Singing Nun Penniless, Commits Suicide

WAVRE, Belgium — Jeanine Deckers, the Singing Nun of the 1960s who rose to fame with her hit “Dominique,” has committed suicide, police said today.

They said they found her body this morning after receiving a telephone call from neighbors. Police gave no further details.

Friends said Deckers, who was almost penniless when she died, had been upset by government spending cuts that forced closure of a children’s home she had been involved with.

Deckers, 52, came up with a string of hits in the 1960s, the most famous of which, “Dominique,” sold millions of copies worldwide and went to the top of the U.S. charts in 1963.

The up-tempo ballad, sung to the accompaniment of a single acoustic guitar, contrasted strongly with the music of the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, who in the same year were beginning their long dominance of the pop music scene.

Deckers, known as “Sister Smile” in the French-speaking world, left the Dominican order after seven years in 1966, but maintained strong links with the Roman Catholic church.