An 18-year-old Dolly Parton landed in Nashville hoping to become a star — and on that very first day, met the man who would become her husband. She was standing outside the Wishy Washy laundromat when Carl Dean, three years her senior, pulled up in his pickup.
The couple married two years later and Parton was on her way to fame and fortune – documenting it in her songs along the way.
All the drama was there: the grinding poverty in the eastern Tennessee mountains where she was born; the slog from nine to five; and the heartbreak when a girl “with flaming auburn hair” tried to steal her beloved Dean.
Parton, whose death at the age of 80 after a battle with cancer was announced Tuesday, seemed to live a life straight out of a country music songbook.
Dean died in March last year, with Parton paying tribute to “the love we shared for over 60 years.” She had once stated that the two were a pair of “old mountain goats” who “will stay together until one of us dies.” And so it was, although Parton survived Dean for only eighteen months.
It’s tempting to say that since Parton died so soon after her beloved husband’s death, she never really recovered from the loss. Certainly, he was the one constant in her often tumultuous life. But behind the scenes, the truth was of course a lot more complicated.
Dolly Parton, whose death at the age of 80 was announced Tuesday, seemed to live a life straight out of a country music songbook.
An 18-year-old Dolly Parton, seen here in 1965, rocked Nashville hoping to become a star
She and Carl Dean, three years her senior, married as Parton was on his way to fame and fortune
It’s tempting to say that since Parton died so soon after her beloved husband’s death, Parton never really recovered from the loss.
Dean’s death undeniably hit Parton hard.
“She has definitely gone downhill since Carl passed away earlier this year,” a source told the Daily Mail. ‘They were married for almost sixty years. His death took a huge toll on her.”
She was publicly committed to the shy businessman, who owned a local asphalt company and was rarely seen by her side – but the relationship was far from simple.
Parton, the fourth of twelve children, wanted to become a mother herself, but a partial hysterectomy prevented the couple from becoming parents.
And in the early 1980s, she cheated on Dean, describing a secret “affair of the heart” in her 2017 memoir.
She never mentioned the man by name, but she left enough clues to point to her bandleader, Gregg Perry.
The end of their relationship was so devastating, she wrote, that it “nearly killed me.”
Indeed, Parton described finding a gun in her bedside table and contemplating suicide.
“I don’t think I would have done it, committed suicide, but I can’t say for sure,” she wrote. “Having lived through that horrible moment, I can certainly understand the possibilities, even for someone as solid as me, if the pain gets bad enough.”
She was romantically involved with Burt Reynolds – her co-star in the 1982 film The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas – but denied it and jokingly replied when asked, “Shoot, no!” Burt and I are too similar to be involved. We’re both wearing wigs and high heels, and we’re both wearing rolls around our waists.’ He was reportedly furious with the line.
However, she insisted that repeated rumors of infidelity were standard in show business.
“I have been accused of being involved with every man I have ever seen or worked with,” she told ABC News in 2012. ‘Maybe, maybe not. I never say if I did that. But you know people always say that.’
A source told the Daily Mail: ‘Dolly always seemed happy and laughed at all the rumours, she thought the false reports were nonsense.’
“She has definitely gone downhill since Carl passed away earlier this year,” a source told the Daily Mail
In the early 1980s, Parton cheated on Dean, describing a secret “affair of the heart” in her 2017 memoir
She had a romantic relationship with Burt Reynolds – her co-star in the 1982 film The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas – but denied it
“I have been accused of being involved with every man I have ever seen or worked with,” she said in 2012
Yet Parton gave conflicting accounts of her situation, one moment insisting she would kill her husband if she ever caught him cheating, and the next moment confirming they had an open marriage. Open, she said, only in the sense of flirting.
“Yes, it’s an open relationship, but not sexual and I would kill him if I thought he did that,” she said. ‘He would shoot me too. At the end of the day, we love each other dearly.”
The song Jolene, she said, was written because of her intense jealousy of a red-haired bank teller who was flirting with Dean.
“She was deeply in love with my husband,” Parton told NPR in 2008. “And he loved going to the couch because she gave him so much attention. It was kind of like a running joke between us when I said, “You spend a lot of time at the bank. I don’t think we have that much money.’
“So it’s actually an innocent song, but it sounds awful.”
The jealousy, heartbreak and rivalry may all be part of her country music world, but there were other rumors that may have been too controversial for Nashville to notice.
Parton has always denied that she had a secret lesbian relationship with her assistant and childhood friend Judy Ogle for decades, insisting to Nightline in 2012: “I’m not gay. If I was gay, I would have just come out of the closet.”
However, the rumors persisted, fueled by her husband’s reluctance and Parton’s admission that she and Ogle regularly shared a bed.
“Judy, my friend, they just think you can’t be that close to someone,” Parton said on Nightline. “Judy and I have been best friends since we were in third and fourth grade.
“We still have a great friendship and relationship and I love her as much as anyone in the world, but we are not romantically involved.”
Certainly, she was unapologetic in her support for gay rights and became an icon in the LGBTQ community because of her activism.
The song Jolene, she said, was written because of her intense jealousy over a red-haired bank teller who was flirting with Dean.
Parton has always denied that she had a secret lesbian relationship for decades with her assistant and childhood friend Judy Ogle
Parton was unapologetic in her support for gay rights and became an icon in the LGBTQ community because of her activism
Parton, the fourth of twelve children, wanted to become a mother herself, but a partial hysterectomy prevented the couple from becoming parents
She wrote a song for the 2005 film TransAmerica, starring Felicity Huffman as a transgender woman, and spoke out against North Carolina’s controversial 2016 bathroom law that dictated people could only use restrooms that matched their gender at birth.
“I don’t want to be controversial or cause a lot of trouble, but people are going to love who they’re going to love,” she said in 2014. “I think gay couples should be able to get married. They should suffer just like us heterosexuals. Hahaha!’
And in 2023, she condemned laws in her home state of Tennessee that legalized discrimination against transgender people.
“I just want everyone to be treated well,” she told the Hollywood Reporter. ‘I try not to get involved in the politics of everything. I try to understand the human element of it.
‘I have a share of everyone in my own immediate family and in my circle of employees. I have transgender people. I have gays. I have lesbians. I have drunks. I have drug addicts, all within my own family.
“I know and love them all, and I don’t judge.”
