If you want to know about the story of the only singer who got a huge hit in the French language in 1963-64 in the USA,this is not the place to look ; you should rather take "Soeur sourire " (=sister smile) (2009) starring Cécile De France which tells the whole bio,warts and all.
Soeur Sourire was not the person depicted in this vehicle for Debbie Reynolds ;she was a tomboy and enjoyed football games (you see her playing in the movie) ,but she loved girls -she became a nun because of that-, she was deprived of her income by her covent , she was released of her vows ,she fell prey to the gossip papers ; she was a clever woman ,who tried to resume her career and she wrote songs much superior to her famous "Dominique"but attacking the Catholic Church ; she ended her life with a woman ,coming to terms with her homosexuality ;both were ruined and committed suicide.
When she entered the covent,Soeur Sourire was a fan of American rock and roll ,and she considered music as a way to get religious messages across :why not ?Presley, Dion , Harrison , Van Morrison ,Aretha Franklin, to name but five, had their God songs too ....This side (with Ricardo Montalban as the priest who stands by her ) is only skimmed over.
If you consider the movie pure fiction ,it's pleasant to watch :nice colors ,lilting voices,delightful cast and credits in which the nun rides on the staves ,scenes a la "sound of music" , and it's a pleasure to see Greer Garson as mother superior , Agnès Moorehead and the rare Juanita Moore (the unforgettable black mom in Sirk's "imitation of life" )as nuns and Ed Sullivan as himself in a for once true event of the singing nun's short-lived career .
But all that concerns Katherine Ross and her kid brother Dominique (sic) comes from the screenwriters' imagination! So is Reynolds' and Moore's last scene.
