The Ear of the Heart: An Actress' Journey From Hollywood to Holy Vows (23 page)

The
Film Bulletin
trade review judgment that MGM’s comedy was “surefire box-office magic” was prophetic.
Where the Boys Are
was a bona fide “sleeper”—the once-in-a-while movie that opens unheralded and ends up a commercial hit. It was MGM’s highest grossing picture of 1961.

Paula Prentiss got the lion’s share of good notices, but Dolores reviews fully justified her top billing, with
Box Office Digest
proclaiming, “Dolores Hart proves she is stellar movie material.” Mainstream critics were generous in their estimation that she was “refreshing”, “charming” and had a “bright future”. Columnist Sidney Skolsky labeled her “the Junior Miss Princess Grace”. The film went on to receive a Golden Laurel Award from the Producers Guild of America as one of the year’s top comedies.
Where the Boys Are
is now considered one of the classic teen flicks.

Dolores’ fan base had been building consistently since
Loving You
. Two studios, Paramount and now MGM, were forwarding bags of fan letters to the Hazeltine address. Going nuts trying to keep up with photo requests, Harriet was relieved when a woman by the name of Gladys Hart asked to create a national fan club. The official Dolores Hart Fan Club was formed, with Gladys as its committed president. Gladys became a friend whose relationship with Dolores continued after she entered the monastery.

Dolores’ social life was again in an accelerated mode. There were the usual potential suitors in the Industry and a couple outside the business, Adlai Stevenson Jr., the son of the two-time presidential candidate, and the young Aga Khan, son of Aly Khan, who, a decade earlier, had turned movie queen Rita Hayworth into a real-life princess. Then, one night Dolores went on a blind date.

Don Robinson was supposed to meet Dolores on two separate occasions before their actual meeting. He was a high school friend of Sheila Hart’s husband, Bob McGuire, and had been invited to their wedding in Santa Barbara but had been unable to attend. Another friend promised an introduction during the Broadway run of
The Pleasure of His Company
, but Dolores had left the cast before Don made the trip to New York. He also might have met her through Maria Cooper or Judy Lewis, both close friends of his, but neither had mentioned her name.

The introduction was finally arranged as a blind date by mutual friends Jody McCrea and Jennifer Lea. It was to be a double date with Jody and Jennifer, but at the last minute they had to cancel. Rather than miss another chance to meet her, Don kept the date with Dolores.

“When I picked her up at her West Hollywood apartment, Dolores wasn’t quite ready”, remembered Don. “There were clothes hanging on strings stretched across the living room. The place looked more like the home of a costume assistant than a movie star.” Don took her to dinner at a little French restaurant on the Sunset Strip. It was an evening when everything clicked.

Don put me in mind of John F. Kennedy. Not so much in looks as bearing. Like JFK, he was tall and lanky and had that same attractive brotherly quality that made girls like him. He also had a glint in his eyes
.

Don Robinson was a deeply religious Catholic who went to Mass almost every day. He was born in Los Angeles to strict Catholic parents who had married young and were still married to each other when death parted them. The family business, Robinson and Sons, was in moving and trucking. The foundation of the Robinson family was as solid as Dolores was shaky. As for the glint in his eyes, Don proposed to her on that first date—even before the salad had been served.

—
When he said, “You know, I’m going to marry you”, I was bowled over
.

   
I laughed, but just to keep the door open, I suggested he ask me again at a later time
.

We began dating, and I found that Don was basically one of the happiest persons I knew and, without a doubt, one of the finest. He was a fabulous catch. I can say that today because it is only in the light of consecrated life that one can see the grace of any man clearly
.

Don had been educated by the Jesuits at Loyola Prep and Loyola University. He graduated in 1955 and had already served two years as a second lieutenant in the Air Force when he met Dolores. “I had more than a passing acquaintance with show business,” Don said, “having dated several actresses, including Margaret O’Brien and Anna Maria Alberghetti, and working at the William Morris Agency for a short period—long enough to realize that the agency business was not for me. I had a deep-seated love for architecture and design, but when I quit William Morris I joined my father in the family business, giving vent to my dream by decorating my parents’ new home which appeared on the cover of one of the top shelter magazines of the day. That opened up another career as a designer and decorator.”

Don was a member of a social club that I found snobby—I think he did too—and the Bel-Air Bay Club, where everyone played tennis except me. I sat, as I did as a child, covered up with a towel. Our favorite times were just dinner together and a movie. And I was truly grateful that I had someone dear to me sitting beside me at Mass every Sunday. Sundays were reserved for dinners at the Robinson family home
.

—
I attended my second Oscar ceremony with Don. I joked that I didn’t want to go unless I could come home with an Oscar. And I did. I swiped the gold centerpiece from our table and put it under my coat. On the way out, I noticed Mrs. Charlton Heston had a centerpiece Oscar under her coat too. But hers matched the one her husband carried, unhidden, as the year’s best actor
.

Coincidentally, Harry Bernsen got his first look at my apartment. It put him in a state of shock. He insisted that I move into more suitable quarters immediately, something that said “rising young movie star”. Don knew of a beautifully designed Georgian building in Westwood with a vacancy. He helped decorate the space in Grecian mode—shades of white and my favorite color, lavender
.

