The Nun Who Co-Starred With Elvis

Benedictine Monastic for 45 Years, She Starred with Elvis on the Big Screen

Mother Dolores Hart

From The Tablet

By Father Frank Mann

As Dolores Hart, she was a well-known and successful actress of film, stage and television in the late 1950’s and early 1960s. As Mother Dolores Hart, a cloistered Benedictine nun, she has spent the last 45 years in monastic life at the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Connecticut.

Before entering into a lifetime contract with God in 1963, she earned the distinction of becoming the first actress to kiss Elvis Presley on the big screen in their first movie, ‘“Loving You” in 1957. The following year, she again starred with Presley in “King Creole.”

Ed Wilkinson Photos

Mother Dolores Hart, former star of stage and screen, speaks with The Tablet during an exclusive interview at Regina Laudis Abbey in Bethlehem, Conn. The interview was conducted through a traditional grille which separates the monastic sisters from the general public.

“Elvis was such a sweet, personable young man,” recalled Mother Dolores during an exclusive interview with The Tablet. “He would always call me Miss Dolores. The only other persons who called me that were Clark Gable and Mother Abbess when I was a postulant.”

“I must say, however, he was the most pleasant individual, very gentle and very dedicated to his dear mother.”

Although the two were still teenagers when they made their first film together, Elvis had already gained stardom with his rock and roll music.

“Because I co-starred with Elvis, people kept coming up to me asking if I could get them a lock of his hair!” recalled Mother Dolores with a chuckle.

She recalls an incident that describes the humility and thoughtfulness of Elvis. One day while filming “King Creole,” the streets of New Orleans were jammed with people trying to get a glimpse of The King. She hopped into the back of a limo with Elvis to drive to the movie set. A young girl put her arm into the slightly opened window of the car to try to touch Elvis as the car was moving.

“I remember so well my shouting at Elvis to tell the driver to stop the car. The driver didn’t stop. Elvis then grabbed the driver and shouted that he must stop the car immediately. Elvis got out of the car to check to see if the young lady was okay. He told the girl that he was not as important as she was.

“Later, when I was here at the Abbey, I received a call from that woman thanking me for what Elvis and I did to help her. It was evident that Elvis Presley was a very caring and self-deprecating individual.”

And as for that on-camera kiss? “It was the kiss that lasted over 45 years!” she says with an impish radiance that betrays the actress still in her.

On matters of religion, spirituality or faith, Mother Dolores points out that Elvis did not discuss such topics with her “but many times on the set, in between breaks, Elvis would ask me how often I read the Bible or if I had a favorite Psalm. He seemed to always want to know if there was a Bible around somewhere.”

Elvis loved to sing and record Gospel music. “Those spiritual songs had an unquestionable depth of soul to them,” she notes. “They were like incarnational expressions for all who heard them. Elvis no doubt touched something very deep in the heart and soul of so many individuals. He reached deep down into that place that awakened a call to Christ. I have no doubt that Elvis Presley made the Lord a reality for others not only in his Gospel music but in his countless gestures of generosity and caring compassion. People seemed to be called out of darkness by his voice in those songs of deep devotion, hope and abiding faith.”

When Elvis died, Mother recalled being “deeply, deeply pained. He was so talented, so glorious.”

Spanning a fulfilling and exciting six-year period, Hart worked with such Hollywood giants as Anthony Quinn and Anna Magnani in “Wild is the Wind” (1957) and Montgomery Clift and Myrna Loy in the memorable production of “Lonelyhearts” (1958). She was the top-billing actress in MGM’s highest grossing film of 1962, “Where The Boys Are.” “It was the one film in which I had the most fun. It was an absolute blast,” she said. In that film she co-starred with Connie Francis and the seemingly always tanned, George Hamilton.

Hart also played St. Clare in the film, “Francis of Assisi” (1961) and had a role in “Come Fly With Me” (1963) with Hugh O’Brian, Lois Nettleton (a lifelong friend of Hart) and Karl Madden. Other films to her credit are a western, “The Plunderers” (1959) with Jeff Chandler, and “Sail A Crooked Ship” (1962) with Robert Wagner.

On Broadway, she appeared opposite George Peppard in “The Pleasure of His Company,” for which she received a Tony nomination. Her television work included “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” “Playhouse 90” and “The Virginians.”

