Country music legend and actress Dolly Parton has no plans to retire, according to a recent radio interview — in fact, if she gets her way, she’ll simply “drop dead in the middle of a song on stage.”
Parton made the confession during a Thursday appearance on “Greatest Hits Radio,” adding that she planned to continue singing and performing as long as her body could handle the physical stress of the job.
“I would never retire. I’ll just hopefully drop dead in the middle of a song onstage someday,” the 77-year-old “Steel Magnolias” star said, noting that she did realize there was a certain amount of chance involved. “That’s how I hope to go. Of course, we don’t have much of a choice in that.”
Parton also hinted that she might slow down if her husband Carl Thomas Dean – to whom she has been married since 1966 – needed her to do so.
“As long as I’m able to work, as long as my health is good and my husband is good. I mean, the only way that I would ever slow down or stop would be for that reason, but in the meantime, I’m gonna make hay while the sun shines,” she said.
In a way, Parton said she felt like she had an obligation to keep working as long as she could because she’d been fortunate enough to have the chance to do what she loved in the first place.
“Every dream kind of spawns another dream. You can branch off of almost anything that happens and make a business of that as well,” Parton explained, adding, “So it’s kind of like a tree with good roots – it’s got a lot of limbs and it’s also got a lot of leaves. So, why not make the most of it? And I’m not one to sit around doing nothing.”
In addition to starring in several movies, the songstress holds the record for the most studio albums ever released by a woman in the country music industry.
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