At this time, Mom and Pop were finally divorcing. The “big house” was sold, and Mom moved into an apartment in Beverly Hills, but Mom and Pop continued to see each other—for Mom it was another case of “can’t live with him or without him”. Since the divorce had left her financially shaky, she went back to work, at first as a manicurist and then as an assistant to a tailor. Most importantly, she didn’t feel sorry for herself and was staying off the booze
.

The year 1960, which had gotten off to a shaky start personally and professionally, now offered optimistic change. Dolores had a new friend, a new beau and a new home. The
Playhouse 90
was a critical success, and
Where the Boys Are
was a commercial hit. Dolores was invited to become a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Harry Bernsen was braced for an onslaught of offers for his client, who seemed poised to become the cinematic successor to the actress she had been likened to since high school. Things were decidedly looking up.

—
So, of course, there was an actors’ strike
.

Twelve

Dolores took advantage of the strike to study, this time with Actors Studio mentor Sandy Meisner, who was conducting classes at the Twentieth Century-Fox acting school. Her fellow students were Don Murray, Hope Lange, Joanne Woodward, Richard Beymer and Diane Varsi.

While she was studying at Fox, the studio head, Lew Schreiber, contacted Phil Gersh to say he had seen Dolores in
The Pleasure of His Company
and was interested in signing her to a two-picture contract for $100,000. At the same time MGM, reacting to studio buzz about her performance in
Where the Boys Are
, began negotiating with Harry Bernsen for four pictures at a total of $250,000. The sums would be paid to Wallis, of course, who was paying Dolores $1,250 a week at that time. He could hardly afford to put her into one of his own pictures when he was making that kind of a profit loaning her out.

The proffered contract at Twentieth Century-Fox included the role of Saint Clare in its upcoming religious drama,
Francis of Assisi
, based on the book
The Joyful Beggar
by Louis de Wohl. Not only was it planned as one of the major films for the year—by the studio that had produced
The Robe
a decade earlier—but the entire production would be shot in Italy, with exteriors in the actual locales of Assisi and Perugia and interiors at Cinecittà Studio in Rome.

The fact that one of Dolores’ favorite films,
The Song of Bernadette
, had also been made by Fox figured into the mix, as did the circumstance that she would be working at both studios where her father had once been under contract. The strongest attraction, however, was the European location. She had never been out of the country and had long dreamed of seeing London, Paris and Rome. To say she was jubilant would not be overstating it.

I revered Saint Clare as a holy woman and respected the order she founded, the Poor Clares, but I didn’t have a personal devotion to her as a saint because my particular orientation was Benedictine. The Benedictines, I was pleased to learn, came to Clare’s personal aid during her flight from her family, which opposed her desire to become a nun
.

The first thing I did was read
The Joyful Beggar.
Then I enrolled in a Berlitz course in Italian. Next, I went to see Father Salazar, a priest I met at Sheila’s wedding, who had become a close friend. Father Sal had a parish in downtown Los Angeles, near Olvera Street, and had begun coming with me to see Mom. He was young and hip and didn’t scare her off with church posturing. She liked and trusted him. Lately, she had been bouncing back and forth between good days and bad. I would feel I could trust her one week and the next be afraid to go even a short distance out of town. It was an immense relief when Father Sal assured me that he wouldn’t forget her while I was away in Europe
.

Then, as quickly as it was on, the film was off. The studio pitched instead a bit of fluff called
A Summer World
, pairing Dolores with another young singer whose popularity had catapulted him into movies, Fabian. She was so disappointed that she rejected it, one of the rare times she did not cooperate with the management. To ease her frustration, she decided she needed to go somewhere. If not Italy, why not New York?

I had no sooner checked into the hotel than Harry called with the news that the Fox negotiations were on again. Before I could sigh with relief, however, everything was off again, apparently for good. It might have seemed funny, but when I was out the second time, I got mad. To heck with it, I decided, I would go to Europe anyway because it had always been my dream. With Paul Nathan’s help, I made all the necessary arrangements in a matter of hours and, with stuffed suitcase in hand, had a bon voyage dinner with Winnie in her Manhattan apartment
.

Winnie and her husband had barely poured the second martini when we discovered I was overweight. Well, not me, not on two martinis. The bathroom scales showed thirty-seven excess pounds in my suitcase and given that it would cost me eighty-seven cents a pound, we decided to remove thirty two dollars and nineteen cents worth. Out came the travel iron, a book on Umbrian civilization and my riding boots. Smaller items, such as the travel clock, umbrella and a one-pound guide to Europe were stuffed into the clothing I would wear or carry on the plane
.

Seven hours later I landed in France full of misplaced confidence that the gift of tongues had been miraculously bestowed upon me, until I was speeding toward Paris in a car arranged by Paul and didn’t understand one word the driver said in his flowing travelogue. I couldn’t get enough, however, of the beautiful way he said “Mademoiselle” before every exclamation. Soon I was checking in at the Palais d’Orsay, which I am embarrassed to admit I pronounced “Palace de Horsey”. The spacious lobby reminded me of hotels Ginger Rogers stayed at in her movies. I had $800 in traveler’s checks, one suitcase and shoes that hurt my feet. But I was in Paris!