Dolly: I couldn’t wait to jump into bed with Burt
She may be only 5ft tall, including platinum blonde wig and heels, but Dolly Parton is larger than life itself… even at 6am. It’s pitch-black outside on a cold, Nashville morning but I’ve been summoned to meet the country legend in her manager’s downtown office.
Early riser Dolly has already been up for four hours and as she sweeps into the room – a wisecracking whirlwind of big hair, thick make-up and a laugh that should come with a health warning – the singer is anything but tired.
“Where’s my Tom?” hollers Dolly in her distinctive Southern drawl as an assistant ushers her down the corridor.
A bear hug later, her stilettos kicked off and her tiny, stocking-clad feet tucked underneath her, the Dolly show begins.
And what a show. Flirty, filthy and positively ageless… she is 72 going on 22.
But when talk turns to Burt Reynolds, who died last month aged 82, the mask gently slips. “Burt and I were a good ol’ boy and girl, and I was very sad when he passed away – we were really very much alike,” she says quietly.
“But he had not been in good health for a long time and so I hope he’s resting in peace. I’m sure he is. The last years of his life he had some really hard times. We were kind of like brother and sister.”
The pair starred in 1982’s The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, with Dolly as the madam while Burt played a gruff sheriff, with whom she had an affair.
Their on-screen chemistry was so convincing that rumours circulated of a romance that allegedly cooled off because of his supposed black moods.
But what really did happen between them? “I couldn’t wait to jump into bed with Burt Reynolds,” giggles Dolly, the cheeky glint returning to her eyes. She pauses before laughing: “In the movie, not in real life.”
Not that it stopped the fevered speculation at the time. And even three years ago Burt did little to dampen the rumours when he said of the buxom star: “I got to work with her for so long that eventually I was looking at her face.”
I wonder what husband Carl made of the incessant rumours linking her to Burt?
Now and again, he and Dolly would walk to the grocery store together and were greeted by a sea of lurid coverage of her supposed affair on the covers of magazines. But the singer insists there was never any awkwardness between them both.
“Carl never cared about that,” Dolly laughs. “Lord, they had me sleeping with everybody – I’d have never got anything done.
“And the ones I did sleep with, they don’t know about.”
Given she and Burt were such huge stars at the time it’s little wonder their relationship could become fraught.
“Burt and I had our little arguments and little spats,” admits Dolly. “But we were so honest with each other. In the same way Kenny Rogers and I are. We held no secrets from each other, we couldn’t fool each other.”
The pair duet on the original song Sneakin’ Around in one scene in the film – which ends with the two of them diving under the covers. While Dolly’s voice is as recognisable as ever, it’s fair to say Burt’s range is a little more limited.
Not that Dolly thought so – in her eyes and ears he was up there with Dean Martin. “His big idol was Dean and he was always singing that style of music,” she says. “He could sound just like him.”
It’s then I realise she is pulling my leg. “He could sing as good as Sylvester Stallone, put it that way,” she laughs.
“Somebody said you’re the only person I know who has the balls to do two musicals with two men that couldn’t
We were kind of like brother and sister – we were very much alike DOLLY ON HER CO-STAR AND PAL BURT REYNOLDS
sing.” She was, of course, linked to Stallone too, who she starred with in Rhinestone, in 1984.
But it’s fair to say she only has eyes for one man – her husband Carl.
The pair met outside Nashville’s Wishy-Washy laundromat when she was just 18. Carl, 21, struck up conversation by saying she was going to get sunburn in her revealing outfit.
“My first thought was I’m going to marry that girl,” Carl once said. “My second was, ‘Lord she’s good lookin’.”
They began dating and Dolly signed with Monument Records soon after.
Two years after they first met they tied the knot in a low-key ceremony in Georgia in 1966. But fame never sat easily on Carl’s shoulders. Despite being the subject of red-headed bank clerk Jolene’s advances in Dolly’s famous 1973 song, he has quietly lived on their sprawling farm running his paving firm until he retired recently.
Dolly says she was surprised as anyone when two years ago she convinced him to mark their 50th wedding anniversary in style by renewing their vows.
“I never got that big church wedding the first time around, with that beautiful dress with the veil,” she says. “But this time I did. We just had a lovely ceremony with immediate family. It was very sweet.”
The couple never had children, and with Dolly away for long stretches on the road, it must take a very strong marriage to survive 50 years in showbusiness. “The humour has kept us together over the years,” Dolly says. “Carl has a crazy, warped sense of humour.
“He is extremely funny and I suppose I am pretty funny too.
“Even if we get pissed off with each other, we have never said anything that we would regret if one of us died. We usually laugh our way out of it.”
And it’s with another chuckle that Dolly tells me how there’s another upside to her career – which Carl, unsurprisingly, approves of.
“He is more interested in how much money I am going to make because he finds it fascinating I am a little country girl that came from nowhere,” she jokes. “He loves money.”
He must be delighted, then, that her career shows no signs of slowing.
Next year she brings 9to 5: The Musical to the Savoy Theatre in London’s West End and she is writing both the lyrics and the music.
It is based on the 1980 film in which Dolly starred with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin. This time it features Louise Redknapp, Amber Davies and Natalie McQueen, with Brian Conley as the sexist boss (Dabney Coleman in the film) who makes life a misery. Dolly says the decision to bring it back was inspired, in part, by the gender pay gap row and Me Too movement.
“We’ve got the same problems then as you have now,” she says. “We are all created equal in God’s eyes. We should treat each other with respect.”
Heaven forbid that anyone tried it on with Dolly down the years.
“I was lucky because I grew up with six brothers. I can tell you where to kick ’em where it hurts,” she says.
Of that, there is little doubt.
■ 9 To 5: The Musical is at the Savoy Theatre, London from January 28 to August 31, 2019, www.9to5themusical.co.uk. Here I Am, the new Dolly Parton and Sia single, is out on Dolly Records/ Sony Music, www.imaginationlibrary.com, www.dollywood.com.