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99 free Dolly Parton trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Aug 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.
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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 has said 'Jolene' was inspired by a red-haired woman with what job who flirted with her husband?
A bank clerk
Parton has said 'Jolene' grew out of a red-haired bank clerk who flirted with her husband Carl Dean whenever he went to the bank, and she turned that flash of jealousy into the song.
Q 03How many weeks did Whitney Houston's 'I Will Always Love You' spend at No. 1 on the Hot 100?
14
Whitney Houston's 1992 cover of Parton's 'I Will Always Love You' held the top of the Hot 100 for 14 weeks, then the longest run in the chart's history, and earned Parton substantial songwriting royalties.
Q 04What did Parton use to create the typewriter-clacking rhythm heard on '9 to 5'?
Her acrylic fingernails
Parton clicked her long acrylic fingernails against each other to imitate a typewriter while writing the song on the film set, and that clacking rhythm was kept on the finished recording.
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
Parton plays Truvy Jones, the warm-hearted owner of the home beauty salon where the women of Chinquapin gather; Truvy's motto is that 'there is no such thing as natural beauty.'
Q 07In what year did the Pigeon Forge park formerly called Silver Dollar City Tennessee reopen as Dollywood?
1986
The park reopened as Dollywood in 1986 after Parton became a co-owner, and attendance jumped to more than a million visitors in that first season under the new name.
Q 08Dolly Parton's Imagination Library was founded as a tribute to which member of her family?
Her father
Parton founded the Imagination Library in 1995 in honor of her father, Robert Lee Parton, who never learned to read or write; he lived to see it start and proudly called her 'the book lady.'
Q 09Why did the Roslin Institute name Dolly the sheep after Dolly Parton?
The donor cell came from a mammary gland
Ian Wilmut quipped that the team 'couldn't think of a more impressive pair of glands than Dolly Parton's.'
Q 10Which pop star is Dolly Parton's real-life goddaughter?
Miley Cyrus
Miley Cyrus is Parton's goddaughter; Parton is a longtime friend of Miley's father Billy Ray Cyrus and played 'Aunt Dolly' on Miley's Disney series Hannah Montana.
Q 11Parton's acclaimed 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 21According to Parton, the name and look of 'Jolene' were borrowed from whom?
A young fan who came on stage for an autograph
Parton took the name from a young red-haired, green-eyed fan who came on stage for an autograph after a show; she kept repeating 'Jolene' to remember it, and the name became the chorus.
Q 22Dolly Parton 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 23Which Scottish singer's unrelated '9 to 5' hit No. 1 in 1981 months after Parton's did?
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 14Dolly Parton was the fourth of how many children born to Avie Lee and Robert Lee Parton?
12
Her mother had eleven pregnancies in twenty years, the tenth producing twins, and was a mother of twelve by age thirty-five.
Q 15Where did Parton meet her future husband Carl Dean on her first day in Nashville?
Outside a laundromat
Parton met Carl Dean outside the Wishy Washy laundromat on her first day in Nashville; she was walking the sidewalk with a soft drink while her clothes washed when he drove past and waved.
Q 16Parton was born in a one-room cabin on the Little Pigeon River in which Tennessee community?
Pittman Center
Parton was born in 1946 in a one-room cabin beside the Little Pigeon River in Pittman Center, in Sevier County; the family later moved to a cabin on Locust Ridge, the farm behind 'My Tennessee Mountain Home.'
Q 17How old was Parton when she recorded her first single, 'Puppy Love,' for Goldband Records?
13
Parton was 13 when she cut 'Puppy Love' in 1959 for Goldband, a small Lake Charles, Louisiana label; that same year she made her Grand Ole Opry debut, introduced on stage by Johnny Cash.
Q 18In what year did Porter Wagoner invite Parton to join his syndicated television show?
1967
Wagoner brought Parton onto The Porter Wagoner Show in 1967 as his new 'girl singer' and then talked RCA Victor into signing her, issuing her first single there as a duet with him to protect the label's investment.
Q 19Unable to find paper on Wagoner's tour bus, Parton wrote 'Coat of Many Colors' on the back of what?
A dry-cleaning receipt
Parton wrote the lyric on a dry-cleaning receipt for one of Wagoner's suits while riding his tour bus; Wagoner later had the receipt framed, and it hangs in her Chasing Rainbows museum at Dollywood.
Q 20As she sewed the coat in 'Coat of Many Colors,' Parton's mother told her the Bible story of which figure?
Joseph
The song recalls her mother sewing the patchwork coat while telling the Bible story of Joseph and his coat of many colors; Parton has often called it her favorite of all the songs she has written.
Sheena Easton
Sheena Easton's '9 to 5' was retitled 'Morning Train (Nine to Five)' in the U.S. to avoid confusion, and it reached the top of the Hot 100 in May 1981, ten weeks after Parton's song first did so in February.
Q 24Parton 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 25Which honour has Dolly Parton repeatedly turned down, once to avoid appearing political?
The Presidential Medal of Freedom
Parton declined the Presidential Medal of Freedom twice under Trump and balked at a Biden offer so as not to look political; she did accept the Kennedy Center Honors in 2006 and the National Medal of Arts in 2005.
Q 26In 2022 Parton tried to decline a nomination to which institution, saying its genre was not hers?
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 27Parton 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 28How 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 29Whose 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 30Whose 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 ('I'm warnin' you, don't come for my man'); Parton introduces it on the preceding interlude 'Dolly P' with a nod to 'that hussy with the good hair.'