If any celebrity wants to keep a secret from the public then they should see Dolly Parton. She and her husband, Carl Dean were married for more than five decades, but seeing them together is like witnessing a blue moon.
Although being the face of country music, and being in the spotlight all the time, she managed to keep her husband out of the world. Dean knew that to be in the spotlight was not for him.
“I love you, and I will support you in your career any way I can, but I am not going to any more of these wingdings,” told Dean to his wife after their appearance at an awards show in 1966, via; Rolling Stone.
Although Dean wants to hide from the spotlight, Dolly wants to keep dragging him into it by dedicating music to him.
“I’m going to do a lot of his favorite songs, he loves Mick Jagger, he loves ‘Satisfaction’ — that kind of songs. I’m hoping to have Elton John. I’m hoping to have just a lot of the big classic artists singing some of the classic songs.” she said to E! News.
Who is the man who managed to steal Dolly Parton’s heart? Let’s take a look at it!
Who is Dolly Parton’s husband, Carl Dean?
The superstar of country music is married to Carl Dean. Since Dean doesn’t like being in the camera that much, only a little is known about him.
Carl Dean has a very private life, but it’s known that he owns an asphalt-laying company in Nashville according to CountryRebel.com. Unfortunately, whether he still works there or not remains unknown.
Dean’s mother Ginny Bates Dean and his father, Edgar Ed Henry Dean have three children. Meaning, Dean has two siblings. And for his character, it comes from Patron herself;
“I married a really good man, a guy that’s completely different from me, he’s not in show business. He’s not resentful of any of that. He loves to hear about the things I do”. Patron said to Parade.
“I love to hear about the things he does. So we enjoy each other’s company. We get along good. He’s got a great sense of humor. We’ve just been best buddies and best friends and, evidently, it’s working!”
How did Dolly Parton and Carl Dean meet?
The couple met during their young days. Dolly was only 18 and Dean was 21 when they encountered each other in Nashville. The superstar had just moved there to get a recording contract.
Let’s take a look at how Parton recalled her first moments with Dean in The New York Times (1976.) “I was at the laundromat, the Wishy‐Washy—I’d come to Nashville with dirty clothes. I was in such a hurry to get here—and after I’d put my clothes in the machine,”.
“I started walkin’ down the street…and this guy hollered at me, and I waved. Bein’ from the country, I spoke to everybody. And he came over and, well, it was Carl, my husband.”
“He came up every day that week and we set out on the porch. I wouldn’t even take him in the house, then my aunt got a day off, and she could keep the kid and that was my first chance to go anywhere with Carl and he drove me straight to his folks’ house and introduced me to his mother and daddy. Cause he said he knew right the minute he saw me that that’s the one he wanted.”
It was a love at first sight for Carl Dean
Dolly has had hundreds of interviews where she mentions her husband all the time, but on the other hand, Dean has rarely been in some interviews.
In 2016, when the couple was celebrating their 50th anniversary, Dean revealed his love for his wife to the public.
“My first thought was ‘I’m gonna marry that girl, my second thought was, ‘Lord she’s good lookin.’ And that was the day my life began. I wouldn’t trade the last 50 years for nothing on this earth.” Dean recalled his first moments with Dolly.
Read Also: What does Dolly Parton look in her original hair?
When did Carl Dean and Dolly Parton get engaged?
After two years of dating, Dean proposed to Dolly. The proposal wasn’t flashy or any kind, but it was a practical one. “He said, ‘You’re gonna have to move closer into town or we’re gonna have to get married,’ ” Dolly shared.
Dean has been a great partner since. The camera-shy guy even went with Dolly to accept the “Pull It Off Until Tomorrow” award, but that was his last straw to come in the spotlight.
“Carl and I got dressed up, he was in a tux, and we drove to the dinner. We got out and walked up the red carpet and went inside and sat through dinner and the awards, and I went up and got my award,” she told an audience at Marty Stuart Jam
“After the dinner, we walked back out, and they brought us our car … and we got in it and headed for home,” she said. “Carl turned to me and said, ‘Dolly, I want you to have everything you want, and I’m happy for you, but don’t you ever ask me to go to another one of them dang things again!’ “
When did Dolly Parton and Carl Dean get married?
Soon after the proposal, they decided to tie the knot in May 30, 1966. The marriage took place at Ringgold, Ga. in Ringgold Baptist Church, where only Parton’s mother, the pastor, Avie Lee, and Parton and Carl were present.
Even Dean’s mother had hoped Parton and her son would throw a huge wedding party, instead of having a private wedding.
“When Carl and I told his mother that we were getting married, she was so excited that she was finally gonna get to do a wedding. Because her only daughter had eloped, so she was so happy she would get to throw a big wedding party.”
Parton’s label, Mountain Records was a little disappointed with Dolly because thy wanted her to marry a little bit later in her career. After listening to this news, it ade Carl’s mother upset, so Parton and Dean went for it.
They kept their wedding very private and avoided all the Tennessee newspapers. Dolly recalled her first moments during the wedding; “It was just my mother and Carl and me,” Parton told CMT. “My mother made me a little white dress and a little bouquet and a little Bible.
But I said, ‘I can’t get married in a courthouse because I’ll never feel married.’ So we found a little Baptist church in town, and went up to Pastor Don Duvall and said, ‘Would you marry us?’ We got pictures on the steps right outside the church.”
Nevertheless, her career path never changed, and everything turned out well.
