STEUBENVILLE, OHIO—Mother Dolores Hart might be the only nun to ever kiss Elvis Presley, but such perks of Hollywood stardom weren't as alluring as her religious vocation.
Mother Dolores will speak on her journey from actress to nun on Friday, March 2, for the third annual John Paul the Great Fine Arts Lecture series at Franciscan University of Steubenville. The event will be held in the Tony and Nina Gentile Gallery in the J.C. Williams Center at 7:30 p.m.
While working in Hollywood in her 20s, Dolores Hart made 10 films in five years. She made her film debut starring alongside—and kissing—Elvis Presley in Loving You (1957). She also made films with such actors as Stephen Boyd, Montgomery Clift, and George Hamilton.
A leading role as a nun in Francis of Assisi took Hart to Rome where she met Pope John XXIII. During a 2008 interview for CatholicExchange.com, she said the encounter was "very instrumental in helping me form ideas about my vocation."
"I never considered my decision as 'walking away from Hollywood.' I felt it was more walking into something more significant and by that, I took Hollywood with me."
Mother Dolores resides at the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Connecticut, and suffers from neuropathy, which is painful nerve damage that can affect mobility and loss of sensation.
"Suffering is a personal problem: Once we get that spiritual reality into our head, suffering becomes our own way through to redemption," she said in an interview on Neuropathy.org. "Redemption is our process to find our spirituality."
The John Paul the Great Fine Arts Lecture series, which was inspired by the pontiff's participation in underground theater and playwriting during his youth in Nazi-occupied Poland, is sponsoring Mother Dolores' lecture.
For more information on this event, please contact chairman of the Fine Arts Department, Professor Shawn Dougherty, at 740-284-5392.