Free The Ear of the Heart: An Actress' Journey From Hollywood to Holy Vows by Dolores Hart, Richard DeNeut

become Loyola Marymount University in 1973, but in 1956 Marymount was still a small liberal arts college almost hidden behind eucalyptus trees in the hills above the UCLA campus.
    The usual liberal arts curriculum was substantially supplemented by courses in religion, including apologetics.
—Apologetics?
    Literally , apologetics means “defense of your faith”. One way to think of it is how a person who has faith would try to explain to someone who does not believe why it is necessary to believe .
    There were also personal improvement classes such as charm and etiquette, with emphasis on how to comport oneself like a lady, how to carry on an intelligent conversation and how to set a table.
    Most of the classes were taught by nuns, but there were “civilian” teachers too. The well-known modeling agent Caroline Leonetti taught charm and etiquette, and Roger Wagner, of the Roger Wagner Chorale, taught singing. Marymount also boasted a dramatic club. Virginia Barnelle was the head of the drama department.
    Classmates Gail Lammerson and Maureen Bailey worked alongside Dolores and still remember her as “a vivacious comedienne who kept everyone in stitches with pantomimes made up in a flash—say, a bullfight, and she would play the bullfighter and the bull.”
    The school’s living accommodation was Butler Hall, a dormitory with a nun in residence to “keep the girls safe”, and only one public telephone, which imperiled their social life. Finances kept Dolores from moving into the dorm during her first semester, but later she became a Butler Hall resident.
    In the mid-twentieth century, college girls were expected to be on campus at all times unless they had permission to leave. They signed out and signed back in. Weeknight curfews were early, but if grades were kept up, girls were allowed to stay out until ten o’clock. The deadline was extended two hours on weekends. Marymount didn’t have uniforms, but its dress code was strict. Dolores and fellow class counselor Deanna Smith were monitors of the code, charged with reporting any classmates who were in violation.
— Neither of us ever snitched. In fact, one night we joined the rest of the Butler Hall residents in a protest over the dress code. We “decorated” the trees facing Sunset Boulevard with our garter belts and bras, which caused a traffic jam of hotrod drivers from both Loyola and UCLA .
    I liked all my classmates, but especially Sheila Hart. When we met, Sheila was holding court in Butler Hall. I found her gay and witty, energizing, and I figured I would have to make a pretty big impression to get her attention. I followed an impulse and improvised one of my “scenes” on the spot. I pretended I had something important to say, opened my mouth wide, then clapped my hand over it, pantomiming with great distress that I had just swallowed a fly. I made my impression. Sheila made one too. She was the only girl who went for a glass of water .
    Five decades later Sheila recalled that the chemistry between them was immediate: “There are some people who are a match from the first moment. Somehow you know you’ve just met someone you will cherish for the rest of your life.” The girls shared like points of view. They also shared similar hurts—the divorce of parents as well as the devastating effect alcohol can have on a family. Both had gone through a polio scare. About the only difference between them was Dolores’ lack of interest in fashion. “She just didn’t care about clothes”, Sheila laughed, “and relied on me whenever she needed to buy something.”
    Most importantly, we found in each other the same gentleness of budding womanhood and deep-rooted Catholic values, part of Sheila’s upbringing but a personal discovery for me. We could talk to each other on a level beyond usual freshman nonsense .
    The two girls would walk up into the hills behind the school, trespassing on the nearby Bel-Air golf course. “It was on one of these