Dolores Hart had it all. She had successfully risen beyond small film roles into being a major starlet and had even locked lips with Elvis Presley in what would be Elvis’s first on-screen kiss. From her place high up in the Hollywood food chain, there were few places that Dolores couldn’t go.
To the shock of everyone around her, though, the one place she decided on would end up bringing her Hollywood career to a screeching halt. Why, exactly? Because Dolores Hart went to the Abbey of Regina Laudis, where she would become a nun.
The Early Life of Dolores Hart
Dolores Hart was born Dolores Hicks on October 20, 1938 in Chicago. Her parents, Bert and Harriet Hicks, had their eye on a career in show business and soon moved the entire family to Hollywood. Bert would receive some movie deals, but only ever as a bit player.
The interest in this career field may have come from Dolores’s uncle, Mario Lanza, who became quite famous during the 40s and 50s. Dolores’s parents would never reach the level of Lanza, but Dolores herself certainly would.
In Beverly Hills, the young Dolores would attend a girls-only Catholic school and then Marymount College after graduation.
During her college years, Dolores would finally take on her stage name that she would carry with her to her peak of fame–Dolores Hart. With her stage name, Dolores would get her first role and land a contract with Paramount.
More importantly, was her first lead male co-star–Elvis Presley.
The Filmography of Dolores Hart
Loving You, (1957)
Dolores’s first role was an unforgettable one. She plays a singer named Susie Jessup on tour with Deke Rivers, played by Elvis Presley. This is the film that would put her on the map because, at the climax of the movie, she would share a kiss with Elvis. It would be his first on-screen kiss.
She would rejoin Elvis on screen after two other films, starring alongside him in King Creole in 1958.
Francis of Assisi, (1961)
Notable in Hart’s filmography is the film Francis of Assisi, where Dolores would play a role that would eerily reflect her future choices.
In this film, which was based on the 1958 novel The Joyful Beggar by Louis de Wohl, Dolores Hart would play the part of the wealthy Clare. In the movie, Clare would give up all her worldly possessions to become a nun and would eventually go on to found her own order, the Order of Poor Clares.
During the filming, Dolores would get the once-in-a-lifetime chance to meet Pope John XXIII, and it would deeply affect her and the way she viewed her life as a whole. After meeting the Pope, Dolores began to want for something more–something completely opposite the glitz and glamor of the life she was currently living.
Just two years later Dolores Hart would follow in the footsteps of the character Clare and leave her budding stardom behind, give up all of her things, and become a nun herself.
Television Role in The Virginian
While not a movie, Hart’s part in the episode “The Mountain of the Sun” of the television Western series The Virginian is also notable because it would be the second time Dolores would depict a Catholic woman dedicating her life to God.
In this role, Dolores would play the part of Kathy Maywood, a Catholic missionary who fought to continue her deceased husband’s work of charity while also honoring her vows to God.
1957-1963
- 1957
- Loving You
- The musical where Dolores would first share the screen with Elvis.
- Wild is the Wind
- A romance film where Hart would only play a supporting role.
- Loving You
- 1958
- Lonelyhearts
- Based on a Nathanael West novel.
- King Creole
- Dolores’ second film with Elvis, a musical drama.
- Lonelyhearts
- 1960
- The Plunderers
- A Western with Dolores Hart in a starring role.
- Where the Boys Are
- Dolores played a leading role in this romantic comedy.
- The Plunderers
- 1961
- Francis of Assisi
- A biographical film about the life of Saint Francis of Assisi
- Sail a Crooked Ship
- A comedy featuring Robert Wagner and Dolores Hart in a supporting role.
- Francis of Assisi
- 1962
- The Inspector a.k.a Lisa
- A drama with Hart in the leading role about a young woman who survived the Holocaust.
- The Inspector a.k.a Lisa
- 1963
- Come Fly with Me
- A romantic comedy about three airline stewardesses.
- Come Fly with Me
Why Did the Actress Dolores Hart Become a Nun?
In 1963, Dolores Hart was becoming disenfranchised by her life as a movie star and felt a calling to dedicate her life to a higher calling. The problem was that not only was she still considered a rising star in Hollywood, but Dolores was also engaged.
Her fiance, architect Don Robinson, cared deeply for Dolores, and by all accounts, she loved him back. But whatever calling Dolores felt was stronger than her romantic affections, and despite still loving Don, she had to call off their wedding. Dolores was quoted as telling her ex-fiance, “Every love doesn’t have to wind up at the altar.”
The same year, Dolores starred alongside Karl Malden in the film Come Fly With Me, and she would quickly become close with Karl, his wife, and their two daughters. When Dolores made her decision to leave Hollywood, she first took all of her expensive things–purses, jewelry, and clothes–to the Malden house and allowed Karl’s young daughters to take whatever they wanted.
Dolores Hart would then leave Hollywood altogether and chose to join the Abbey of Regina Laudis permanently as a nun. She spent some years at the abbey before taking her final vows in 1970, keeping her first name and becoming Sister Dolores once and for all.
When asked why she wanted to leave stardom behind, Dolores would be quoted as saying, “I just knew that this was what God wanted from me.”
Her love of acting didn’t leave her after she took the cloth, though. Dolores would tell others that she felt she took Hollywood with her when she joined the abbey, and in 1986, she would found an open-air theater at the Abbey to bring her love of theater into her life as a nun.
She would go on to say, “It wasn’t until we started a theater on the Abbey land that I really could see how I could help young people find their vocation in Christ through the medium of the theater.”
Roles After the Abbey
In 2011, Dolores Hart would take part in a documentary about her own life called, God is the Bigger Elvis, marking her return to the silver screen, just in documentary style this time around.
She would also take part in a documentary about fellow actor Tab Hunter called Tab Hunter Confidential, and finally, a PBS documentary about Elvis Presley called The Seven Ages of Elvis.
