The Ear of the Heart: An Actress' Journey From Hollywood to Holy Vows (28 page)

Grandpa always said Sister Dolores Marie would probably pray him into Heaven. I think she did. As a boy he regularly went to early Mass before he began his paper route, but somewhere down the line he lost his faith, and Sister spent years praying that he would return to it. She told me she was gratified that he experienced a conversion at the end. Her words “at the end” troubled me for a long time. Was it “the end”
?

I arrived at the monastery with my mind cluttered with garbage that can filter out the silent beauty of the place. I had left five hundred bucks in traveler’s checks at the hotel and couldn’t get out from under the ridiculous bother of that. At the monastery, one’s selfishness is so apparent. Vanity becomes a piece of fat that can’t be digested. Even if it is spat out, the disgusting evidence is too ugly to face. There it made me feel unreal—phony
.

“By this time,” said Mother Placid, “it was no secret that our regular guest was a famous actress, but to my knowledge no one in the Community had ever seen her on the screen. I would never have asked to see one of her movies, but Mother Maria Joseph, who was in charge of our monastic art shop, was less inhibited. Once, when Dolores was in the shop, Mother Maria Joseph said she was sure the Community would appreciate seeing one of her films.”

I was surprised but, frankly, pleased by her request, and I asked Fox if a screening of
Lisa
might be arranged. I thought it would be the most appropriate of the movies I had made, and it was the one of which I was most proud
.

As before, I met with the nuns in parlor through the grille. Mother Columba had become solicitous of my privacy and assumed a protective attitude. She was very dear, so concerned about keeping my visits a secret that, when we would meet in Saint Placid, one of the three parlors, she would always remove her cloak and hang it over the window that looked out onto the road to keep prying eyes from peering in. It was the era of
La Dolce Vita
and the rise of the paparazzi, but I couldn’t fathom how she knew about such things
.

—I think she just enjoyed the dramatics of it
.

I stayed mostly to myself. I walked in the woods and sat in sunny green fields watching lazy clouds overhead and wondering whether I would be able to come to grips with my life. Hours passed in a strange calm—one that preceded a terrible storm? I sat in the sun like a lizard waiting, waiting. I began a diary
:

Lately, in much company, I can hardly wait for solitude. Yet in my own company, the time does not pass quickly enough. Is it loneliness I want to leave or learn to embrace? Comradeship that I am looking for or fleeing from? I wonder, what would it be like to be free to exist solely to find God? But, would I know what to do even then?. . . I want so desperately to run away from this place—but to where? Back to the wasting of moment to moment, awaiting the temporal alleviation of boredom by trivial excitement? No, I must stay here and wait for another signpost. Listen, you fool. But to what am I listening
?

I pondered the strange new awakening in my heart that cried for explanation. I had been so relieved that I hadn’t had one of those “visitations” during
Lisa.
Yet I couldn’t get Stephen’s words out of my mind: “You’re marked.” He had spoken softly but with such sureness
.

When I returned to Los Angeles, I began to realize that the elan I once carried back from Regina Laudis was no longer transportable. The all-embracing experience of peace that I had been able to leave with, I was unable to take with me now. The absence of these consolations was so intense, I ached. All that I could hope for was a little grace
.

Sixteen

Catholics of the Motion Picture, Radio and Television Industry handed out annual awards—gold medals of Saint Genesius, the patron saint of actors—to show appreciation to outstanding members. The occasion for the award-giving was James Francis Cardinal McIntyre’s annual Hollywood Communion Breakfast, which featured a parade of Catholic movie stars whom we in the press referred to as the “Catholic Mafia”.

The breakfasts began in 1951 and migrated from a small affair at the Jesuits Church of the Blessed Sacrament to the Beverly Hilton Hotel. At her first breakfast in 1958, Dolores was introduced to a Mrs. Tom Lewis and told her how much she looked like Loretta Young. Mrs. Tom Lewis
was
Loretta Young.

At the eleventh gathering in 1962, Dolores received a medal and was one of two speakers; the other was Clare Boothe Luce, the writer not only of
Come to the Stable
but also of the hit Broadway play
The Women
.

