JEANNE-PAULE MARIE “JEANINE” DECKERS, born on this date (d: 1985), better known as SŒUR SOURIRE (French for ”Sister Smile”) 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. Owing to confusion over the terms of the recording contract, she was reduced to poverty, and also experienced a crisis of faith, quitting the order, though still remaining a Catholic.
While in the convent, Sister Luc Gabriel wrote, sang, and casually performed her own songs, which were so well received by her fellow nuns and visitors that her religious superiors encouraged her to record an album, which visitors and retreatants at the convent would be able to purchase.
In 1962, the album was recorded in Brussels at Philips; in 1963 the single “Dominique” became an international hit, selling nearly two million copies. Sister Luc Gabriel became an international celebrity and took the stage name of Sœur Sourire (“Sister Smile”). She gave several live concerts and appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show on television in January 1964. “Dominique” was the first song by a Belgian artist to be a number one hit single in the United States. The song’s chorus refrain “Dominique, nique, nique” was the source of some unintended amusement amongst French listeners as the word “niquer” is short for “fornicate”, with “nique” the equivalent of “fuck”; Deckers was unaware of the connotation, as were the other Belgian Catholics of that era.
Deckers found it difficult, however, having to live up to her publicity as “a true girl scout,” always happy and in a good mood. “I was never allowed to be depressed,” she remembered in 1979. “The mother superior used to censor my songs and take out any verses I wrote when I was feeling sad.”
In 1963 the General Music Company published a book of fifteen “Soeur Sourire” songs with English lyrics provided by Noël Regney, who later claimed that he had co-written “Dominique.” Later that same year she was sent by her order to take theology courses at the University of Louvain. She liked the student life, if not her courses.
Deckers did not see much money from her international fame, and her second album, Her Joys, Her Songs, received little attention and disappeared almost as soon as it was released in 1964. Most of her earnings were taken by Philips and her producer, while the rest automatically went to her religious congregation, which earned at least $100,000 in royalties.
In 1966, a biographical film loosely based on Sister Luc Gabriel was released called The Singing Nun and starring Debbie Reynolds in the central role. Decker reportedly rejected the film as “fiction”.
Pulled between two worlds and increasingly in disagreement with the Catholic Church, Deckers left her convent in 1966 to pursue a life as a lay Dominican instead. She later reported that her departure resulted from a personality clash with her superiors, that she had been forced out of the convent and did not leave of her own free will. Convent superiors denied the other nuns contact with her as she was described as a “bad influence”. After she left, however, she continued to adhere as closely as she could to the disciplines of the convent, still considering herself a nun, praying several times daily, and maintaining a simple and chaste lifestyle.
When she left the convent, her record company made her give up her professional names, “Sœur Sourire” and “The Singing Nun”. She attempted to continue her musical career under the name “Luc Dominique”. Increasingly frustrated at what she perceived to be the Catholic Church’s failure to fully implement the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, she released a song in 1967 defending the use of contraception, called “Glory be to God for the Golden Pill”. This led to meddling by the Catholic hierarchy in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and one of her concerts was cancelled. Several major tour venues subsequently cancelled, and the tour was effectively derailed. In 1968, Deckers turned to publishing, writing a book of inspirational verse, but that, too, failed to gain an audience.
Deckers went on to release an album titled I Am Not a Star in Heaven and developed a repertoire of religious songs and songs for children. Despite her renewed emphasis on music, Deckers’ career failed to prosper. She blamed the album’s failure on not being able to use the names by which she had become known, saying that “nobody knew who it was.” When a second single, “Sister Smile Is Dead”, also failed, Deckers turned to teaching disabled youngsters in Wavre, Belgium, eventually opening her own school for autistic children.
She eventually suffered a nervous breakdown, which was followed by two years of psychotherapy. She reconnected with a friend from her youth, Annie Pécher, while at the University of Louvain. The two slowly developed a very close relationship, and would share an apartment until their deaths.
She was exasperated by speculation that she and Pécher were in a lesbian relationship, she wrote: “People at my record company think that two women who live together must be lesbians. They assert even that nuns in convents are in love. I deny these rumors as I testify against every creepy spirit. The answer is still obvious that I am not homosexual. I am loyal and faithful to Annie, but that is a whole other love in the Lord. Anyone who cannot understand this can go to the devil!
Nevertheless, her biographer Catherine Sauvat asserts that despite this denial, Deckers did go on subsequently to have a sexual relationship with Pécher, though only after several years of life together.
Citing their financial difficulties, she and Annie Pécher died by suicide by taking overdoses of barbiturates and alcohol on March 29, 1985. In their suicide note, they wrote that they had not given up their faith and wished to be buried together with the funeral rite of the Catholic Church. They were buried together in April 1985 in Cheremont 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” (“I saw her soul fly through the clouds”), a line taken from her 1966 song “Luc Dominique”.