Dolly Parton Shares Insights on Collaborating with Sylvester Stallone and Burt Reynolds

Dolly Parton found herself alongside Sylvester Stallone and Burt Reynolds as romantic leads in films throughout the 1980s. This on-screen chemistry sparked rumors of off-screen romances, which Parton playfully dismissed. She expressed her enjoyment of working with both actors, noting their similarities. However, she felt a closer personal connection with Stallone.

Dolly Parton compared working with Sylvester Stallone and Burt Reynolds

Although Parton is best known for her music career, she ventured into acting in the 1980s. She starred with Reynolds in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and shared the screen with Stallone in Rhinestone. Parton observed that while the two actors had some common traits, it was Stallone who left a more lasting impression on her.

“Both he and Burt are egomaniacs, but Sly is the perfect balance of total ego and total insecurity,” she said, per the book Dolly on Dolly. “I see how his mind works. If you were in love with him, he’d pick out all your weaknesses and either use them to help you or use them against you.”

She said that when they first met, she asked Stallone not to pick her apart like he did with other people. This helped them get along.

“He was so funny that he’d make me laugh until I’d lose my breath and beg him to stop,” she said. “He’s really fun to work with — he’s nuts, sick, crazy, a scream!”

She said that while she found Stallone “pretty to look at,” she didn’t think he was her type.

She did not like filming ‘The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas’

Parton also had a high opinion of Reynolds, despite rumors that he was a dark cloud on the set of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. She noted that there were “sensitive times when things were said — not meaning to — that brought tears to his or my eyes.”

Parton explained that the project was a miserable one for everyone, and not just because of Reynolds. She was dealing with health problems at the time, and her close relationship with her band leader collapsed.

“We were all ultimately losers in one way or another,” she wrote in her book Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business. “It was not a fun project for anybody involved. Not for Burt [Reynolds], not for me, certainly not for Richard Baskin or Gregg Perry. I still feel responsible for that situation and the pain it caused.”

Dolly Parton said Sylvester Stallone helped her

While Parton struggled through the filming of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, she had a much more enjoyable time working on Rhinestone. She said Stallone’s presence in her life helped her heal.

“Even though the movie didn’t do that well, that was one of my greatest projects,” Parton told Rolling Stone. “Because Stallone was so full of life and so crazy and so funny, and he made me laugh a lot, which was real healthy for me. That movie got me back on track.”

Rhinestone was a critical failure, but Parton said she still looks back on it fondly.