Carl Dean, we hardly knew you!
Carl Dean and Dolly Parton: A Love Story That Defied Fame
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Last week, Dolly Parton lost her husband of 60 years (!), Carl Dean.
I have not felt so sad for a person I’ve never met in a long time. Dolly is the best among us: a person who has accrued loads of privilege and somehow used it to improve her community and represent acceptance and genuine goodness. She feels all the more rare and special in our world right now at a moment that feels so defined at the presidential level by mistrust, meanness, and fascism.
Carl’s passing allows us to reflect on perhaps the ultimate anti-fame celebrity spouse. This man was so private that no one could find a recent photo of him for online tributes.
On a Reddit thread where fans expressed condolences at his passing, multiple people mistakenly posted photos of Dolly with former Senator Bob Corker thinking he was Carl Dean.
Congrats to Bob Corker (?) I guess (?) Imagine someone thinking you were good enough to be with Dolly Parton.
I know Mariah Carey is THE elusive chanteuse, but Carl Dean is a close second.
Dolly met Carl on her first day in Nashville when she was 18. They married two years later, with only two witnesses present (her mom and a preacher). We have these early photos from that period. Please pay attention to this man’s face, because we won’t see much of it ever again.
Carl allegedly got nervous watching her perform and didn’t like fancy showbiz occasions. As a result, what we know of Carl is what we learned from Dolly. Her frequent chatter about him on stage presented a kind of “my boyfriend goes to high school in another town none of you have been to” energy. Still, she attributed the inspiration for some of her biggest songs to him. A running joke between them about a good-looking bank teller led to “Jolene.” When he asked her about her dating history before they met (don’t ask if you can’t handle it!) she wrote “Just Because I’m a Woman.”
Pure & Simple, released in 2016, featured songs inspired by Carl in honor of their 50th anniversary. I saw her in concert that year (a life highlight), and though he was not there, we heard about him. They were planning a vow renewal with a “real” wedding. I need to see these photos! I was kind of barely breathing being in her presence and there was a lot going on. (A Dolly concert features people of all ages, races, old people, children, gays, and straight men dressing in drag as Dolly with their wives who were not in drag.) However, when she took an intermission to change her wig, I did feel like Carl must exist because her affection for him was so evident. (I ended up playing “Pure & Simple” at my wedding and have been playing it a lot this week in her honor.)
In 2024, Dolly released Rockstar, an album of rock covers made in tribute to her husband’s love of rock music. Why she allowed Kid Rock within 50 feet of this project I will never understand.
Despite his real impact on her and her professional choices, or perhaps because of them, it made it puzzling that we never even got to see Carl’s face. Here’s the back of this man’s head, as in a video Dolly shared when she recreated her Playboy cover look for Carl’s birthday in 2021.
Carl Dean, is that you?!?!?
When Dolly released this, I got a text with a screenshot from a friend saying simply “mannequin?”
I know Carl must have been secure in himself and their relationship because Dolly is a notorious flirt. She loved Kenny Rogers, seen here at a concert they did to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the moon landing (don’t ask). He presents a piece of her timeline that puzzles me still. She traveled the world without Carl, but always went home to him.
I don’t want to trade in conspiracy theories about Carl, but simply want to question why these theories persist or existed at all. One reason may be how rare Carl was in the pantheon of husbands of famous wives. This appears to have been a man in no way threatened by his wife’s super stardom, who genuinely supported her in her ambitions. He also felt no need to use her fame to boost his own, or create some kind of public persona that allowed him to float through life on his marriage certificate and nothing else. When I think about him in conversation with someone like Loretta Lynn’s husband, Patsy Cline’s husband(s), LeAnn Rimes’ first husband (remember him?), or really any husband of a well-known musician identifying as a woman, Carl seems like a unicorn.
Could it be he just appreciated how great Dolly was and was secure in his life as an asphalt business owner that he didn’t need anything from her but . . . her? Is it possible this kind of love can survive fame? I read once that for fun they would drive around in a camper and get fast food and just hang out incognito. I don’t know if this is true at all, but I love the idea of them enjoying simple things together.
RIP Carl Dean, we literally hardly knew you.
Here is Dolly’s beautiful tribute song, “If You Hadn’t Been There”
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Oh my gosh I love this. I have always wondered about Carl!!