A religious role: Dolores Hart left films to become a nun

When Dolores Hart, 73, walks the red carpet at this year's Academy Awards as planned, no interviewer will need to ask who made her dress. She will be wearing her nun's habit from the Benedictine Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Conn., where she lives a life of contemplation and hospitality and is mother prioress.

Mother Dolores, as she is now known, is the subject this year of an Oscar-nominated documentary short, "God Is the Bigger Elvis," which airs April 5 on HBO. The documentary chronicles her life as a nun after a Hollywood career that saw her co-star with Elvis Presley ("Loving You" in 1957 and "King Creole" in 1958), Anthony Quinn ("Wild Is the Wind," 1957) and George Hamilton ("Where the Boys Are," 1960).

A Nun Returns to the Red Carpet -A Preview of ‘God Is the Bigger Elvis,’ Starring Dolores Hart

*snip*

The 35-minute film examines Mother Dolores’s transformation from a Hollywood ingénue and the recipient of Elvis Presley’s first on-screen kiss to a cloistered Benedictine nun at the abbey, where for the past nine years she has been the prioress, the second in authority below the abbess, Mother David Serna.

Scheduled to be shown on HBO in April, the documentary offers a first-time glimpse inside the enclosed abbey and tells the stories of several nuns who live there. It also reveals Mother Dolores’s poignant 47-year friendship with her former fiancé, Don Robinson, a Los Angeles architect, who visited her regularly until his death last year. But is it compelling enough to earn an Oscar? The nuns are praying it is.

Dolores Hart - 20/20 Interview

She was very close to the late actress, Patricia Neal, who converted to Catholicism before her death, and requested to be buried at the abbey grounds.

Mother Dolores Hart Talks About Patricia Neal, Gary Cooper

With Raymond Arroyo on EWTN (scroll up to 27:55)

What a lovely lady. I remember her being so graceful and refined. Extraordinary life calling and journey.

Thank you for posting this. And all of the links are worth reading. I did see the EWTN interview several months ago. I had occassionaly wondered what happened to her, usually coinciding with seeing one of her movies, and when I heard about her entring the convent, I was curious on why the decision. Now I know that she was following the path God intended for her.

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