The Ear of the Heart: An Actress' Journey From Hollywood to Holy Vows (29 page)

Three lifelong friendships were born during the making of
Come Fly with Me
. One was with Lois Nettleton, who made her movie debut in that film. “I was intimidated at first”, Lois recalled. “I was so new to films and Dolores was a star. I was cast late and rushed to the Paris location where filming had already begun. I didn’t even have time to pack properly and had only one nice dress with me. Dolores was an absolute darling. For the first week or so, she loaned me her clothes like we were old roommates.”

Dolores didn’t speak of her visits to Regina Laudis to many people. Lois was one with whom she did share her feelings about the monastery. “I was a lapsed Catholic when I met Dolores. She told me that whenever things got a little rough, when she needed some comfort, she went to Regina Laudis. ‘Don’t forget this,’ she said, ‘if ever life gets too much for you, they’ll look after you. They’ll put you up and you can refresh yourself.’ I’ve followed that advice many times.

“In Vienna we were all invited to a prince’s birthday party at a castle. I remember we met Peter Sellers that night, and he monopolized Dolores. He had seen an early screening of
Lisa
and told her he wanted to find something they could do together.”

When the company moved to London, Dolores received a script from Sellers and, a few days later, a call—presumably to see if she had read it, but actually to ask her on a date.

I accepted his invitation to go to the Ascot races, and it was a fun afternoon that stretched out to include dinner at a very “in” place. Afterward, we went to his Dorchester hotel suite, where there was a party going on. It was London in the Swinging Sixties, and I felt out of place, but it wasn’t until a young waiter leaned over and whispered to me, “Miss Hart, I don’t think you should be here”, that I realized what kind of a party it was and slipped out
.

Sellers called her later to apologize and asked her out again. They had dinner in a small, quiet restaurant this time, much more to her liking, and at the end of this pleasant evening, he saw her to her flat. At her door, Sellers asked to come in, but she begged off, saying she had an early call.

Sellers then asked for a glass of water. Dolores went to the kitchen, and when she returned with the water he was gone. Bewildered, she locked the door, kicked off her shoes and went into the bedroom. There, waiting in her bed—starkers—was Sellers.

It was a scene in a farce, and I couldn’t help laughing. Peter said it would be a lovely way to end the evening and insisted—somewhat immodestly, I thought—that it would be the experience of a lifetime for me. I asked him to leave. Peter politely conceded and—now suddenly modest—asked if I would turn my back while he got dressed
.

When he came into the living room he shook my hand very formally and said good night. Billy Wilder couldn’t have written it better. Actually, we did have dinner several more times, but we never repeated that scene. We maintained a friendly—and decent—relationship
.

The second person with the film in whom Dolores confided was pert and pretty Valerie Imbleau. Val was a purser for Pan American World Airlines on a flight from Istanbul to London when Henry Levin was a passenger. Levin took a shine to her and asked if she would like to be technical consultant on
Come Fly with Me
. Val saw no way the airline would grant her a leave of absence; consequently, Henry got MGM to contact Pan Am. The next thing Val knew, she was on the company’s Vienna location.

Val was immediately embraced by the entire cast, but a firm bond was formed with Dolores, whom Val thought of as “the great listener, the great empathizer”. Dolores called Val her “little sister”. They shared a deep spirituality, and when Dolores spoke of Regina Laudis to Val, she planted a seed that would have an unexpected yield.

Karl Malden was the third lasting friend Dolores made during the filming of that movie. Dolores had admired Malden’s work; the mere fact that he was in the cast, she felt, continued her good luck of working with the best.

More than forty years after they worked together, Malden reminisced, “She was more than a friend. She was family. During filming in Paris, I had my wife, Mona, and daughters, Mila and Carla, with me; and whenever Mona and I wanted to go out, Dolores babysat the girls.”

—
It was like being with girlfriends. If we stayed in, I would tell them ghost stories, and when we went out, it was usually to shop. There’s no better place to shop than Paris
.

“Dolores”, Malden told me, “had a lot of talent, but she had something extra. I’m referring to the fifty percent needed for the audience to like you. She had that. She could have been as big as Elizabeth Taylor. But ultimately, she didn’t belong in that environment, not with the kind of heart she has. I love her for her decision. I always felt she wanted to be taken care of. She now takes care of others. And I’m sure she’s good at that because she understands the need.”

With continued press interest in Dolores, and since she was constantly on loan-out from Wallis, it was decided that she should get a personal press agent rather than rely on the studio. Her present salary of $3,000 a week permitted the extra expense, and Harry felt it was necessary not only to keep her in the public eye, but to ensure that her name was kept in front of producers, too. Veteran publicist Frank Liberman was hired, though at first he didn’t want the job. “I once handled Shelley Winters and didn’t much like representing actresses”, he said. “When it comes to paying me or buying a new dress, the new dress always wins out.”

Meeting reporters was always a bit of a fencing match, but I learned to enjoy sparring over provocative questions rather than becoming argumentative. I could always count on reporters to ask old-hat questions such as, “What kind of books do you read?” Since I was into the works of Teilhard de Chardin and Saint Thomas Aquinas, the discussion would usually open up the area of personal belief. I became very conscious that I could utilize interviews to promote Catholic action
.

