{"id":831065,"date":"2026-08-30T17:40:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T17:40:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/831065\/"},"modified":"2026-08-30T17:40:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T17:40:13","slug":"how-dolly-parton-handled-a-director-who-didnt-particularly-like-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/831065\/","title":{"rendered":"How Dolly Parton handled a director who \u2018didn\u2019t particularly like me\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Dolly Parton<\/a> once recalled how she initially clashed with her Steel Magnolias director, Herbert Ross, <\/a>who was apparently also harsh on a young Julia Roberts<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Parton starred in the 1989 film \u2013 about a group of women supporting each other through life\u2019s ups and downs \u2013 alongside Roberts, Sally Field<\/a>, Shirley MacLaine, Daryl Hannah and Olympia Dukakis. <\/p>\n

However, it wasn\u2019t the smoothest of experiences, with the queen of country<\/a>, who played beauty salon owner Truvy Jones, claiming Ross \u201cdidn\u2019t particularly like me\u201d and \u201cresented\u201d having to use Roberts. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe told me I couldn\u2019t act,\u201d she wrote in her 1994 autobiography, Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business, People<\/a> reports. \u201cThis was not news to me, and I told him so.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018I\u2019m not an actress, I\u2019m Dolly Parton,\u2019\u201d she told Ross. \u201c\u2018I\u2019m a personality who has been hired to do this movie. You\u2019re the director. It\u2019s your job to make me look like I\u2019m acting.\u2019 By the end of the film, we had all made peace and become friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

Parton\u2019s memory of the shoot with the late director was echoed by Field, who in a 2024 interview with Vulture<\/a> confirmed that they had helped Roberts when Ross \u201cpicked on\u201d her.<\/p>\n

\"PartonParton (right) recalled director Herbert Ross \u2018didn\u2019t particularly like me\u2019 and was harsh on Julia Roberts (Tri-Star Pictures)<\/p>\n

While Field said she was given the \u201cfreedom to do whatever\u201d, Ross was \u201cvery, very, very hard on [Roberts]\u201d, who at the time was in the early stages of her career and filming her fourth credited movie role.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would all rally around Julia, because she was the baby,\u201d Field said. \u201cShe was sort of the newcomer. And she was wonderful, and [Ross] just picked on her. It was awful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Field said that they would all come to Roberts\u2019s aid, and remembered Parton once turning on Ross, \u201calways with humour, but usually the most vulgar humour you ever heard so that it was like, you just literally don\u2019t have a leg to stand on\u201d. <\/p>\n

Stories of Parton\u2019s kindness and generosity have been doing the rounds since news broke of the \u201c9-5\u201d star\u2019s death<\/a> on Tuesday 25 August, aged 80, after a \u201cbrief battle\u201d with cancer. <\/p>\n

Another Steel Magnolias anecdote that has resurfaced<\/a> comes from an interview with Roberts on The Oprah Winfrey Show while promoting the movie. <\/p>\n

There, the Pretty Woman star shared the crucial lesson she\u2019d learned from Parton on a particularly sweltering day of shooting in Louisiana. <\/p>\n

\"JuliaJulia Roberts and Dolly Parton in \u2018Steel Magnolias\u2019 (Sony)<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone had ice on their wrist and was doing the whole thing, everyone was like, \u2018It\u2019s hot, can I get some water?\u2019\u201d Roberts said, reflecting on how she\u2019d urged Parton to complain, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I finally just had to say, \u2018Dolly, I mean, you\u2019ve got a wig and the wool. Come on, it\u2019s hot, sweat a little, you know? Just say \u2018I\u2019m hot,\u2019 you know. \u2018This is a drag!\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd she said \u2013 I remember we were sitting on the porch, do you remember this? And she said to me, \u2018When I was a little girl, I wanted to be famous and I wanted to be rich, and now I\u2019m both those things. I\u2019m not going to complain about it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Roberts said that she took the advice to never complain very seriously and that she\u2019s \u201cnever forgotten it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":831066,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[236,88],"class_list":["post-831065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=831065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/831066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=831065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=831065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=831065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}