Sœur Sourire (The Singing Nun)

Sister Smile. A gently mocking nickname

In September 2008, Michèle Stouvenot in Le Journal du dimanche said: “Carla Bruni is a delighted she-wolf, a Bernadette Soubirous coming out of the cave, a Blandine virgin and martyr, a new “Soeur Sourire”. We could establish parallels with Sœur Sourire, the Belgian singing nun who became famous in 1963 with the single Dominique: a guitar, a singer-songwriter, number one on the Billboard charts, an international following… Beyond that, do Soeur Sourire and Carla Bruni have other things in common? A similar fascination certainly resonates if we are to judge by the works devoted recently to the former Dominican nun with the tragic destiny: the novel Sister Sourire published at the beginning of 2009 by Léo Scheer just before a biopic film where she was played by Belgian actress Cécile de France (Sœur Sourire). However their lives followed very different paths.  After a career as a model and singer throwing convention to the wind, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy is using her celebrity to serve humanitarian causes (ambassador for the Global Fund To Fight AIDS) on becoming First Lady of France.   After the success of Dominique (the rights to this and the ownership of her name belong to the Dominican order), Sister Luc-Gabriel left the convent in Fichermont (Waterloo) and began a second career. Like a backwards Ziggy Stardust, renaming herself Luc Dominique, she was freed, lived life and sang:
“It is a certain smile
That we must demystify,
A somewhat hasty portrait,
An unfinished portrait.
If this other face
Surprises some people
Let them worship the image
Of the child’s smile.
She is dead, Soeur Sourire.”