Dolly Parton’s Marriage to Carl Dean Was Fueled by Distance and Difference

And there was “Jolene” (1973), inspired by a bank teller who developed a crush on Dean. Parton told NPR in 2008 that back then her husband “loved going to the bank” because a woman was paying him “so much attention.” In many ways, the song is less about Dean’s desire than Parton’s own feelings of inadequacy. “She had everything I didn’t,” Parton told NPR.

To be sure, Parton wrote songs that laid out the blessings of their marriage, like “From Here to the Moon and Back” (2012) and “If You Hadn’t Been There,” which she released shortly after his death. “You made me dream more than I darеd,” she sings in the latter.

Dean, who owned an asphalt-paving company, lived a life out of the spotlight. He rarely, if ever, appeared with his wife, although Parton put him on the cover of her 1969 album “My Blue Ridge Mountain Boy.” His absence drove rumors that they were not actually married. “They think I just made him up,” Parton once said in a television interview, adding that she and Dean “were different but yet we’re just so compatible.”

In “Dolly on Dolly,” a collection of interviews and encounters with the singer, Parton described a sharp divide between her private and public lives. “My marriage is separate,” she said. “I have my life on the road and my life with Carl. He has seen me perform, once. But we have our own life at home — without music people.”

Parton made it clear that she was committed to her marriage even as rumors circulated in the tabloids that she and Dean had an open relationship. If anything, she seemed to encourage the chatter. “If he does something, I never want to know,” she says in “Dolly on Dolly.” And she admitted to flirtation. “I love men, and I’m friendly,” she said. “But if I ever did something, I’d never say.”

The couple, who did not have children, celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 2016 by renewing their vows. Dean rarely gave interviews, but that year he told Entertainment Tonight, “I wouldn’t trade the last 50 years for nothing on this earth.”