Loretta Lynn_ Coal Miner's Daughter - Loretta Lynn [98]
There was a television movie I was supposed to be in, playing a woman who was a mother by the age of fourteen. Sound familiar? It would have been about immigrants traveling across the country. I liked the idea, but we couldn’t work it into my schedule. We were booked six months ahead, and they called me three weeks before the filming was to start. Television is funny that way. It’s too bad. I could have played that as myself and wouldn’t have needed any acting lessons. I’ve got to act natural, can’t be nothing but myself.
It’s like when they had me on the “Dean Martin Show.” Now that was a mess. I was rehearsing all week and never saw Dean Martin. He’s got this stand-in who rehearses all week. Then Dean Martin comes in for the show, and you’ve got to push him into his place because he hasn’t rehearsed. Anyway, they wanted me to sit in Dean Martin’s lap at the end of a scene. I said no, I wasn’t raised to sit in other men’s laps, not even for television. I don’t sit in Doolittle’s lap in public; it’s just bad manners. All these Hollywood people were looking at me like I was crazy. I didn’t care. I know what’s right and wrong and I wasn’t sitting on Dean Martin’s lap. Finally they said I didn’t have to, which was a good thing, because there was no way I was going to.
The next day the producer sent me a dozen roses and said he wanted to meet the woman who wouldn’t sit on Dean Martin’s lap. I guess they’re not gonna forget that too soon. But I did the same thing on Dinah Shore’s show. The producer wanted me to model with a silver cigaret holder. I said I didn’t smoke and wasn’t going to model any holder.
But I love being around show business. I’ve met so many stars: Vic Damone—he followed me on a show one time and we both messed up our lyrics. Lorne Greene—I ran into him in the restaurant at the Sheraton Universal Hotel. He had beautiful gray hair, said he knew my records. Louis Armstrong—we talked about doing an album called “Loretta Sings the Blues,” but he said he wasn’t strong enough to record at that time. He died two months after that. Of course, Dinah Shore—she’s my special friend, always giving me good advice. And Mike Douglas—the minute I walk into his studio, I feel at home. He understands my Butcher Holler ways and he just lets me be Loretta. I like a person who don’t make fun of your accent or your upbringing. That happened to me with one talk show one time. I told the guy after the show I wasn’t going to be back with him. And I didn’t for a long time. I heard he got some bad mail about it.
But most of the people have been great. My twins are bugs just like me. They want to meet Gregory Peck. And you know what? When I got the top vocalist award in 1972, they weren’t excited for me—they were excited because they got to see Charley Pride. Now they’re asking me if I really know Dolly Parton. I figure that must be Doolittle’s influence.
FLOOR PLAN OF THE LORETTA LYNN BUS 7′6″ × 38′
Diagram of bus by Marianne Vecsey
30
On the Road
I hear her voice, in the morning hours she calls me;
The radio reminds me of my home far away;
Driving down the road I get a feeling
That I should have been home yesterday—yesterday….
—“Take Me Home, Country Roads,” by John Denver/Bill Danoff/Taffy Nivert
Now that I’ve told you just about everything in my life, maybe it’s time to take you along with me for a few days, so you’ll see all about my “glamorous” life as a country singer. Usually the way that works, people get all excited about traveling in my bus. But after a day and a half they start asking, “Hey, where can I catch a plane out of here?”
Our schedule is a bunch of one-night stands. It isn’t good business to sit in one place too long. You figure all your fans are gonna make an effort to see you one night. But there may not be enough for two nights. Plus, I’d rather keep moving than stay in one town. It makes the time go faster. You stay in one place for a week and you swear you’ve been there a month. But the traveling can get pretty rough, too.
Let’s take a weekend in May, the first weekend when my