Dolly Parton’s Uncle Stepped in Front of a Bus Hoping to Get Insurance Money to Help His Niece’s Career

When Dolly Parton was at the beginning of her career, no one believed in her more than her Uncle Bill. He took Parton all over Nashville looking for any possible way into the music industry. He rubbed elbows in bars near all the big theaters, passed tapes to anyone who would take one. There came a time when Bill decided he and his niece needed some more money for gas and music equipment. So he stepped in front of a bus.  

Uncle Bill was integral to Dolly Parton’s early career 

Uncle Bill realized early on that his niece had a special passion and talent for music. He was the person who taught her how to play the guitar. He was also the person who drove her around from gig to gig and advocated for her in Nashville.  

“Whatever Uncle Bill was or wasn’t, there was no doubt he believed in me, or at least that something could be made of or from me,” Parton wrote in her 1994 memoir, Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business. “He was always on the case. He would knock on doors wearing his best smile and sell me as if I were a vacuum cleaner. He would approach people with sparkly boots getting out of Cadillacs and talk me up in every possible way.”

Uncle Bill was willing to do anything to see success in show business

One day, Bill got a wild idea in his head: He’d step in front of a bus in Knoxville, Tennessee. 

“His plan was to get injured just enough to get an insurance settlement (hopefully cash out of court) to get gas money to go to Nashville,” wrote Parton. “He wanted to be able to buy some lights, a microphone, and a little sound system so that we could play somewhere. I was just hoping he wouldn’t wind up playing in the angel band.”

Due to her equally immense drive to make it in the music industry, Parton “understood” why Bill would step in front of a bus.  

“I’m enough like my daddy that I did not always agree with Uncle Billy’s methods, but I certainly identified with the drive that made him do that kind of thing,” she wrote. 

The “Light of a Clear Blue Morning” singer did not write whether her uncle got money from the accident. But we do know he survived it. He lived to be 85 years old. 

Dolly Parton and her Uncle Bill had the same intense drive 

Stepping in front of a bus wasn’t the only scheme Parton was party to when she was coming up in the industry. 

“I would sometimes cringe when he would take his wife’s hard-earned waitress money and buy a tank of gas for a show or a trip,” she wrote. “But because I shared the dream, I said nothing.”

The “Jolene” singer and her uncle were “on the same wavelength.” Together, they were a force determined to be recognized in Nashville. And, of course, they eventually were. 

“We had the same kind of energy when it came to our careers,” wrote Parton. “Neither of us ever gave out as long as something was happening or at least had the look of something that might happen. Nothing mattered to Billy except his work. I knew exactly where he was coming from.”