On their 50th anniversary, the couple decided to renew their vows. Patron stated their vows as; “If I had it to do all over, I’d do it all over again, and we did, I’m dragging him kicking and screaming into the next 50 years. Wish us luck.” according to ET online.
During their vow renewal, more than a serious one, it was a fun one according to Dolly. “I got all dressed up in the most beautiful gown you’ve ever seen and dressed that husband of mine up. He looked like a handsome dude out of Hollywood,”
Patron said to Rolling Stone in 2016. “We had a few family and friends around. We didn’t plan anything big at all because we didn’t want any kind of strain, any kind of tension, any kind of commotion, so we planned it cleverly and carefully. We just had a simple little ceremony at our chapel at our place.”
Does Dolly Parton and Carl Dean have children together?
Dolly and Dean don’t have any plans to have children. Let’s take a look at what Dolly had to say about it on Today show back in 2017;
“God has a plan for everything, I think it probably was his plan for me not to have kids so everybody’s kids could be mine. And they are now.”
Dolly did have planned to have children when they were dating. “When my husband and I were dating, and then when we got married, we just assumed we would have kids, we weren’t doing anything to stop it. In fact, we thought maybe we would. We even had names if we did, but it didn’t turn out that way.” she said to Billboard in 2014.
The couple might not have a baby’s company but they always have each other. “I’m happy when I’m on stage, I’m happy when things are going great in the business, but I’m also very happy when I’m home with [Dean] and we do our little things together,” she said to Parade.
“We sight-see all of Tennessee and Kentucky, the areas that we can get back home from at night. Sometimes we’ll stay over at a Days Inn [motel] where we can just pull up and sneak me in. We don’t care, as long as the bed’s clean and there’s a bathroom. That’s how we live.”
Which Dolly Parton songs are about her husband?
There are multiple songs that the country legend Dolly Parton has dedicated to his husband, Carl Dean. She even stated on her website that Moon and Back was about her husband, a heartfelt emotions for Carl.
“From here to the moon and back / Who else in this world will love you like that? / Love is everlasting, I promise you that / From here to the moon and back,” that’s how it’s lyrics goes. Such a romantic song, right?
“When I wrote ‘From Here to the Moon and Back,’ I needed to write a beautiful love song,” Parton said to The Boot in 2012.
“I picked my husband, who I love, and I thought, ‘Well, I’ll write some beautiful song about him.’ It was about my husband in the movie, played by Kris Kristofferson, so I thought in order to make it really real and really touching, I would write it about my real, true emotions about someone I really do love and have loved for more than half of my life.”
Her hit song “Jolene” was also inspired by Dean and a local bank teller. “She got this terrible crush on my husband,” Parton said of the teller. “And he just loved going to the bank because she paid him so much attention. It was kinda like a running joke between us — when I was saying, ‘Hell, you’re spending a lot of time at the bank. I don’t believe we’ve got that kind of money.’ So it’s really an innocent song all around, but sounds like a dreadful one.”
Jolly gave a further explanation years later during the Glastonbury Festival in Somerset; “I wrote that years ago when my husband … was spending a little more time with Jolene than I thought he should be, I put a stop to that. I got rid of that redhead woman in a hurry.” according to The Independent.
Although Dolly has written several romantic songs for his husband, Dean has a different taste. Parton stated that her husband is a big fan of “rock music” to Good Morning Britain in 2019.
“He likes hard rock, he likes Led Zeppelin and bluegrass music, so my music is somewhere in between. I mean, he doesn’t dislike it, but he doesn’t go out of his way to play my records, let’s put it that way,”
Slowly even Parton started to enjoy the rock tune; “It was kind of like ‘our song’ because at romantic times or sweet times, we’d just be riding around in the car and if that would come on, Lord, he’d just knock us out of the car turning it up full blast.”
Dolly Parton and her husband like to remain private
Dean and Parton love to have a private life, where they enjoy the time more than having a mega event. They don’t like showing the public their lavish life, instead, they want a simple and enjoyable one.
During her interview with Parade, she said that they travel in their “little RV”; “We have a little RV, we travel around, we drive through these little drive-through restaurants.
“We sight-see all of Tennessee and Kentucky, the areas that we can get back home from at night. Sometimes we’ll stay over at a Days Inn [motel] where we can just pull up and sneak me in. We don’t care, as long as the bed’s clean and there’s a bathroom. That’s how we live.”
Unlike other celebrities, who go to lavish restaurants during their date nights, Dean and Parton are a little different. She recalled her date night with PEOPLE; “We know a few little places we can go without being bothered. He only likes to go places where he can be comfortable!”
The secret to Dolly Parton’s successful marriage life
Parton really has an interesting theory when it comes to making their marriage successful, she told to PEOPLE that spending time apart from each other is the key to a long-term relationship.
“I always joke and laugh when people ask me what’s the key to my long marriage and lasting love. I always say, ‘Stay gone!’ and there’s a lot of truth to that, I travel a lot, but we really enjoy each other when we’re together and the little things we do.”
“They say that opposites attract, and it’s true,” she said. “We’re completely opposite, but that’s what makes it fun. I never know what he’s gonna say or do. He’s always surprising me.”
According to Parton, the couple needs to change their personality frequently, so it gets more interesting for each other.
During an interview with Entertainment Tonight in 2022, she revealed another key element that helped their marriage get stronger, and that was “humor;”
“We both have a warped sense of humor. And I think humor, honestly, is one of the best things when you’re married like that! Even if you have a problem, if you have a great sense of humor, if you say something you can’t take back [you] usually have some crazy way of getting out of it.”