to wind up at the altar." He never married, and visited her every year, at Christmas and Easter, at the abbey in Connecticut, until his death.

Among the films Hart turned down were Honeymoon Hotel and Bedtime Story. Filmink argued: We doubt that she would ever become a big star – Hollywood was too geared against women stars in the late 1960s unless you could sing, and all Hart's contemporaries found things harder as the decade went along. However, she was beautiful, warm and could act – she would have had a life-long career. We can see Dolores Hart in a hit sitcom, a string of interesting TV movies and some theatre work, as well as the inevitable guest shots on The Love Boat and Fantasy Island.

Hart initially took the religious name Sister Judith, but she changed it to Sister Dolores for her final vows to please her mother. She chants in Latin eight times a day.

Hart visited Hollywood again in 2006, after 43 years in the abbey, to raise awareness for idiopathic peripheral neuropathy disorder, a neurological disorder that afflicts her and many Americans. In April 2006, she testified at a Washington congressional hearing on the need for research of the painful and crippling disease amid her ordeal.

Hart was instrumental in developing the Abbey of Regina Laudis's project of expansion of its community connection through the arts. Paul Newman and Patricia Neal helped support the abbey's theater. Hart's vision was the development and expansion of the abbey's open-air theater and arts program for the Bethlehem community. Every summer, the abbey's nuns help the community stage a musical.

On October 4, 2008, the Holy Trinity Apostolate, founded by John Hardon, sponsored a "Breakfast with Mother Dolores Hart" at the Royal Park Hotel in Rochester, Michigan. Hart gave a speech titled, "He Led Me Out into an Open Space; He Saved Me because He Loved Me: The Journey of Mother Dolores Hart to Regina Laudis".

When she joined the Bethlehem abbey in 1963, Hart disciplined herself under the Rule of Saint Benedict.

A documentary film about Hart's life, God is the Bigger Elvis, was a nominee for the 2012 Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject) and was shown on HBO in April 2012. Hart attended the 2012 Academy Awards for the documentary, her first red-carpet Oscar event since 1959.

Hart's autobiography, The Ear of the Heart: An Actress' Journey from Hollywood to Holy Vows (Ignatius Press), co-authored with Richard DeNeut, was released on May 7, 2013.

Filmography

The seven ages of Elvis is a 90-minute UK feature documentary produced and directed by David Upshal, and broadcast by Sky Arts to mark the 40th anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley.