Getting to go on the road and tour Knoxville and Tennessee certainly brought Dolly Parton closer to the life she’d always dreamed of, but it required more of the same, in terms of washing up. “I’d wash my hair in the filling station bathrooms,” she revealed to Reese Witherspoon during “Shine On with Reese” (via Page Six). As for the stage makeup she’d apply, she added that that was all done using the car’s mirror. Parton wasn’t exactly phased by that, though. On top of having experience with finding creative ways to wash up, she said that the gas stations and in-car glam sessions were simply the reality of the situation.
One thing that may have been slightly more glamorous than what she was used to, though, was the sleeping arrangement she and her uncle Billy Owens had. “My bedroom was the backseat and [Owens’] was the front seat,” she told Witherspoon. While that may sound less than ideal, it was certainly more space than she’d been used to, back home. As Parton had previously told Playboy, she was used to sharing a bed with three of her siblings, back home. And, she’d added at the time, “As soon as I’d go to bed, the kids would wet on me.”
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Ultimately, after high school, Parton moved to Nashville by herself, and her journey towards a more glamorous life began after she got her first big break with her song, “Dumb Blonde.”
