Dolly Parton Trivia
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92 free Dolly Parton trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
59 free Dolly Parton trivia questions with answers. Dolly Parton has written more than 3,000 songs, starred in 9 to 5 and Steel Magnolias, built a theme park in the Smoky Mountains and mailed out over 100 million free children's books. This quiz covers all of it: her childhood as the fourth of twelve kids, the Porter Wagoner years, the stories behind 'Jolene', 'Coat of Many Colors' and 'I Will Always Love You', her film career, Dollywood, the Imagination Library, her awards and the honors she has famously turned down. The questions run from easy warm-ups any fan will get to genuinely tough deep cuts about her early singles, her production company and the salaries on The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. It works for a solo play, a pub quiz round or a themed trivia night. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia and the primary sources it cites, and each explanation adds one more thing worth knowing.
30 of 92 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01How soon after graduating from high school in 1964 did Dolly Parton move to Nashville?
The very next day
Parton left for Nashville the very next day after her 1964 graduation from Sevier County High School, and met her future husband Carl Dean within hours of arriving in the city.
Q 02Parton said 'Jolene' was inspired by a red-haired woman with what job who flirted with her husband?
A bank clerk
A bank clerk with red hair flirted with Carl Dean whenever he came in, Parton said, and she turned that flash of jealousy into the song's plea.
Q 03Whitney Houston recorded her record-breaking cover of Parton's 'I Will Always Love You' for which film?
The Bodyguard
The Bodyguard turned a song Parton wrote as her farewell to Porter Wagoner into a global smash; Houston's version led the Hot 100 for 14 weeks, a record at the time.
Q 04What did Parton use to create the typewriter-clacking rhythm heard on '9 to 5'?
Her acrylic fingernails
Her acrylic fingernails, run back and forth against each other, gave Parton the clacking typewriter beat as she wrote the song, a sound the finished record keeps.
Q 05In The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Parton's character Miss Mona runs a brothel known by what name?
The Chicken Ranch
Miss Mona's brothel is the Chicken Ranch, modeled on the real Chicken Ranch outside La Grange, Texas, which was shut down in 1973; in the film the winners of the Texas–Texas A&M football game celebrate there.
Q 06Which character does Parton play in Steel Magnolias?
Truvy Jones
Truvy Jones runs the home beauty salon where the film's women gather, and the story opens with her hiring shy beauty-school graduate Annelle on the morning of Shelby's wedding.
Q 07Dollywood, which reopened under Parton's name in 1986, stands in which Tennessee city?
Pigeon Forge
Pigeon Forge, a few miles from where Parton grew up, already had the park as Silver Dollar City; she became a co-owner and it reopened as Dollywood in 1986.
Q 08Dolly Parton's Imagination Library was founded as a tribute to which member of her family?
Her father
Her father, Robert Lee Parton, never learned to read or write, which she said kept him from his dreams; she began the Imagination Library in 1995 in his honor, mailing children a free book a month.
Q 09Why was Dolly the cloned sheep named after Dolly Parton?
The donor cell came from a mammary gland
The donor cell came from a mammary gland, and Ian Wilmut quipped that the team 'couldn't think of a more impressive pair of glands than Dolly Parton's.'
Q 10Which singer is Dolly Parton's real-life goddaughter?
Miley Cyrus
Miley Cyrus had her godmother on Hannah Montana as 'Aunt Dolly', and in 2023 the two released a new version of Miley's 'Wrecking Ball' together.
Q 11Parton's 1987 album Trio was a collaboration with which two singers?
Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt
Trio paired Parton with Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt; the three had tried to record together in the mid-1970s before label and scheduling conflicts intervened, and the 1987 album won a Grammy for country duo/group vocal performance.
Q 12Who wrote 'Islands in the Stream,' Parton's 1983 chart-topping duet with Kenny Rogers?
The Bee Gees
The Bee Gees — Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb — wrote 'Islands in the Stream,' and Barry Gibb co-produced the Rogers–Parton recording; in 2005 CMT ranked it the greatest country duet of all time.
Q 13Who played Franklin Hart, the 'sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot' boss in 9 to 5?
Q 21Parton was paired with which action star in the 1984 comedy Rhinestone?
Sylvester Stallone
Rhinestone cast Parton opposite Sylvester Stallone as a New York cab driver she bets she can turn into a country singer; Parton wrote the film's songs, including 'Tennessee Homesick Blues.'
Q 22Which honor did Dolly Parton repeatedly turn down, once to avoid appearing political?
