Credit: Ariela Ortiz-Barrantes
Sat 29 August 2026 17:15, UK
One of the many, many fully deserved tributes to the late Dolly Parton this week came from Kevin Costner, who thanked her for “trusting him” with the song ‘I Will Always Love You’ from his huge hit The Bodyguard back in 1992.
Dolly was an absolute legend, there is no arguing about that, and she wrote some unbelievable songs, like ‘Jolene’ and ‘9 to 5’, and if you want an example of what an exquisite performer she could be then take a little stroll down YouTube way and check out the three-part harmonies on a tune called ‘The Sweetest Gift’ as she sits and sings with Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt live on TV.
But if you were alive like I was in 1992 and had access to a radio or a television, then I can tell you that ‘I Will Always Love You’, the Whitney Houston soundtrack version at least, was a complete nightmare. It was number one in the UK for what seemed like several decades, it was utterly inescapable, and some people genuinely went to prison for playing it so much that their neighbours brought criminal proceedings against them. It was not fun, not fun at all.
At that point in time, Costner was on par with Tom Cruise as probably the leading male movie star around. He was coming off the back of an almost unprecedented run of box office hits over a five year period that included Dances with Wolves, an epic western that he also directed and won seven Oscars, Oliver Stone’s three-hour conspiracy thriller JFK, and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, which produced another song that felt like it was at the top of the charts for many lifetimes, ‘Everything I do’ by Bryan Adams.
All three of those had done huge business at the box office, and Costner could seemingly do no wrong, that was at least until the spectre of Waterworld and a $200m budget began to be talked about. But without going into that affair too much, Costner was the man as the 1980s turned into the ‘90s, and his run had really started with three earlier movies, The Untouchables, No Way Out and the baseball drama Bull Durham.
Those were three very different genres, again all successful films, and Costner was prompted to make the last of the three because he’d already missed out on two different sports films a year later. There was Eight Men Out, another baseball movie that he turned down, and then Everybody’s All-American, an American football film helmed by future Ray and Devil’s Advocate director Taylor Hackford.
Costner wanted the lead role in the film about a college star who is drafted into the NFL but struggles with the professional game and starts gambling before retiring early. But the actor again couldn’t make it work, recalling that he turned the film down ”because of negotiation problems. I really wanted to do Everybody’s All-American (Dennis Quaid eventually got the role), but Warner Bros didn’t fulfil their end of the deal. It was very painful. I couldn’t back down.”
But he would later credit the failure to find an agreement to make the film with showing him he needed to have power in similar situations; perhaps why he went on to have full control of almost every production he’s been involved with since, often writing, directing, producing and starring in his movies for decades to come.
