January 5, 1964: The Singing Nun appears on The Ed Sullivan Show
Looking back, it's a fairly unremarkable episode of the best-known variety program in US television history. Dieter Tasso performed his juggling and balancing act, Johnny Hart did magic, a flamenco dance troupe did its thing, and Jane Powell did a song and dance routine based on movies. The Count Basie Orchestra and Keely Smith were the big acts of the night, performing solo and with each other.
Tucked into all of that was a Belgian nun, Sister Luc Gabriel, also known as Soeur Sourire or, to Americans, the Singing Nun. She was the time's most unlikely one hit wonder, as her single "Dominique," a tribue to St. Dominic, the founder of her order. While the song had found a niche in the US, it went into heavy rotation in the wake of the Kennedy assassination, eventually landing at number one on the Billboard pop chart, the only song by a Belgian artist to hit number one.
For the show, the Singing Nun did three songs, all taped in Belgium. They almost didn't air, as her mother superior wasn't a fan of the song or of the idea of a singing nun in general. Sister Luc would give up music soon after "Dominique" ran its course on the charts, but would pick it up again and, in 1966, she left the convent and took up music full time. She'd never have the same chart success, and would run into trouble with the Belgian tax authorities, who wanted their cut of her earning, most of which she donated to her former order (but without getting receipts, apparently).
Facing mounting financial troubles and a career that looked to have run its course, the former sister and her partner of ten years both took the ultimate deduction and committed suicide. The sad news got even sadder when the Belgian equivalent of the RIAA announced that she was due roughly $300,000 in back royalties, which would have more than covered her debt. How this never wound up an episode of Behind the Music I'll never know.
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