The Presidential Medal of Freedom
The Presidential Medal of Freedom was offered twice under Trump, when her husband's illness and then the pandemic kept her away; she said accepting it from Biden afterwards might look political.
Q 23In 2022 Parton tried to decline a nomination to which hall of fame?
Dabney Coleman
Dabney Coleman played Franklin Hart Jr., the boss the three women kidnap and hold in his own house; the film's closing captions say Hart was later abducted by Amazons in the Brazilian jungle.
Q 14What work did Robert Lee Parton do to support Dolly and her eleven siblings?
Sharecropper
Sharecropper Lee Parton later worked his own small tobacco farm and took construction jobs to feed twelve children; Dolly called the family dirt poor.
Q 15Where did Parton meet her future husband Carl Dean on her first day in Nashville?
Outside a laundromat
Outside a laundromat, the Wishy Washy, Parton stepped out with a cold drink while her clothes washed, and Carl Dean pulled up beside her; they married two years later.
Q 16At 13, Parton made her Grand Ole Opry debut, where which country star introduced her?
Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash told the Opry crowd her daddy was listening on the radio back home, so she would be in real trouble if she didn't sing; another singer had given up his slot for her.
Q 17Unable to find paper on Wagoner's tour bus, Parton wrote 'Coat of Many Colors' on the back of what?
A dry-cleaning receipt
A dry-cleaning receipt for one of Wagoner's suits was the only paper Parton could find on the tour bus when the song came to her; once it became a hit, Wagoner had the receipt framed.
Q 18As she sewed the coat in 'Coat of Many Colors,' Parton's mother told her the Bible story of which figure?
Joseph
Joseph and his coat of many colors was the story her mother told while stitching the coat from rags; at school the other children laughed at the patchwork she had worn so proudly.
Q 19Parton refused to let Elvis record 'I Will Always Love You' after Colonel Tom Parker demanded what?
Half of the publishing rights
Colonel Tom Parker insisted Elvis would record the song only if Parton signed over half of the publishing rights; she refused, and later joked that Whitney Houston's version earned her enough to buy Graceland.
Q 20Which singer's unrelated '9 to 5' hit No. 1 in 1981 just months after Parton's did?
Sheena Easton
Sheena Easton's '9 to 5' was retitled 'Morning Train (Nine to Five)' in the U.S. to avoid confusion with Parton's hit, and it went on to top the Hot 100 for two weeks.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Parton asked to withdraw from the 2022 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ballot, saying she had not earned it as a rock artist; after learning the hall honors many genres she accepted and was inducted on November 5, 2022.
Q 24Parton co-wrote the 2022 novel Run, Rose, Run with which best-selling author?
James Patterson
James Patterson co-wrote Run, Rose, Run, a thriller about a young singer arriving in Nashville; Parton released a companion album of the same name the same week, and Reese Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine optioned the book for a film.
Q 25How did the Parton family pay Dr. Robert F. Thomas, the missionary doctor who delivered Dolly?
With a sack of cornmeal
The family paid Dr. Robert F. Thomas with a sack of cornmeal for delivering Dolly in 1946; she later wrote a song titled 'Dr. Robert F. Thomas' for her 1973 album My Tennessee Mountain Home.
Q 26Whose hit 'Please Please Please' featured Parton on a February 2025 deluxe edition?
Sabrina Carpenter
Sabrina Carpenter added a duet version of 'Please Please Please' with Parton to the February 2025 deluxe edition of Short n' Sweet; the original had topped the Hot 100 the previous summer.
Q 27Whose 2024 cover of 'Jolene' rewrote the lyrics so the singer warns Jolene rather than begging her?
Beyoncé
Beyoncé's 'Jolene' on Cowboy Carter turns the plea into a warning; Parton introduces it on the interlude 'Dolly P', comparing Jolene to 'that hussy with the good hair' from Beyoncé's own songs.
Q 28Parton's $1 million gift to Vanderbilt in 2020 helped fund which company's COVID-19 vaccine?
Moderna
Moderna ran early trials at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where Parton's April 2020 donation went; she called it seed money and got her own shot there in March 2021.
Q 29What was the title of Parton's 2023 album featuring guests Paul McCartney and Elton John?
Rockstar
Rockstar reunited Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr on her cover of 'Let It Be' and debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200, the highest any Parton album reached.
Q 30Which singer did Parton replace on The Porter Wagoner Show, prompting chants from audiences?
Norma Jean
Norma Jean had spent seven years as Wagoner's 'girl singer', and early crowds chanted her name at Parton; with Wagoner's backing she won them over.