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.
—It was like a six-month option. I accepted the ring that night.
Within days, however, Hollywood columnist Harrison Carroll announced the engagement in the Los Angeles Herald-Express. Dolores has no idea how Carroll had learned of it, but once the news was out, all hell broke loose. Paramount’s publicity department worked overtime to report every detail of the couple’s plans. The wedding date was set for the following February 23 at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills. Hal Wallis would put a yacht at their disposal for the honeymoon. The official engagement portrait was shot by Bud Fraker. Bridesmaids and groomsmen were chosen. Friends gave parties. People had opinions.
Mom wasn’t keen on my marrying Don, but her attitude had less to do with Don than with her hope that I could somehow avoid her errors in the marital ring by waiting a few more years. Mr. Wallis thought I should marry Don, though he added, in typical Hollywood style, “If it doesn’t work out, you just get divorced.” Paul Nathan thought Don wasn’t right for me. He was sure it was a bad choice. The news that I was venturing into the state of marital bliss while continuing in the glamorous world of the movies prompted Father Sal to warn me that I “should remember the dictates of the Baltimore Catechism, take up knitting and be resigned to growing fat at home.” My professional friends didn’t know Don well; they thought he cut a good-looking figure and seemed solid. Most of my close friends were all for the marriage, though years later some would confess that they didn’t really think it would happen.
Count me in the group that thought it wouldn’t happen. Dolores invited me for lunch at Villa Frascati. She wanted to tell me herself about the engagement. The lunch was pleasant, and she was a knockout in very smart couture. We talked about her work, and her perceptive analysis of Lisa in particular left no doubt that she now knew a great deal more about her craft. Her report of the big event, on the other hand, was like a press release about the perfect wedding—all peripheral, no center. As I drove back to my office, I remember consoling myself that she was not going to marry Don Robinson.
Granny was downright sceptical—and prophetic. “Don’t marry a man because you want to live with him”, she warned. “Marry him because you can’t live without him.” I would come to realize that, though I loved Don, the only thing I could not live without was my religion.
Everything began moving at an overwhelming pace. In mid-November Don bought a house for us on Benedict Canyon and moved in. Wait a minute, I thought, we were going to be engaged for six months and then decide if we were committed to each other. But maybe, I hoped, this is good, this is the way it should be; go with it. I would go over to the house and try to relax. I would wash my hair and let it dry in the sun while Don cooked dinner. Don could cook; I could make cold bean salad. But at the house I was forced to face decisions about furnishings and decorating. I began to feel like Alice falling down the rabbit hole.
Edith Head invited me to lunch in the commissary to tell me that, as her gift, she was designing the wedding dress, which she was going to make from a bolt of antique Spanish lace she had been hoarding for years. She showed it to me, and it was exquisite. “I’ll tell you something, Junior,” she said, peering through her outsize horn-rims, “if you have any thoughts of changing your mind, you better do it before I make the first cut.”
Daddy invited us to an engagement dinner at the San Fernando Valley home he shared with his fourth wife, Liliana, the Italian woman who had been nanny for the Lanza children. I remembered meeting her at Uncle Mario’s funeral and thought she was very sweet. Liliana was now expecting my half-brother.
The evening was a disaster. I had expected an intimate family dinner, but the house was filled with people I didn’t know. I soon realized that I had been invited, not as a daughter, but as a movie star on display. Daddy was three sheets to the wind when we arrived and got drunker as the evening progressed, playing “lord of the manor” with phony bravado, even shoving a cigar in Don’s face. Don rolled with the punches, but Liliana, who had prepared a lovely dinner, was embarrassed. I was offended. Don and I left as soon as we could. It was the last time I would see my father.
I moved through the days like an actor who forgot to study his lines and finds himself on stage in a spotlight. There were times when I didn’t talk to anybody. Whenever I could, I would escape. I sometimes got into my car, as I had when I was a teenager, and just drove somewhere, anywhere I could to remove myself physically from the turmoil I perceived as my life. One day I decided to drive to Santa Barbara.
I needed so much to be alone that even a gloomy sky couldn’t deter me from the trip. I sat on the beach for most of the day, oblivious to the storm clouds that were gathering, when suddenly there was a hand on my shoulder. I turned to see an older man smiling down at me. He and his wife had noticed me on the beach and became concerned. There was quite a rainstorm coming, he said, and they wondered if I had any shelter. If not, he said, I should wait it out at their house. The invitation was punctuated by the first drops of rain, and I to
ok refuge in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Monte Healy just as the downpour arrived. It worsened into the night, which I spent, warm and protected, in the bedroom of the Healys’ daughter, who was away at school. The next morning, refreshed by their kindness, I drove back to LA.
