America is falling in love with Dolly Parton all over again thanks to the huge success of her made for TV movie, ‘Coat of Many Colors.’ As portrayed in the movie, Dolly was especially close to her parents, a tough feat considering she was one of twelve children. But, if there was ever any competition between Dolly and her siblings when it came to her parents’ affections, you’d never know it now. Family is everything to Dolly Parton.
In 2009, Dolly Parton appeared on CBS’s 60 Minutes and was moved to tears by a surprise the show’s host, Morley Safer, had in store.
Safer and the 60 Minutes crew dug up a video that Dolly hadn’t seen in more than 30 years. The clip was from Dolly television show and showed Dolly singing along with her parents and siblings.
“Oh, that’s Mama and Daddy! Oh my gosh! Where’d you get…,” a shocked Dolly asked Safer.
“Oh, that’s mama,” she said with her hand over her mouth.
At one point, her father stood up and started dancing a jig. Dolly told Safer. “Look at Daddy! Oh, my gosh. …Oh, look at that little fat girl he’s dancing with! Who’s that?”
The tape ends with the old Christian hymn, “In The Sweet By and By.” Dolly grew up singing the song about Heaven in her grandfather’s church.
In a beautiful, touching moment, we see Dolly Parton start to choked up as she saw her parents on tape for the first time in decades.
“Well now, what am I gonna do now? You can’t get me back in line here. That’s very touching to me. ‘Cause Mama and Daddy are both gone now,” the ‘I Will Always Love You’ singer said crying. “I haven’t seen that in so long. You just pulled at my heart there.”
Parton lost her father in 2000 after a series of strokes, and her mother, Avie Lee, died in 2003.
Watch the emotional clip of Dolly Parton’s interview surprise below:
