Dolly Parton's Answer to Barbara Walters Hillbilly Question
Via USA TODAY
The Story
Dolly Parton's 1977 interview with Barbara Walters has resurfaced after her death, when the singer answered a pointed question about being called a hillbilly.
Parton, who died on August 25 at 80, told Walters that the word would have sounded natural where she grew up, but that she would probably have kicked her shins for it.
Pressed on whether her people were the ones Walters had in mind, Parton said they were proud, carried what she called country class, and had good common sense, or horse sense, even where they lacked schooling.
Walters then asked her to tell her own life as a fairy tale, and Parton described a girl from a small mountain town who loved it for the security her family gave her.
The girl was curious, wanted the things the Mother Goose stories and the Cinderellas had promised her, worked hard and dreamed a lot, and one day found the other slipper.
Writing in her 1994 memoir Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business, Parton recalled being warned that Walters would chew her up and spit her out, and said nothing could have been further from the truth.
She sat with Walters again in 1982, this time at her home outside Nashville, and the earlier exchange stands as the plainest statement of the pride she carried out of the Tennessee mountains.
Parton, who died on August 25 at 80, told Walters that the word would have sounded natural where she grew up, but that she would probably have kicked her shins for it.
Pressed on whether her people were the ones Walters had in mind, Parton said they were proud, carried what she called country class, and had good common sense, or horse sense, even where they lacked schooling.
Walters then asked her to tell her own life as a fairy tale, and Parton described a girl from a small mountain town who loved it for the security her family gave her.
The girl was curious, wanted the things the Mother Goose stories and the Cinderellas had promised her, worked hard and dreamed a lot, and one day found the other slipper.
Writing in her 1994 memoir Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business, Parton recalled being warned that Walters would chew her up and spit her out, and said nothing could have been further from the truth.
She sat with Walters again in 1982, this time at her home outside Nashville, and the earlier exchange stands as the plainest statement of the pride she carried out of the Tennessee mountains.
Why It Matters
Parton's death moved through public life faster than most. Spectrum News reported that Trump ordered flags at federal sites to half staff for a week, and the Empire State Building lit its tower pink. Her family asked mourners to support the Imagination Library rather than send flowers, a program CNN counts at more than 300 million books mailed to children. That is the harder inheritance. The library and Dollywood, open since 1986 and the largest employer in its corner of Tennessee, now run on a name that cannot lend itself again. A Tennessee state senator has proposed making September 25 a state 9 to 5 Day.
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