Being an actress “....was a definitive ‘call,’” explains Mother Dolores. It was her grandfather (a projectionist at a movie theater) who was the most influential person in shaping her impassioned acting career.

“Although I had always wanted to be an actress since I was seven years old, it was really my grandfather who truly encouraged me to be one. He was the ‘patriarch’ for me and was the primary source of my continued encouragement. I prayed and prayed for years to become an actress. Acting was in the gene pool of my family (her father was an actor), it flowed through our veins, it was in the blood for sure.”

She recalls the rather unpleasant divorce of her parents and the re-marriage of her mother.

Her major ‘break’ came when she was a drama student at Marymount College, Los Angeles, where she had received a full acting scholarship.

“At Marymount, in my freshman year, I was asked to star in a play about Joan of Arc. It was during the run of that play that I was asked to have pictures of myself sent to various producers.”

At the age of 18, Dolores received a phone call from movie producer, Hal Wallis of Paramount Studios. Hart adds, “I thought it was all a joke played on me. I guess the man upstairs just took all my acting ability and put it all together. Now I would guess that’s what some people see as getting the big break."

Mother Dolores Hart escorts guests on a tour of the Regina Laudis Abbey. Stops included the chapel, shown above during noontime prayer. The Abbey grounds also include an outdoor theatre that seats over 200 people. It continues to produce musicals and plays with the help of Mother Dolores. The grounds are also available for private retreats. For information about the Abbey and its gift shop which offers the Benedictine Nuns’ Chant CDs and DVDs, please visit their website at www.abbeyofreginalaudis.com

It was the call from Wallis that led to her role as the striking beauty in “Loving You.”

For Hart, the most gratifying part of being an actress was “getting the next role, always getting the next part” and the most difficult was “...coming to the end of a particular role.”

“I made so many meaningful and delightful friendships and relationships on the set,” she explains. “When those various venues of communications were over, it became a difficult and trying time for me. Even the characters that I played would come to an end. I remember when I played Lisa in the concentration camp in the film ‘Lisa’ in 1962. I had felt that I lost a sister in Lisa when the movie was finished. I had walked with Lisa for many, many days and now she was gone. It left me with a strange and rather empty feeling.”

At the age of 24, Dolores Hart startled the film world in 1962 when she left a thriving and beloved screen career to become a cloistered Benedictine nun. But it wasn’t an easy transition. “...It was like purgatory,” she says. “I felt as if I had jumped from a 20-story building into a pool with no water.” Many times, she felt that she wanted to run out of the monastery.

But she had entered searching for the “will of God” and she wasn’t ready to give up that easily.

Visitors to the austere environment of Regina Laudis might wonder why a young woman with her entire career ahead of her would give up fame and fortune to enter a monastery. It wasn’t because she was fed up with Hollywood or the stage.

“I came here initially at the suggestion of a dear friend. I had been on Broadway for nine months in ‘The Pleasure of His Company.’ I was weary, very weary.

When I came to Regina Laudis Abbey I just knew that this was what God wanted from me. I just kept returning again and again. I guess you might say that I really didn’t come here looking for anything. Rather, I was trying to understand why I was being led into such a place that was the shocking opposite of the life I was living. There was something about the vow of stability that monastic men or women take that was very significant for me. That vow gives one a place where one can find a still center in the midst of constant change. There is that still center in the midst of all that is so unsettling and what appears as seeming meaninglessness in a society that is losing its own sense of history and purpose.”

Asked to elaborate about her “nudge” from God to enter the cloistered monastic community, she added, “It is hard to explain. I guess the best way I could answer that this is this way: if one is married, why did one marry so and so and not another? If you have a beloved pet, why did that one pet enter your life and not another? It was the monastic life that found me.”

She rather amusingly produced her BlackBerry-cell phone. “You see this? Imagine if everyone in the world had one of these and was able to ‘clock’ into the Holy Spirit? But certainly I don’t really need anything like that to explain what I have now in my life.”

In response to a question about what truly makes her happy, she looked intently with her beautiful and tranquil clear blue eyes and said, “To be with someone I love.” The loving sparkle of her caressing gaze and smile still stirs the soul. Mother Dolores has seen the loveliness of the Lord in her life at Regina Laudis. Visitors still may be amazed at her choice of vocation and seek more of an explanation. But for Mother Dolores, no explanation is necessary.