When we first meet her, she is stepping off the boat in San Juan, Puerto Rico, having been transferred from San Francisco to the Convent San Tanco. Born Elsie Ethrington and given the name Sister Bertrille upon entering the convent, she is still a novice, not a full-fledged nun—a petite little slip of a girl who finds that when the trade winds come in contact with her wide-winged cornette, she has the startling ability to become airborne. “When lift plus thrust is greater than load plus drag, anything can fly” was the piece of scientific information that Sister Bertrille would repeat at the drop of a hat, though hopefully not her own. And trust me, her petite body—the load part of the equation—fluctuated radically throughout her stay at the Convent San Tanco.
It was all gibberish. Not inspired comedic nonsense like I Love Lucy or Fawlty Towers, but meaningless twaddle with nothing real to relate to. Most of the time the little bundle of ecru spent the half hour trying to convince agnostic Carlos—Argentinian actor Alejandro Rey—to change his playboy ways by manipulating him into helping her accomplish some good deed, usually teaming up with either Sister Sixto (Shelley Morrison), Sister Ana (Linda Dangcil), or Sister Jacqueline (the formidable Marge Redmond). And whatever well-meaning mischief the little nun and her cohorts got into, it always ended with a disapproving, though secretly charmed, reaction from the mother superior, played by the imposing, enigmatic Madeleine Sherwood.
The only episode I can remember actually being about something was the one where Sister Bertrille had to deal with Irving, a lovesick pelican, explaining gently that while she was very fond of him, she was not ready to settle down yet. Other than that, every episode was pretty much the same, every day pretty much the same. Including the day or two in each episode that was different, because they were always different in the same way. On those days I would have to fly. That meant I’d be wearing the harness, which was a cross between a corseted one-piece bathing suit and a straitjacket, with one large screw sticking out of each hip. After I got it on and tightly laced to my body, a specially made habit with corresponding holes on either side was placed over the torturous contraption, allowing the screws to poke through where two thin wires were then attached. They were called piano wires, but I doubt that they were the same fine strands of steel used to create music. Not while I was attached, at least.
During the pilot and early in production, I was required to do all the flying. Not only the tight shots—where you could actually see my face—but also the wider ones shot from a distance, when you couldn’t tell if it was me or Baby Huey thirty-five feet in the air. On these exterior days, mostly spent at the Columbia Ranch—so close and yet so far from Gidget’s neighborhood—I’d be connected to an enormous building crane by my nonmusical wires, then hoisted up over the fa?ade of a large town square containing a brownish-gray convent. Operating this heavy piece of machinery was a bleary-eyed special effects man who usually smelled as though he would have failed a Breathalyzer test. This guy would then proceed to fly me smack into building after building, while the whole time I’d be screaming for him to watch where I was going. Luckily, I’d have time to prepare myself and as I watched the convent speeding toward me—or me toward the convent—I’d raise my legs and extend my arms, then plant myself on the wall—looking like Spider-Man in a nun’s habit. Halfway through production a blessed saint of a stuntwoman was hired, and Ralph, or whatever his name was, would then splat her all over the convent wall instead. I guess she was expendable.
I continued to do all of the closer flying shots, which were mostly filmed on Stage 2 at Screen Gems, where our sets were located. Wearing the same dreaded harness, I’d be cranked up ten or twelve feet off the ground in front of a blue or a green screen with two big fans standing just off camera to blow a steady gale in my face—the whole thing aptly called “poor man’s” process. I can’t say the days on the outside were more fun, but they were less painful for sure. Once the camera was in place, and the wires painted the color of the screen, and the wind blowing at just the right angle, I’d have to dangle there for what seemed like hours, leaning on or over a ladder between shots—usually supplied by a thoughtful grip.
When I was asked to surf for Gidget, the studio had provided me with a lesson or two, but no one gave me any pointers on how to perform in the air and no one thought I might benefit from a singing lesson or two… or four hundred. Because not only did Sister Bertrille fly, she also sang, something that didn’t come naturally to me—not that flying did. I’d always wanted to sing, and knew every musical by heart, but damn, I could not sing. And, as much as that tormented me, the studio didn’t see it as a problem. Every weekend they’d drag me into a recording studio, then place a pair of padded headphones over my ears and tell me to sing. I remember waiting, early one Saturday morning, on a bench outside one of the stages, filled with dread because I was going to have to stand up straight and do something I had no idea how to do. I’d been exactly on time to the Capitol Records Tower just off Hollywood Boulevard, but the stage I’d been assigned to was still occupied, so I sat there. For hours.
Finally, the door flew open and Grace Slick—along with much of Jefferson Airplane—stumbled out after having been ensconced for days, leaving me to fill their marijuana-infused stage with my zippy little tunes. My hair in braids, hands in my pockets, I stood on the worn wooden floor surrounded by abandoned music stands while the producers moved into place behind the glass wall of the booth. Finally, the sound mixer put his hand on the enormous instrument board, I slipped the earphones over my head, then stepped under the huge hanging mic, and we were rolling. Yes, I could clearly hear the prerecorded track through the headset, but for Christ’s sake, I had no idea when to begin. Whatever pride I had was swallowed when the composer/producer stood and pointed at me, as though it were my turn to jump out of the airplane. His finger shot my way and without a parachute, off I went, singing the unforgettable lyrics of “Optimize, optimize and you’ll cut your troubles down to size…” Matters not that the notes were flat, that I didn’t have a clue how to sharpen the pitch; they all smiled, knowing they would fix it in the booth when I wasn’t around. They’d play my voice on top of itself three times, crank up the echo, and presto: humiliation at thirty-three and a third.
The Flying Nun sings, or wishes she did.
In February of 1968, after the show had been on the air for a few months, I was asked to be a presenter at that year’s Golden Globes ceremony. I was thrilled to be included with people whom I admired, real actors. But there was one little caveat: They wanted me to fly across the Cocoanut Grove, where the ceremony was being held, and then present the award. The Golden Globes were only interested in me as the Nun, not as Sally Field. I didn’t know which edge of that sword to feel. I wanted to be invited to the party but I didn’t want to have to be a laughingstock in order to be included. The publicity department, plus Bill Sackheim, repeatedly told me how much they—the studio—wanted me to do it, saying it would be great for the show.
Why was that word, that tiny word, so hard for me to utter? NO. It was a frightening, dangerous word, like the pin in my personal hand grenade, and if I pulled it, I could explode myself, plus everyone around me. And when I’d feel the power of the pin between my fingers, I’d hear the words my mother repeated to me every time I faced a dreaded weekend with my father; they were stitched into my life. “We all have to do things we don’t want to do.”
I was stuck. I desperately did not want to be the joke of the Golden Globes but I was unable to pull the pin and toss out a big fat no. So I finally said, “Okay, I’ll do it… but I won’t wear the habit.” By God, if I had to fly across the Cocoanut Grove, it would be as Sally Field, not the Flying Nun. Which basically made no sense at all.