The Singing Nun is a 1966 semi-biographical film about the life of Jeanine Deckers, a nun who recorded the chart-topping hit song "Dominique". It starred Debbie Reynolds in the title role.
Jeanine Deckers (October 17, 1933 – March 29, 1985), better known in English as The Singing Nun, was a Belgian nun, and a member (as Sister Luc Gabriel) of the Dominican Fichermont Convent in Belgium. She became internationally famous in 1963 as Soeur Sourire (Sister Smile) when she scored a hit with the song "Dominique". In the English language world, she is mostly referred to as "The Singing Nun".
Deckers rejected the film as "fiction".[2] Sally Field spoofed the role starting the following year as the title character in the television series The Flying Nun.
Despite the film's criticism, Debbie Reynolds is every bit as good a singing nun as Julie Andrews
Debbie Reynolds' most notable role is of course Singin' in the Rain (1952), but it's her lesser known works such as The Singing Nun (1966) that I've grown especially fond of. And did you know that Debbie Reynolds is the mother of Star Wars' Carrie Fisher?
As the story goes: Elizabeth Taylor basically stole Debbie's Reynold's husband, Eddie Fisher, the father of Carrie and her brother when the two were toddlers. Fisher was the best friend of Taylor's deceased husband, Michael Todd, producer of Around the World In Eighty Days (1956), who died in a freak plane crash in 1958 when Liz was filming Cat On A Hot Tin Roof (1958).
Elizabeth Taylor, the quintessiantial actress of the modern era and the most out spoken (still is apparently (Michael Jackson)) especially in terms of morality and sexuality (though she claims to have never consumated outside of wedlock), will forever be the girl with diamonds in her eyes even bigger than the ones on her rings. The most beautiful woman in the world became the ultimate star crossed movie icon after the death of her husband in 1958.
It was a monumental mourning in Hollywood. And when Taylor found new love in her deceased's friend Eddie Fisher, though it was at the expense of Debbie Reynolds Fisher, the legend around the star-crossed Taylor continued to grow. It would for decades to come, of course. Elizabeth Taylor and her court of matrimonial lovers is STILL one of Hollywood's greatest stories. Poor Liz, who had dieted on Gerber baby food b/c of deadly stomach ulcers and irritable bowel syndrome, had grown up on the screen in front of our eyes. She was one of the most controversial movie stars in terms of morality and ideology. And years later the movie icon turned philanthropist is still America's darling today to many adoring fans, though she is confined to her wheelchair and living publicly much through the legacy of others, i.e Michael Jackson. Eddie Fisher became a distant memory soon after their 1959 marriage when she famously wed Richard Burton in 1964.
As for Debbie...After the splitup with Eddie in 1959 she was a truly shattered and broken house wife who'd seen the only love and lover she'd ever known leave her quite abruptly. But always much more reserved and quaint then many of her contemperaries in Hollywood, Reynolds took the less publicized route. She had two young children to raise and the shattered but stoic LADY never seemed to let Liz's headlines change what happened with her family. She never spoke malcontently of Eddie or Liz in public. All three are still alive today, btw.
Today, Debbie and Carrie are best friends and actually live nextdoor to each other. The 77 yr. old Reynolds runs a dance school and is on tour every month with her dance troup.
This VERY rare recording from The Singing Nun (1966) is what dreams are made of. Debbie Reynolds is nothing short of a deity.