Within a week I was back in Santa Barbara, this time with Don, for Sheila and Bob McGuire’s anniversary party at her father’s home. After a gorgeous California afternoon with a barbecue on the patio, the evening sun going down over the Pacific created a perfect setting for young people, very romantic. Yet, I was ill at ease; I felt I was suffocating. I remember feigning a headache and retiring to a bedroom to rest. In the room, I caught my reflection in a mirror and remembered the incident in the dressing room. “This is not what you want to do.” I thought I had made up my mind! At that moment, I put my life in God’s hands and waited for lightning to strike.
Don had a clear memory of the night his parents hosted an engagement party in their home: “Dolores was distant from the minute I picked her up, and during the entire party I never felt she was truly with me. On the drive back to her apartment, I suddenly stopped in the middle of the street and asked her if she loved me.”
I said, “Of course I do.” He repeated the question, and again I answered, “Of course I do”, but clearly it wasn’t enough. “Then what is wrong?” he demanded. Obviously the effort to hide my feelings of discontent and desperation wasn’t accomplishing anything except draining me and hurting Don. He said he felt as if he were sitting on a fence, and he just couldn’t sit there any longer. He thought we should make an announcement of a postponement right away. I agreed, though I knew I could not stand up under any media scrutiny that that kind of item would provoke.
“You’re still thinking about the monastery, aren’t you?” he asked, and without waiting for an answer he added, “Dolores, I think you have to go back there and get everything straightened out in your mind.”
I could not get to sleep that night. It was one o’clock in the morning when I made reservations on the day’s first flight to the East Coast. En route to the monastery, I was held by a kind of madness that I could not express. I say “madness” because there was no way I could intellectually explain the hound that yapped at my heels. There was no earthly reason why I was shunning the life I wanted most—only that Regina Laudis had gradually seeped through my body like some mysterious liquor and I was at peace only on its taste.
Arriving back at the monastery was one of the strangest experiences. At first, I felt completely foreign. Los Angeles in January is warm and sunny. Everything here was cold and white. As the day drew itself together, things settled down into a familiar framework, and finally a tiny sense of comfort began to fill the picture.
My visit coincided with Reverend Mother Benedict’s twenty-fifth Jubilee—the twenty-fifth anniversary of her First Vows. There was an atmosphere of activity that surrounded me, as if the impact of her years with God had swelled up into a crescendo and its sound burst out from every heart, including mine. But the days changed. One day would pass smoothly, unstained by tears. The next would plunge me into despair.
During the entire visit, not once did I feel pressured by Reverend Mother to make up my mind. To the contrary, I was constantly being told, “Do what you want to do.” It was maddening that I was the one left with the decision. I would have felt happy if someone would have taken that task away from me.
On my last morning, at Mass, I was handed a folded note from Mother Placid: “You can ask for me anytime if you want. However, I will expect you to spend the day quietly with Christ and our Lady in prayer, and in relaxed recollection, trying to present yourself and the problem to them alone.”
It was cold that day. There had been a snowstorm during the night, creating a world of white, blessed with a glorious stillness. I bundled myself up against the light snow that was falling and left Saint Gregory’s. I just began walking—to no place in particular. And, for no particular reason, I took my camera. I walked in the snow through the fields and up through the pine forest, to the top of the hill overlooking the monastery. I sensed I was in a sacred place, in union with a higher call, expectant that I would hear the voice of God direct me. I stayed there all afternoon and wept my heart out over the jumble that filled my head.
I was on the threshold of a career I had dreamed about. I couldn’t imagine what it would do to everybody if I said, “Yes, I have a religious vocation.” I had just signed a new contract with Mr. Wallis, and he would certainly be furious with me. Wedding invitations were printed. We had the house, and I had written Granny and Grandma Bowen, inviting them to come and stay there while Don and I were on our honeymoon. Edith was poised to make that first cut.
Oh, this could not be real! I just could not believe that God could possibly be asking me to give up all that was waiting for me in California. All He would have to do is tell me. But there was only silence.
