HOW DOLLY PARTON TURNED DOWN ELVIS FOR A COVER AND 5 OTHER AWESOME THINGS TO REMEMBER ABOUT HER
With more than 50 years in the spotlight, Dolly Parton remained an enduring icon until she passed away. She did not stay relevant by changing who she was, but by brilliantly reminding audiences why they loved her in the first place. Whether you were a lifelong fan or just discovering Dollywood, these 5 surprising facts offer another reason to celebrate her remarkable legacy.
She turned down Elvis for a cover
Like any good country girl, Parton grew up idolizing Elvis Presley. So when The King's manager contacted her about covering "I Will Always Love You," she was naturally elated until she found out that she would have to give up 50% of the publishing royalties. "I can't do that. Something in my heart says, 'Don't do that,'" she told CMT.
She once lost a Dolly Parton lookalike contest
In fact, not only did she lose, but as she explains it, she didn’t even come close. She told ABC in 2012 that, years ago on Halloween, she decided to enter a drag queen Dolly Parton lookalike contest in a Santa Monica bar (she lived up the street) without telling anyone that she was, in fact, the real Dolly. She said that she over-exaggerated her trademark look by making her beauty mark, eyes, and hair even “bigger,” and when she walked on stage, she got the least applause from the audience.
She got kicked out of a hotel her first time in New York City
During an episode of Late Night in 2005, Parton told Conan O’Brien that she and her longtime friend were kicked out of a hotel during their first trip to New York because the staff assumed, based on the way they were dressed, that they were, well, “working ladies.” Parton explained the mix-up by saying, “I looked cheaper then than I even do now.”
She liked to wake up early, way early
Parton may have sung about working "9 to 5," but she was up long before that. She told RuPaul Charles in an interview for Marie Claire that she woke up most mornings at 3 a.m., saying that she did some of her best work at that time: "I get more work done [between 3 a.m. and 7 a.m.] when the world is calm, energies are down, and I just feel like a farmer." She added that she usually got no more than three to five hours of sleep.
She’s copyrighted over 3,000 songs
Parton is one of the most prolific songwriters of our time. She told CNN in 2002 that she’s been writing virtually non-stop since she was seven years old, estimating that she’s penned roughly 3,000 songs in that time. She doesn’t just write for herself, either. She’s contributed to the songbook of such artists as Waylon Jennings, Kenny Rogers, Bill Phillips, Skeeter Davis, and Merle Haggard.
Her husband wasn't a fan of her music
Although they were married for 60 years, Dolly Parton's husband and love of her life, Carl Dean, was not the biggest fan of her music. Instead, she told Good Morning Britain in 2019 that he was more a fan of hard rock and bluegrass music, whereas her music "is somewhere in between." "He doesn't dislike it, but he doesn't go out of his way to play my records, let's put it that way."
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