At the height of her career, Dolores Hart left acting to enter the Abbey of Regina Laudis monastery in Connecticut.
20 Facts About Dolores Hart
2.
Dolores Hart's father followed movie offers and moved his family from Chicago to Hollywood.
3.
Dolores Hart decided to become an actress after visiting her father on movie sets, including the film Forever Amber.
4.
Dolores Hart was related by marriage, through an aunt, to singer Mario Lanza.
5.
Dolores Hart would watch the films, but without sound so as not to disturb his naps in the booth, and her job was to wake him at the end of each reel.
6.
Dolores Hart has denied ever having had an 'intimate' relationship with Presley off-screen.
7.
In 1960, Dolores Hart starred in Where the Boys Are, a teenage comedy about college students on spring break, which developed a near cult-like following.
8.
Dolores Hart starred in the film Francis of Assisi in 1961, in which she played Saint Clare of Assisi.
9.
Dolores Hart made a sketch of a St Francis statue, arms outstretched, while working on the movie.
10.
In 1963 Dolores Hart appeared as Kathy Maywood on The Virginian in the episode "The Mountain of the Sun".
11.
Dolores Hart played a Catholic missionary, who against all warnings risks her life to honor both her vows to God and her desire to continue her dead husband's work to help a community of poor and sick embattled Indian tribes.
12.
Dolores Hart adored the Maldens' children and quickly became like a member of the family.
13.
Dolores Hart said she was moving away and that it was "an affair of the heart".
14.
Dolores Hart initially took the religious name Sister Judith, but she changed it to Sister Dolores for her final vows.
15.
Dolores 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.
16.
Dolores Hart, who was compared to Grace Kelly, was instrumental in developing the Abbey of Regina Laudis's project of expansion of its community connection through the arts, using her fame.
17.
Dolores Hart was named prioress of the monastery in 2001, after the election of Mother David Serna as second abbess of Regina Laudis, and held that office until 2015.
18.
Dolores Hart remains a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, having in recent years become the only nun to be an Oscar-voting member.
19.
Dolores Hart often appears in public wearing a beret on top of her habit.
20.
Dolores Hart attended the 2012 Academy Awards for the documentary; her last red-carpet Oscar event had been in 1959 as a Hollywood starlet.