Celebrity
Dolly Parton said she and Kenny Rogers clicked right away. Here’s when she discovered she had a connection with him.
Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers were friends for decades, drawn together by an electric current of energy . Parton and Rogers had such good rapport that rumors of an affair between them circulated for years. Both denied having ever acted on their feelings, but they said they felt the chemistry between them from the moment they met.
Dolly Parton met Kenny Rogers on the set of her TV show
In 1976, Parton waded deeper into the pool of her talents by hosting a variety show, Dolly. One of her earliest guests was Rogers. She said that his appearance on her show marked the beginning of their crackling chemistry.
“Kenny Rogers was also a guest on that early show,” she wrote in her book Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business. “That began the chemistry that would make such a hit with the public in our future projects together. There was something about the combination that just worked.”
The pair performed together and immediately felt a connection. Parton believed their personalities complemented each other well.
“I think it was because Kenny has a kind of cool energy that is a perfect complement to my hot energy,” she wrote. “Whatever it was, people just instantly began to think of us as a couple.”
Dolly Parton said people thought she and Kenny Rogers were a permanent duo
Several years after Rogers appeared on Dolly, the singers released their duet, “Islands in the Stream.” The song was such a hit that people began to think of Parton and Rogers as a duo.
“‘Islands in the Stream’ was our first duet, and it was a huge crossover hit,” she wrote. “We never really worked that much together, but for a long time people insisted on thinking of us as a duo. I would be out on a tour by myself, and people would yell, ‘Where’s Kenny?’ The same would happen to him (although obviously they would yell, ‘Where’s Dolly?’).”
This never bothered her, as she thought they fit together naturally.
“Even now, when I’m in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, where Dollywood is located, I sometimes see a couple that impersonates Kenny and me,” she wrote. “I guess that goes to show how people still think of us — sort of like Mickey and Minnie (and I don‘t mean Mickey Gilley and Minnie Pearl). I still work with Kenny from time to time, and the chemistry is still there.”
She didn’t have as much chemistry with every guest on her show
While Parton felt an instant connection with Rogers, she didn’t always click with her guests. Her ideas for the show sometimes clashed with executives’, meaning that sometimes the program — and its guests — were not a perfect fit for her.
“I had some really odd guests: dog acts, monkeys, Captain Kangaroo — not exactly the perfect chemistry for my personality.”
The show remained on the air for one season before its cancellation.
