Dolly Parton was lonely when she moved to Nashville at age 18 as an aspiring singer/songwriter. She missed her parents and 11 siblings. She was also so poor that she would sometimes wander the hotel hallways at night looking for half-eaten room service trays waiting to be picked up.
“Even basically honest people can act in desperation when hunger strikes,” she said.
But there was one silver lining in her early days in the country music capital. That’s when Parton met a local boy at a laundromat.
As author Martha Ackman describes in her upcoming biography of Karl Dean, Ain’t Nobody’s Fool, Karl Dean’s good looks captivated Parton. Parton liked that “he seemed more interested in who she was than what she looked like.”
Still, the relationship grew “quickly on his side and slowly on her side.” Parton was “smitten,” but she was “caught off guard” when Dean announced he was going to marry her.
“Although she loved Carl more than anyone she had ever dated, she was eager to start her career,” Ackman wrote. “And Dolly has seen firsthand the price women pay for marrying early and having many children.”
She had no interest in having children of her own, having helped raise many of her siblings. Nor did she consider herself a typical housewife.
Fortunately, Dean, a quiet and polite man, could cook, sew, and was happy to do the housework.
“They just turned each other upside down,” Parton’s longtime friend Judy Ogle, who grew up together in Sevier County, Tennessee, says in the book. “If Clint Eastwood and the Marlboro Man had a child, it would be Carl.”
Dean and Parton had one big thing in common. He had no interest in show business.
Once, he visited his girlfriend in the studio while she was recording 1966’s “Dumb Blonde,” but she quickly left.
“Who wants to hear the same song sung over and over again?” he reportedly asked.
Meanwhile, one of Parton’s most iconic songs, “Jolene,” was inspired by a red-haired bank teller who seemed to have a crush on Dean and started teasing him about it. (However, the name comes from the girl who asked Parton for her autograph.)
Dean and Parton, who owned a paving company, had mutual conditions. Dean would never attend movie premieres or award shows with his girlfriend. And the singer, who is passionate about his career, is not around to cook and clean.
“She said she liked his independence and needed freedom both in their marriage and as a creative force,” Ackman wrote.
They married in 1966, when she was 20 and he was 23.
Although he sometimes drove Dolly to Grand Ole Opry appearances, Ackman wrote, “Karl told Dolly that he wasn’t interested in glamor or tuxedos. He just wanted a private life and the attention was annoying and intrusive. Fans ambushed him at auto parts stores, pestered him at ballgames, and tried to get autographs from him when they dined at the Ponderosa Steakhouse.”
“One time, he and Dolly were sitting[in a restaurant]and a fan came up and Carl complained. ‘Oh, shut up, Carl,’ Dolly told him. ‘They’re coming after me.’
Dolly’s friend Fred Foster, who lived near the couple, told Ackman that the couple had gone on camping trips out west and vacationed in Florida. But Dean hated flying, and “one of the couple’s favorite pastimes was driving to small towns in the South.”
Foster says, “Their marriage may seem strange to many people, but they seem to get along well with their style.”
Dean also secretly visited Parton’s Dollywood theme park in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, near where she grew up.
“He bought his own ticket. He got in line to get his ticket. He didn’t want someone to give him his ticket because he was Dolly’s husband,” Parton told the Knoxville News Sentinel.
Parton, on the other hand, has proven herself to be an astute businesswoman who knows her worth.
When Elvis Presley’s manager, the infamous Colonel Tom Parker, called to say that Presley wanted to record “I Will Always Love You,” Parton, a longtime fan, was overjoyed. She then learned that Presley only recorded songs for which he owned all or half of the publishing rights.
Ackman wrote, “While the offer was attractive, Dolly understood that it was important for her to maintain financial control of her estate, both as an artist and as a member of a large family,” and that Dolly intended to leave her estate behind.
It was a courageous move by a 28-year-old woman to compete against one of the world’s most famous singers.
By the mid-’70s, Parton was touring constantly, but she wasn’t making much money considering her expenses. Frustrated by the disparity, she flew to New York to meet with label executives.
“If you motherfuckers could learn how to sell Elton John, a woman with long hair and big breasts dressed like a freak, we could make some money,” she reportedly said.
As Parton’s fame and fortune soared, Dean, who died in March at the age of 82, showed no interest in her glamorous world. When pursued for interviews and comments about his wife, he remained firm.
“We’ll go somewhere, have a beer and shoot some bulls together,” he told reporters. “But I’m definitely not going to actively discuss Dolly.”
