Dolly Parton Once Starred in a Forgotten Sitcom That Never Saw the Light of Day
Dolly Parton, sitcom star? It almost happened in the 1990s. Nearly 30 years ago, the iconic singer/actor was set to star in a comedy series for CBS. But even though Parton taped six episodes of her show, titled Heavens to Betsy, they never made it to air.
Dolly Parton was set to star in a CBS sitcom
Parton rose to fame as a country singer. But by the 1980s she was making waves as an actor thanks to roles in movies such as 9 to 5, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, and Steel Magnolias. Given her comedic chops, it’s not surprising that Parton considered making a move to TV.
In 1993, Touchstone Television announced that Parton would star in a CBS sitcom called Dixie’s Fixins’, about the romantic misadventures and mishaps of a cable cooking show host, the Washington Post reported. That show was scuttled before production began, per a later report in Variety. The focus shifted to a different show, this one inspired by one of Parton’s songs.
Heavens to Betsy seemed like the perfect vehicle for the “Jolene” singer. The sitcom would tell the story of “an egotistical country singer sent back to earth to make amends after her near-death experience,” according to a report from Entertainment Weekly.
Parton’s show was supposed to debut on CBS in the fall of 1994. But once studio executives got a look at Heavens to Betsy, they weren’t impressed. CBS wanted the show to be funnier, and new producers came in to fix things. The plan was for the show to air in the spring of 1995, according to EW. But it never made it to TV.
‘Heavens to Betsy’ never aired
Heavens to Betsy didn’t lack for star power. But there were issues behind the scenes that ended up dooming the series.
One major issue was the decision to tape the show in Orlando rather than Los Angeles because Parton wanted to be closer to her home in Tennessee. But being thousands of miles away from production executives’ home base of LA made filming more complicated. In an era before instantaneous digital communication, executives watched the show’s rehearsals via satellite and then provided their notes either by phone or fax. That slowed everything down.
“There were writing problems that were created by the distance,” Stuart Sheslow, who worked with Parton’s production company, Sandollar, told the Orlando Sentinel in 1995. “The actual people doing the show were terrific.”
Because of the distance, it took six months to produce just six episodes of Heavens to Betsy. The show also went through multiple teams of writers, including one group that got involved in a physical fight during a writing session.
After all that work, a decision was made to scrap the show. Parton was apparently on board with the choice.
“Dolly’s people, managers, and team just didn’t feel this was the best vehicle for showing off her talent,” Ted Kaye, then the vice president of video tape production at Walt Disney Television told the Sentinel.
Dolly Parton also planned to star in a movie called ‘Heavens to Betsy’
The six episodes of Heavens to Betsy never saw the light of day. But Parton didn’t entirely abandon the idea. A few years later, she revealed she was working on a TV movie with the same name, though the concept was a bit different.
“I’m doing the movie Heavens to Betsy for CBS this fall or winter,” she told MTV in 2000. “It’s about two black girls and me; we have a group called Milk and Honey. It’s a gospel musical that I wrote all the music for.”
However, it appears that the Heavens to Betsy movie was never produced. But Parton has found plenty of other success in Hollywood, including appearing in the 2020 Netflix movie Christmas on the Square, the 2019 Hallmark movie Christmas at Dollywood, Disney’s Hannah Montana, and Joyful Noise with Queen Latifah.
Sources: Variety, The Washington Post
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