Katy Perry’s Legal Battle With Nuns FIGHTING FOR CONVENT REAL ESTATE
Katy Perry is known around the globe for having multiple No. 1 hits, including “I Kissed A Girl,” “Teenage Dream,” and “Firework,” but two nuns in Los Angeles know Perry for a completely different reason. They were in a multiyear legal battle with Perry and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles over the purchase of a convent. In 1972, the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary pooled their money and purchased an 8-acre, French-style chateau in Los Angeles. Sisters Rita Callanan and Catherine Rose Holzman lived in the chateau-turned-convent until 2011, when the Archdiocese of Los Angeles reportedly forced them to relocate. Two years later, Archbishop José Gomez sold the property to Perry without any input from the sisters, but the nuns felt that the archdiocese did not have the right to do this. Gomez accepted a $14.5 million cash offer from Perry, but the nuns refused to sell to her. Believing they had sole ownership of the convent, they instead sold it to restaurateur and developer Dana Hollister.
The archdiocese and Perry both sued Hollister for her involvement, claiming she took advantage of the nuns, and a judge invalidated her purchase months after it was made. A Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled in favor of the archdiocese, creating an opportunity for Perry to buy the estate due to the fact that the nuns did not have the approval of the pope, the Holy See, or the archbishop. In 2017, a jury found that Hollister intentionally interfered with Perry’s legal purchase. She was ordered to pay both Perry and the archdiocese millions of dollars. The sisters continued to support Hollister, and they both accompanied her to bankruptcy court, where Sister Holzman collapsed and died during the court proceeding. Sister Callanan blamed Perry for the death of Holzman. The convent is back on the market, and it does not appear that Perry will move forward with the purchase.
Prohibition for the Movies? THE LITTLE-KNOWN STORY OF THE HAYS CODE
If you’ve seen the classic movie “Casablanca,” you might be surprised to learn that the original version was more risque than the one later shown on theater screens. The night Rick and Ilsa shared in Paris was more, ahem, explicitly passionate, but those lines were dropped on the cutting room floor. Why? Well, it wasn’t because of artistic choice. According to Mental Floss, “Joseph I. Breen, the head of the Production Code Administration, personally objected to any reference in ‘Casablanca’ about Rick and Ilsa having possibly slept together in Paris.” What a killjoy! Breen’s objection was backed up by an industry standard of the time called the Hays Code (or officially, the Motion Picture Production Code). This now-forgotten list of rules predated today’s movie rating system and governed Hollywood from 1934 to 1968,
restricting expression in countless movies and TV shows. It was intended to clean up the violent, drug-filled movie business much like Prohibition — which preceded it— had been designed to clean up a drunken America. As the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) puts it, “The code prohibited profanity, suggestive nudity, graphic or realistic violence, sexual persuasions, and rape” — but it also prohibited certain kinds of costumes and dances, censored homosexuality, and banished married movie couples to separate beds! Just a few of the stranger things banned under the Hays Code were justifications of revenge, mockery of the clergy, and showing alcohol “when not required by the plot.” You’ve likely watched movies and TV shows filmed under the restrictions of the Hays Code without realizing it was to blame for the wacky choices the directors made. For example,
Mental Floss reports the code is the reason “I Love Lucy” never showed Lucy and Ricky sharing a bed or used the word “pregnant,” even when Lucy was expecting! It’s also the reason why Betty Boop temporarily lost her garter belt and why the birth scene in “Gone With the Wind” was filmed in shadows. In fact, even a “silhouette” birth should have been off-limits, but somehow, the producers sneaked it through. To learn more about the origins and ending of the Hays Code, check out the NPR story “Remembering Hollywood’s Hays Code, 40 Years On.”
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