As I started back down the hill, I felt suddenly and strangely relieved. I paused a moment, took out my camera, turned and shot a picture of the snow-covered hill and continued down to Saint Gregory’s. Back in my room, I wrote a letter.
My Dearest One,
This morning I walked through the fields in the snow and the cold and called Your name. You refused to show even a part of Yoursel for allow me to hear Your voice. I could hear only the echo of snowflakes touching the branches of the trees. I could not see You or hear Your voice, and my heart ached from the need. You want me for Yourself—this I know without any doubt, but how—how—in what way can I—the person You, my Dear One, have created—give You my heart and soul? I can’t understand Your ways, if this is love! I stood in the clearing and silently shouted—and played the best scene I’ve ever played. I played to You and to the trees and the birds and the sky, the snow and the earth—to everything that is. I’ll never forget that moment as long as I live. No actor ever shared such a moment with his audience.
Later Dolores met with Reverend Mother Benedict. She spoke of her walk and finding herself at the crest of the hill and standing still, not knowing why she was there. The founder of the monastery told her that years before, in 1947, when she and Mother Mary Aline came to Bethlehem with the mission to found a Benedictine order, they stood at that same place, holding medals they had carried from France. They buried those medals beneath the ground Dolores had stood upon and photographed.
“What is it that you want?” Reverend Mother asked me.
I told her that was what I was trying to find out. I said, “I want my career. I want to get married. I want to have a home. I want most of all to do the will of God.” I think I hoped that she would not accept me but just say again that I should go back to Hollywood.
“I can’t tell you what the will of God is”, she said. “You must decide what you want to do, and in your deepest desire you will find the will of God. What is it that you want?”
Again I said, “I want my career. I want to marry. I want to please God and to serve Him with all my heart.”
“You will find the will of God when you find what it is in your own heart that you know you must do”, she repeated. “Don’t look for God in some abstraction. The answer comes from within yourself, Dolores. What is it that you want?”
In his Rule, Saint Benedict cautions against granting newcomers to monastic life an easy entry. A pilgrim must knock on the door three times to be recognized.
When I got back to my room I began packing. I felt the decision had been made for me. God had not spoken. Reverend Mother had not invited me in. I was going home to pick up my life, and I was very relieved to have the whole thing off my back.
That evening I went to supper in the refectory. Mother Placid was serving. She smiled and said, “Well, Dolores, you won’t be able to chew gum when you come in.” I hadn’t realized I was chewing gum. We both laughed.
“But I’m not entering”, I told her.
“Oh,” she said surprised, “Reverend Mother said you were. She said it was clear that you had a
monastic calling because you were fighting so hard. I’ll let her know she was mistaken.”
She turned to leave, and I suddenly stopped her, “No, don’t.”
That was it. My answer didn’t come in a lightning bolt. I simply knew at that moment what Reverend Mother was trying to tell me when she insisted that I say what I wanted to do. If I was honest about my answer, I would give God a point of departure He could work with. This is the exact opposite of the way many people think the spiritual life proceeds.
Back in Los Angeles, when her photos were developed, the one she had taken after wrestling with her decision, the one of the hill and its snow-laden trees that she turned around to shoot as she was leaving, was nowhere to be found. Instead, there was a photo of only her own footprints in the snow.
Eighteen
When Don met Dolores at LAX, he was in good spirits. Nothing in Dolores’ letters from the monastery indicated he would not have a fiancée when she returned.
When he saw her, however, his mood changed. “She looked like a refugee, pale and drawn, no makeup, and her hair wasn’t even fixed. We stopped at a steak house near the airport. It was packed, and we were seated smack in the middle of the room.”
Dolores hadn’t planned on telling Don her decision that evening, and she tried to keep up a conversation that, before long, gave way to silence. Don remembered, “I began thinking, ‘Where are we heading?’ I finally asked point-blank if she was entering the monastery.”
Don’s perception was so strong that I knew I couldn’t put it off. I told him I was.
“I just fell apart,” Don said, “right in the middle of the packed room.”
We resolved that we had to see Monsignor Devlin right away. Monsignor was the pastor of our parish who was to officiate at the wedding. He couldn’t understand why, after four months of our engagement, I would suddenly change my mind. He almost hit the floor when I told him that I planned to enter monastic life. He obviously didn’t believe me.
The Ear of the Heart: An Actress' Journey From Hollywood to Holy Vows Page 20
