Nunny Business

Let me spell this out in black & white... Today we're taking a look at some notable on-screen nuns from the movies (as well as some TV.) I'm not trying to make a habit of it, nor break any rule(r)s, just putting them out there for your perusal. You may find a special favorite or perhaps take note of one that's sorely missed from my incomplete line-up. I can't gather up all of 'em, you know! Thanks to our cover girl Mary Astor from an early screen appearance. And now, onward and nunward we go!

In 1933, Miss Helen Hayes played a conflicted nun in The White Sister.

In 1958, she donned a habit once more for an episode of The United States Steel Hour called "One Red Rose for Christmas" with Patty Duke.

Ingrid Bergman portrayed Sister Mary Benedict in The Bells of St. Marys (1945.) She copped an Oscar nomination for the part, but Joan Crawford won that year for Mildred Pierce.

Here's a rather rare glimpse of her character in color. This was the sort of role that lent to her wholesome image (which folks later delighted in shredding when she became pregnant by a man other than her husband!)

Celeste Holm and Loretta Young (a devout Catholic) played nuns on a mission to build a children's hospital in Come to the Stable (1949.) Young became pregnant, too, in 1935 with married costar Clark Gable, but avoided her own scandal by dropping out of sight for a while and then returning with an "adopted" baby girl!

I couldn't resist sharing this artist's rendering of the sisters (who I presume were merely walking in step together and not one-legged apiece?)

Few people who've seen the strikingly photographed Black Narcissus (1947, featuring Deborah Kerr, as seen here) can forget it.

Deb got into the habit in 1957, too, with Robert Mitchum in Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison, as a shipwrecked sister. She was nominated for an Academy Award, but Joanne Woodward won that year for The Three Faces of Eve.

Another shipwrecked sister was Joan Collins in Sea Wife (1957), which costarred Richard Burton.

Nearly thirty years later in 1986, Collins got her nun on once more as part of a disguise during a Moldavian rescue on Dynasty!

1959 found Audrey Hepburn in The Nun's Story, about a sister working in The Belgian Congo. Hepburn was Oscar-nominated, but the award went to Simone Signoret for Room at the Top.

In 1960, Lilli Palmer played a reverend mother helping Jewish children escape from an Italian prison camp in Conspiracy of Hearts.

1963's Lilies of the Field had Lilia Skala enlisting the aid of Sidney Poitier to build a church. Poitier won an Oscar for his trouble, though Skala was nominated for both a Golden Globe and an Oscar as well (Margaret Rutherford took each of them home for The V.I.P.s.)

The favorite novitiate of many a moviegoer, Julie Andrews helped to kick off a nun frenzy after the 1965 blockbuster The Sound of Music. Nominated for an Academy Award, Andrews lost to another Julie (Christie) for Darling.

In there swinging as soon as possible was Debbie Reynolds in The Singing Nun (1966.)

Rosalind Russell scored a hit with 1966's The Trouble with Angels.

This one merited a sequel, Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows (1968), with unlikely nun Stella Stevens on board (and with Father Van Johnson!)

Mary Tyler Moore underwent a transformation in Change of Habit (1969) with Elvis Presley, though she spent the bulk of her screen time in street clothes as part of the movie's central conceit.

About as far away from MTM and The King as one could be was Vanessa Redgrave as a frenzied, delirious nun in The Devils (1971.)

Of course, in the midst of all this, Sally Field was flitting around Puerto Rico as The Flying Nun (1967-1970!)

Study though she might, she still ran into difficulty with her special attribute.

Sophia Loren got in on the action in 1972's The Sin, about a nursing nun who falls for one of her patients.

Who could forget singer Helen Reddy as a novice nun (along with mentor Martha Scott) in Airport 1975 (1974)?

Reddy's guitar-wielding nun was later parodied by singer Maureen McGovern (known in part for her interpretation of disaster movie theme songs from The Poseidon Adventure, 1972, and The Towering Inferno, 1974) in the zany Airplane! (1980)

Yet another nun with a crisis of conscience was Kathleen Quinlan in The Runner Stumbles (1979), which costarred Dick Van Dyke as a priest with whom she begins to fall in love.

Just prior to playing one of the toughest matriarchs on TV with Falcon Crest (1981-1990), Jane Wyman hopped on board The Love Boat for a 1980 episode in which she was a nun. (Seen here with Arte Johnson, her real costar of the piece was old flame Dennis Morgan.)

Meg Tilly was one of the cinema's most emotionally-tormented nuns this side of Vanessa Redgrave & Co. in Agnes of God (1985.) Tilly was Oscar-nominated, but lost to Angelica Huston in Prizzi's Honor.

On a lighter note came Sister Kate (1989-1990), a sitcom which starred Stephanie Beacham, fresh from Dynasty, as a non-nonsense den mother at an orphanage. Low ratings had the producers dumping her habit posthaste and outfitting her in navy blue cardigans with her hair showing!

Whoopi Goldberg scored a major hit in 1992 with Sister Act, about a lounge singer who hides out from the mob as a nun. A sequel and a Broadway musical followed.

Meryl Streep played a formidable nun in 2008's Doubt and was Oscar-nominated (losing to Kate Winslet in The Reader.) You may have gathered by now that being nominated for playing a nun is easier that WINNING!

But not all the screen nuns are female. Ha! Here, St. Mary Vincent (aka Vincent Price) is in disguise for Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs (1966.)

Then there are undercover cops Burt Reynolds and Jack Weston in Fuzz (1972.)

Robbie Coltrane and Eric Idle were evading their gangster boss in Nuns on the Run (1990.)

And finally we come to Leslie Nielsen going undercover as a nun in 1996's Spy Hard.