Before The Bodyguard, Dolly Parton Sang "I Will Always Love You' In This Forgotten Musical
Without a doubt, ‘I Will Always Love You’ is one of the most iconic songs in movie history.
It has become synonymous with the late Whitney Houston, who sang it as part of the 1992 classic The Bodyguard, in which she co-starred with Kevin Costner.
The song's success was nothing short of astonishing. It peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for 14 weeks straight, went number one in 34 different singles charts, and sold 24 million copies worldwide, making it the best-selling single of all time for a female soloist. As well as this, it was the world’s best-selling single for 1992.
But one thing you might not know is that Houston’s version of 'I Will Always Love You' is actually a cover. The song was originally written and sung by none other than Dolly Parton.
Where Did ‘I Will Always Love You’ Come From?
'I Will Always Love You' was originally written and performed in the 1970s. Parton decided to write the song as an ode and farewell to her longtime partner Porter Wagoner. After seven years on The Porter Wagoner Show, she knew it was time to move on, but didn’t know how to tell Wagoner.
In an interview with The Tennessean, Parton said she asked herself one important question: ”How am I gonna make him understand how much I appreciate everything, but that I have to go?"
"So I went home, and I thought, 'Well, what do you do best? You write songs,’” she added. “So I sat down, and I wrote this song.”
But that is just part of the song’s story. In 1982, Dolly performed the song in the little-known musical comedy The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, in which she co-starred with Burt Reynolds.
In the film, which is based on a 1978 stage musical, Parton is the head of a brothel who, along with the other girls and patrons, fights to keep its doors open after it is targeted by a Conservative TV muckraker. Reynolds co-stars as the town’s sheriff, a regular patron, and the lover of Parton’s character, Miss Mona.
While the movie got mixed reviews from critics, it ended up replacing E.T. as the number one film at the box office after the Spielberg film’s six-week run.
How Did Dolly Parton React To Whitney Houston’s Rendition?
According to Forbes, Parton earned $10 million in royalties from Houston’s cover. In a 2021 interview with Andy Cohen, she shared how she invested the cash.
“I bought my big office complex down in Nashville. So I thought, ‘Well, this is a wonderful place to be,’ “ she said.
“I bought a property down in what was the Black area of town, and it was mostly just Black families and people that lived around there. It was off the beaten path from 16th Avenue, and I thought, ‘Well, I am gonna buy this place — the whole strip mall.’ And I thought, ‘This is the perfect place for me to be,’ considering it was Whitney.”
She continued: “I thought this was great — I’m just gonna be down here with her people, who are my people as well. So I just love the fact that I spent that money on a complex and I think, ‘This is the house that Whitney built.’"
