Dolly Parton before and after Playboy: ‘I’m Everybody’s Mother’ – Interviews from 1978

“If I’m gonna have any looks at all, I’m gonna have to create them.”

– Dolly Parton

 

 

Dolly Parton (January 19, 1946 – August 25, 2026) was one of the most talented performers who has ever lived. Before her Playboy photoshoot in 1978, Dolly was interviewed by Larry Grobel to talk about growing up poor in Tennessee with 11 siblings. As she would later recall: “We were so poor ah thought anyone whose house was clean was rich.”

Disarmingly honest in all things, at one point Dolly talked about what it was like to sleep with her brother and sisters in the same bed every night:

Dolly Parton: I would wash every night. And as soon as I go to bed, the kids would wet on me and I’d have to get up in the morning and do the same thing.

Larry Grobel: When they wet on you, though, did you get up and wipe yourself down or just sort of accepted it?

Dolly Parton: No, that was the only warm thing we knew in the winter time. That was almost a pleasure to get peed on because it was so cold. Lord. It was as cold in the room as it was outside. We’d bundle up to go to bed.

 

 

Dolly Parton: Beards and Boys

That same year, and after that Playboy shoot, Dolly was the subject of an article in Melody Maker magazine. In Dolly Parton: Confessions of a Power Crazed Wig-Model, interviewer Colin Irwin found himself awestruck:

And then you are ushered in to The Presence… and wham… it’s as overwhelming as you knew it would be. The aura she exudes is utterly stupefying,…

She’s flicking through a book about Andy Warhol that somebody’s just sent to her room (Andy being a fan) and leaps to attention as you approach, all huge beams, giggles, and body. Her torso has been well documented, but they didn’t warn me about the eyes… huge blue-grey round things that drown you pitilessly from beneath black spidery eyelashes. The face is a gentle hue of pink, great silver circles loop from her ears, while the fingernails stretch out for miles from fingers decorated dazzlingly by silverware.

 

 

And then Dolly speaks:

“Oh boys,” she says, all wide-eyed, in the ambling, intoxicating drawl of East Tennessee. “If ah’d had knowhun yew wez gonna tahk ma picture ah would have dressed up nahce f’yew.”

The boys dissolve…

Affected by the sort of madness she inspires, our man of the lens, Barry Plummer, produces a false beard and glasses and asks her to put it on.

“Ah sheee-iitt,” she shouts, shrieking with laughter, “‘Ah done worse” and grabs it, rushing to the mirror to see how it looks. “Worse” has included posing recently in Bunny costumes for the cover of Playboy.

Dolly Parton: The Hair

 

She talks of her drive to be a success and make as much money as she could. And then she talk about her image:

“…at one time th’kind of hair-style that ah wear now was in style — you’re probably too young t’remember that — an’ ah enjoyed that. An’ when it went outa style ah didn’t wanna change it. Enough people tol’ me ah should change it cos it was jes’ too obvious, so then well ah thought that’s good, that’s real good. Cos you gotta get good, so not only didn’t ah change it, ah exaggerated it. Ya know with th’ tease hair an’ the wigs. Ah wanted t’draw attention so that people could see there wez talent there, an’ they could see there wez a real genuine person there beneath th’artificial surface. An’ ah think it’s nearly reached th’ point where ah could change th’image and be ‘ccepted totally as a writer, a singer, a personality.”

So how will you change it? Stop wearing wigs?

“Yeah, probably. But ah’d always wanna be… pretty. Ah mean, ah wouldn’t wanna be… plain… or hippie-looking. Ah’d wear things that fit mah personality.”

 

Dolly Parton: A Hit’s and Hit In Any Language

 

“AH LAHK to think ah didn’t exactly change over, but added to what ah was doin’ before. Ah’ve had two hit albums now so ah couldn’t be happier an’ ah think ah’ve got a new audience as well as mah country audience ‘cept for a few bitter people. Ah guess ah pissed them off an’ they pissed me off.

…

“Y’see ah’m trying’ t’do a job. If somethin’s good enough, people’ll buy it. Ah don’t care if Hitler recorded it.” Hitler? “Yeah, if Hitler put out a record that everybody lerved people’d buy it. Ah berlieve that.”

Dolly was a fabulous country singer who became a global superstar.

“Talent is talent. Ah think Emmy [Emmylou Harris], Linda [Linda Ronstadt], me, anybody who has th’talent an’ th’desire shouldn’t have to be put in a damn cage. It’s like a chequer board. Today somebody brought a paper up t’me an’ it said ‘GOODBYE DOLLY WE DON’T WANT YOU NOW’. It’s jes’ lahk if you’re black, they wanna call y’a n****r. If y’are country they wanna call y’hillbilly. An’ if ya try, they call you sonofabitch. So what’re y’sposed t’do? But it won’t stop me. Ah’ll go t’mah grave doin’ everythin’ ah can t’mahk th’world a better place and mahself a better person.”

 

Being ‘everybody’s mother’

 

 

Inevitably, there comes from the background a formal invitation to terminate the interview. I plead one final question and ask her, off the wall, what she would like to have done had she not been a singer.

“Waal,” she says giggling again, “Ah was so full of music that ah never did think that much ’bout anythin’ else. Ah wez always sure ah wez gonna make it. Ah was always sure ah wez gonna be rich an’ famous an’ have rings an’ cars an’ buy things when ah wanted to an’ buy all the hot-dogs ah wanted to an’ all th’candy. Ah always thought ah would. If ah had not made it ah think ah would like t’have bin a missionary becos ah like t’be around people, an’ ah think ah have special qualities with children. Ah lerv little kids. Ah don’t want any o’mah own though.

“Ah know if ah had children of mah own ah’d lerve ’em so ah’d give up mah career an’ everythin’ else cos ah don’t believe ah could do both things. Ah don’t feel any desire t’have children an’ mah husband isn’t interested either, though if ah wanted to ah could for ‘nother eight years. Ah’m 32 now, an’ anyway ah’d be jes’ as happy with one that wez adopted. But w’always have little children around. Ah’m everybody’s mother.”

 

We Will Always Love You

Let’s end with one of  her greatest hits, as she serenades each of us – hitting us straight in the heart: