Поющая монахиня: Трагическая судьба сестры Люк Габриэль

Belgian Dominican nun and singer

Jeanne Paule Marie "Jeannine" Deckers (17 October 1933 – 29 March 1985), better known as and often called The Singing Nun in English speaking countries, was a Belgian singer songwriter and a member of the Dominican Order in Belgium as Sister Luc Gabriel. She acquired widespread fame in 1963 with the release of the Belgian French song "Dominique", which topped the US Billboard Hot 100 and other charts, along with her debut album. Owing to confusion over the terms of the recording contract, she was reduced to poverty, and also experienced a crisis of faith, leaving the order, though still remaining a Catholic. She died by suicide with her lifelong partner, Annie Pécher.

She was born Jeanne Paule Marie Deckers, in Laeken, Brussels, Belgium, on 17 October 1933. The daughter of a pâtisserie owner, she was educated in a Catholic school in Brussels. Her mother thought of her as a "tomboy" and was pleased when she decided to join the all girl Guides Catholiques de Belgique (GCB). When she was fifteen she had a premonition that she would become a nun. She became an avid Girl Guide who bought her first guitar to play at Guide evening events. While studying for three years after high school, to obtain a diploma for teaching sculpture, she considered dedicating her life to religion in a Catholic convent. From the age of 21, between 1954 and 1959, she taught sculpture to youngsters. At scout camp in the summer of 1959 she met sixteen year old Annie Pécher, with whom she would develop a close relationship. She became convinced, however, that her new teaching profession did not suit her and she resigned. In September 1959 she entered the Missionary Dominican Sisters of Our Lady of Fichermont, headquartered in the city of Waterloo, where she took the religious name "Sister Luc Gabriel".

In 1973, Deckers became involved with the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. Cardinal Suenens requested that she write songs for the movement, and this led to a brief but successful return to the stage, including a visit to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she sang before several thousand people. In the late 1970s, the Ministry of Finance of Belgium said that she owed $63,000 in back taxes. but this last attempt to resume her singing career failed. In their suicide note, they referenced their financial problems. They also wrote that they had not lost their faith and wanted a joint burial, according to the rites of the Catholic Church. They were buried together on 4 April 1985 in Chérémont Cemetery in Wavre, Brabant, the town where they died. The inscription on their tombstone reads, "J'ai vu voler son âme/ A travers les nuages" (English: "I saw her soul fly through the clouds"), a line taken from her 1966 song "Luc Dominique".

In 1996, The Tragic and Horrible Life of the Singing Nun premiered Off Broadway at the Grove Street Playhouse. The play, which was written and directed by Blair Fell, was loosely based on events in Deckers' life. The production featured several musical numbers and followed the life of the title character, renamed Jeanine Fou, from her entry into the convent until her death with Pécher. The New York Times review stated the play "milks much of its comic mileage from the incongruous, and willfully tasteless, pairing of its holy setting and its trashy, Jacqueline Susann style dialogue In dressing up despair in barbed frivolity, Mr. Fell provides his own skewed equivalent of tragic catharsis." The Catholic League spoke out publicly against the production. In 2006, a musical version of Fell's play was staged during the New York Musical Theatre Festival, produced by George DeMarco and David Gerard, both of whom produced the 1996 production. Laura Daniel played Jeanine and received the NYMF Award for Outstanding Individual Performance. The musical featured music and lyrics by Andy Monroe and a book by Fell (who also contributed additional lyrics); it was directed by Michael Schiralli.

The Singing Nun is a 1966 American semi biographical film, directed by Henry Koster and with a screenplay by John Furia and Sally Benson. Based loosely on Deckers' life to that point in time, it stars Debbie Reynolds in the title role and also features Greer Garson, Ricardo Montalbán, Agnes Moorehead, Katharine Ross, Chad Everett, and Ed Sullivan as himself. In 2009, Sœur Sourire, a Franco Belgian biopic, directed by Stijn Coninx and starring Belgian actress Cécile de France as Deckers, was released. The film won the Magritte Award for Best Costume Design.