The Benedictine nun at the center of the Oscar-nominated short "God Is the Bigger Elvis" has a great story to tell: 54 years ago she was the young actress who gave Elvis Presley his first screen kiss, and now she's returning as a guest to the Academy Awards, which she last attended when she was a presenter in 1959.
But neither of those things are exactly true.
Since I was raised Catholic and schooled by nuns, I would hardly accuse one of them of anything worse than a faulty memory. But no evidence exists that the actress formerly known as Dolores Hart, who is now Mother Prioress at the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Connecticut, was ever an Oscar presenter.
And as for that kiss, it was Elvis's third onscreen liplock.
(Photo of Mother Prioress by Julie Anderson/HBO)
Her story, one of those that the Academy will showcase in its "Docs!" program Wednesday night at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater, is still fascinating. As Dolores Hart, the now 73-year-old woman acted in 10 movies between 1957 and 1963 and then left behind a promising career, and a fiancé, to become a nun.
And though she abandoned her movie career, Mother Prioress also happens to still be a voting member of the Academy, though there's little evidence in the film of her ever watching movies. (It doesn't mention that she's an AMPAS member, either.)
Also read: 2012 Oscars: Complete List of Nominees
Mother Prioress will be in Los Angeles for the Academy Awards show – the first time she's been to the Oscars, she told USA Today, since "1959, when I was a presenter."
But according to "Inside Oscar," the exhaustive chronicle of every Academy Awards show, presenters at the Pantages Theater in 1959 included Bette Davis and Anthony Quinn, Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis, Jane Wyman and Charlton Heston, Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner, Doris Day and Rock Hudson, Kim Novak and James Cagney … but not Hart, who at the time was a 21-year-old actress with four films and three television appearances to her credit.
Randy Haberkamp, the Academy's Director of Education Programs and Special Projects, checked AMPAS records and confirmed to TheWrap that while Hart attended the Oscars in 1959, 1960 and 1961, "Our records show no instance of her presenting any award at the show."
(In 1961, three of her co-stars in "Where the Boys Are" did participate in the show, Paula Prentiss and James Hutton as presenters and Connie Francis as a performer.)
Another Hart myth, which was spread by "20/20" when the show did a piece on her a decade ago and has been repeated ever since, is that she gave Elvis Presley his first onscreen kiss when she played the ingénue in his second movie, 1957's "Loving You." (She starred with him in another film, "King Creole," the following year.)