I really thought that might be my place in God’s scheme—to throw light on the Church. I hadn’t experienced one of those “hauntings” during the production of
Come Fly with Me.
Unless you count the day I picked up a Paris newspaper whose headline read, “Marilyn Monroe Morte”. That news affected me more profoundly than I would have expected, and for the rest of the filming those old questions, the ones whose answers had been withheld—or avoided—troubled me: What am I doing? Where am I going
?

Come Fly with Me
hit the top-ten moneymakers the week of its opening in seventh place, just below
To Kill a Mockingbird
and above
The Longest Day
. Reviews were mixed. Bosley Crowther in the
New York Times
called it “bright, colorful and fun”. The
Daily News
added “appetizing”. The
Hollywood Citizen News
called it “the kind of film Ernst Lubitch used to do”.
Time
, on the other hand, warned that it boasted dialogue “right out of a high school play”. But the cast came off well with Dolores rating high compliments, from “a delectable sugar-coated pastry” to “one of our more exciting young actresses”. The only out-and-out knock she got was for the awkward way she smoked a cigarette in the movie. Ironically, that role got Dolores—a confirmed nonsmoker—listed on the website
starswhosmoke.com
.

Seventeen

“
When I marry, it will be for all time
.”

That was what I told Louella Parsons, arguably the queen of the gossip columnists in those days, during an interview just after I returned from Europe. I didn’t have a dewy-eyed concept of marriage that young girls usually have. I balked at the notion that a woman is incomplete without the love and companionship of a man. Don thought I was afraid of marriage because of my father’s behavior. I thought he could be right. Deep hurts don’t heal easily
.

Don remembered that, at their first meeting, Dolores spoke of her visits to Regina Laudis during her year on Broadway. “I knew when I started to date her that she had had feelings about a vocation. She told me about her visits to the monastery, but I didn’t give them a second thought.”

It was what she didn’t say that was important. She did not tell Don about her subsequent visits after she had moved back to Los Angeles.

When
Come Fly with Me
finished, Granny joined me on a motor trip to Rome with Henry and Ethel Levin. We had a brief stopover in Monte Carlo, where I won at roulette and thought of how happy Tony Quinn would be now that I was legal. In Rome I rendezvoused with Harry Bernsen, a very happy agent indeed, who had a small fistful of film possibilities. So, in the summer of 1962, I wasn’t concentrating on my love life. I was riding high on my career
.

How could she not feel confident? Wherever she turned she heard herself referred to as “the new Grace Kelly”. Even in Monte Carlo, people stopped in their tracks and stared when she entered the casino. Dolores was dressed to the teeth—in the mink, of course, and very blond—but she had never incited that kind of reaction before. The gambling tourists had mistaken her for Kelly, and the shocked reaction was because the princess never set foot inside the casino.

MGM was eager to rush her into another Henry Levin project,
Honeymoon Hotel
, as her third film on the four-picture deal. It was a vapid comedy that featured Robert Goulet in his movie debut and Robert Morse, riding the crest of his breakout Broadway appearance in
How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying
. Additionally, Dolores’ boss, Hal Wallis, finally had something for her to do. After threatening to regress her career by teaming her again with Elvis Presley in
Girls, Girls, Girls
, Wallis instead penciled her in for the second lead in
A Girl Named Tamiko
for director John Sturges.

Earlier in her career, any movie had seemed okay to her. Now she was beginning to set her sights on better films. Wallis had also just purchased film rights to the Neil Simon play
Barefoot in the Park
, a hit on Broadway with Elizabeth Ashley and the young actor who had been passed over to replace George Peppard in
Pleasure
, Robert Redford. It wouldn’t go into production for many months, but Dolores already coveted the Ashley role in spite of Paul Nathan’s cautioning her not to hold out hope because Wallis wanted Jane Fonda.

I returned to LA just before my twenty-fourth birthday. It had been weeks since I had seen Don, and I was looking forward to our reunion. We connected again, and I was reminded that he was one of the most contented people I knew. He possessed a simple and uncomplicated faith that I mistrusted at first. I used to wait for the crack in the veneer, as I believed everyone is fighting something that threatens to scratch up the pretty surface
.

Marriage quickly became a topic of concern once again. For the first time, I admitted to myself that thoughts of a religious vocation were keeping me from committing to this relationship. I vowed to face that once and for all so that I could come to a decision—before it drove me crazy! I sat down and wrote a letter to Reverend Mother Benedict asking—officially—if I could come back and talk to her about a vocation
.

I had asked once before, back in 1959, if she thought I might have a religious call, and she had responded that she thought I should return to Hollywood and do my best there. But that October morning I felt I had to face the dilemma again
.

I was about to drop the letter into the mailbox near my home when Don drove by and stopped. I was so happy to see him. We talked for a while, and he asked me to dinner. I suddenly had this strong feeling that my earlier determination must have been wrong. No, I thought to myself, I’m not supposed to go in that direction. I put the letter back in my pocket and said yes to dinner
.

Don had the engagement ring with him when he and Dolores dined that night. At the end of the meal, he offered her the ring and asked her again to marry him. They both were disturbed when she couldn’t give him an immediate and unqualified yes. Don remembered, “I asked if she had that other situation—the thoughts of vocation—behind her, and she told me yes, it was behind her.” Dolores then offered a compromise. They could be engaged secretly for six months, and at the end of that period they would decide whether they were doing the right thing. Don subordinated his masculine ego and agreed.