Rev. Mother Dolores Hart (born October 20, 1938) is an American Roman Catholic nun and former actress. She made ten films in five years, playing opposite Stephen Boyd, Montgomery Clift, George Hamilton and Robert Wagner, having made her movie debut with Elvis Presley in Loving You (1957). By the early 1960s an established leading lady, she "stunned Hollywood" by announcing that she would be giving up her career to enter a convent. She is now Prioress of the Benedictine Abbey of Regina Laudis in Connecticut.
I adored Hollywood. I didn't leave it because it was a place of sin.
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[when asked what it was like to kiss Elvis Presley onscreen in Loving You] I think the limit for a screen kiss back then was something like 15 seconds. That one has lasted 40 years.
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I just knew that this was what God wanted from me. I never felt I was 'walking away from Hollywood'. I felt I was walking into something more significant and by that, I took Hollywood with me.
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(When asked how she could go from kissing Elvis to becoming a nun): How much closer to Heaven can you get?
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I'd done two movies with Elvis Presley. I'd been around Hollywood for a while - and saw how needlessly competitive and negative it could be. It never held my interest.
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[on her life since becoming a nun] I have struggled with this call to vocation all my life. I can understand why people have doubts, because who understands God? I don't. When you are dealing with something at this level, you are dealing with mystery.
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[on her life before her vocation] It was not a lifelong dream. I did not grow up wanting to be a nun. I wanted to be an actress. If it had ever been suggested I would one day be a nun, it would have been the last thing on my mind. It was a million to one shot I would ever be a nun.
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Fact
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As the Rev. Mother Dolores Hart of the Benedictine order, she is prioress of the Roman Catholic abbey of Regina Laudis, in Bethlehem, Connecticut, USA. [November 2004]
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(1963-) Dolores Hart left Hollywood for good and became a nun. She entered the strictly cloistered Benedictine Regina Laudis Monastery, in Bethlehem, Connecticut, where she still is today.
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Attended St. Gregory Grammar School in Chicago, Illinois for 8th grade.
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Suffers from neuropathy, a crippling disease she has had since 1997.
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1957 Deb Star.
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She is now called Reverend Mother Dolores Hart, and is prioress of Regina Laudis (Queen of Praise) Abbey in Bethlehem, Connecticut.
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She received an honorary doctorate from Fairfield University in 2004.
$300,000