Dolores message was to urge the Industry to maintain a high standard of morality while fulfilling its role in the worldwide communications sphere, but she veered from her text and reminded the starry audience of a more personal responsibility:

Our problems, worries, frustrations are nothing but pride. Every one of us has too much pride to put our trust in God. No matter who we are, no matter how big a star, we must trust humbly in Him and by doing so, we will reach that ultimate reality which is in Him.

The stars in the audience—Jane Wyman, Pat O’Brien, Jimmy Durante, Rosalind Russell, Ricardo Montalban and Ramon Novarro, as well as two close friends now, Loretta Young and Irene Dunne—rose to pay tribute to the young actress.

Although I would look forward to the times when Don and I would be together, I was always on guard. Was I avoiding the prospect of marrying Don or the prospect of marriage itself? Looking back, my deeply unsettled feelings about a vocation wouldn’t allow me to make any commitment unless I was backed into a corner, which certainly wasn’t the most encouraging proposition for Don, or the most flattering. His patience was wearing thin, and he deserved to have some indication that my feelings would be resolved one way or another
.

I did have a practical reason for pushing back the thought of marriage. I had a real conscience problem about being a good wife and mother and at the same time having the kind of career I knew I wanted. This was something I would have to work on during our upcoming separation. I was set to do another film for MGM that would take me to Europe in the spring, and Don had issued an ultimatum. He felt it would be wise for us not to have any communication with each other while I was in Europe
.

In Europe I plunged feverishly into work. Still, Don lingered in my thoughts. Several times I would start to write him and then remember I wasn’t supposed to. I wished for the phone to ring and to hear his voice at the other end. But Don stuck to his self-imposed quarantine
.

Come Fly with Me
is a pleasant, if routine, addition to the enduring Hollywood formula of three pretty girls in search of love and security. Lightweight but attractively cast, with travelogue-like locations in London, Paris and Vienna, it marked the second time Henry Levin directed Dolores, who was again top billed, not a small consideration in the Industry, in which billing is currency.

Dolores, Pamela Tiffin and Mariette Hartley were cast as three airline stewardesses on a New York-to-Europe run who are looking for Mr. Right, played by Karl Boehm, Hugh O’Brian and, surprisingly, Karl Malden, whose presence made the movie look more substantial than it was.

With their shared theater backgrounds, Dolores, Mariette and Malden rehearsed unofficially for a few weeks prior to production, frequently at Malden’s Brentwood home. Years later Mariette recalled, with lingering disappointment, that she was replaced just before shooting began. “The physical required by studios for insurance purposes showed I had hepatitis. A subsequent examination proved I had been misdiagnosed, but by then it was too late.” A talented New York actress, Lois Nettleton, had stepped into the role. Mariette lost the part, but her budding friendship with Dolores was only put on hold.

The company was probably the happiest I had ever worked with. Pamela and I bonded quickly at Grace Down’s Airline School in New York, where we took classes to prepare for our roles as flight attendants
.

Pamela Tiffin recalled, “It was only my fourth film, and Dolores was so experienced. I looked up to her. She was decent and sensible—and a bit of a smart aleck, which I liked. She was fresh bread.”

Pamela was surprised to learn that Dolores had tested for her role in
Summer and Smoke
. “She never mentioned it. And she was so helpful to me, not the least bit competitive or jealous. Well, that was Dolores. I used to think, if we had to send a perfect example of American womanhood to Europe, it would be Dolores.”

During the early days of production, Twentieth Century-Fox came through on my request to screen
Lisa
at the monastery. I must say, the studio was very generous. They sent not only a 35 mm print, but a screen, a projector and a projectionist as well
.

“It was quite unusual”, Mother Placid remembered. “Movie showings were extremely rare, and we had never had a professional projectionist. The two movies we had seen were on a tiny black-and-white television set. We were in the midst of building a new wing in the monastery, and we were practically outdoors. We had to wait until it was dark to begin. We sat on boards placed across the holes in the floor. Most of the Community was present and found the film very moving, but there were some women who preferred not to attend.”

Although Mother David, the nun who had months before directed Dolores out of the enclosure, shared her sisters’ opinion that movies had no place in contemplative life, she did attend, but she sat with her back to the screen.

Mother David recalled, “I had left the world and had come to this Community, which was very eremitical in its orientation, with this desire for a purity of life, so, yes, I was making a protest. I sat in a window frame and looked out. Of course, I heard the whole thing and was intrigued.”