Dolly Parton Got Her Husband’s Written Permission to Do a ‘Love Scene’ With Burt Reynolds
When Dolly Parton starred in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, she pushed for more romance with co-star Burt Reynolds. The pair’s chemistry sparked cheating rumors, and Parton herself described their connection as “sweeter than a love affair.” She looked forward to working with him, joking that she already had her husband’s written permission to do a love scene.
Dolly Parton said she got her husband’s permission for a scene with Burt Reynolds
Parton and Reynolds starred in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas in 1982. While Parton has said that she didn’t enjoy the experience of making the film, she did like her co-star. She looked forward to working with him for the first time.
“Yeah, in fact, I’m really excited about doing this next film,” she said, per the book Dolly on Dolly. “It’s with Burt Reynolds, and it’s from the Broadway musical comedy of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. I’m gonna be writing a lot of the music for that. I like working with Lily [Tomlin] and Jane [Fonda], but working with Burt Reynolds, that’s just something else!”
Parton reportedly pushed for more romance between herself and Reynolds. She said she was so eager to film a “love scene” with Reynolds that she got her husband’s signed permission.
“I’ve asked Carl’s permission and I got it in writin’. [Laughs] So if I can convince Burt that he should kiss me, I think I’ll kiss him for every woman in America that ever wanted to,” she said. “I’m gonna lay a good’n on him!”
She said she would never do a sex scene
While Parton said she wanted to do a love scene, she would never do anything beyond a kiss.
“I think people know that I respect myself, and people usually respect people that respect themselves,” she said. “But I would never even do any really heavy, serious love scenes, like even slobberin’ kissin’ scenes and all. I certainly wouldn’t do anything as outrageous as being naked.”
She worried about her parents seeing her movies and being shocked by her scenes. She wanted to keep things as chaste as possible.
“It’s fine for some people, if that’s what they wanna do, but I always think of my Mom and Dad and my people and the way I was brought up,” she said. “And besides that, I have a great deal of respect for me. I’ve never really gone through a lot of disrespectful things. People have always treated me nice.”
Burt Reynolds got frustrated with the way Dolly Parton talked about their relationship
Though Parton said she looked forward to kissing Reynolds, she denied any romantic involvement between them.
“There were the inevitable rumors that Burt and I were romantically involved, and one day, in an interview, somebody asked me if it was true,” Parton wrote in her book Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business. “‘Shoot, no!’ I said, ‘Burt and I are too much alike to be involved. We both wear wigs and high heels, and we both have a roll around the middle.’”
Reynolds was not happy to hear that she said this about him.
“Well, Burt got wind of this quote and proceeded to give me a few of his own,” Parton wrote, “‘You’re destroying the magic,’ he said to me. ‘How are people going to think of us as an item for the sake of this movie if we go around bad-mouthing each other?’ Well, I hadn’t thought of it as bad-mouthing, and I told him so. I was just trying to make a joke.”
Parton later said that she didn’t deny affair rumors because any press is good press.
