Loretta Lynn Once Found a Subtle Way to Tell Dan Rather He Was a ‘Good-Looking Guy’ During an Interview
Country music star Loretta Lynn was known for being sweet and sometimes a little flirty. And when Dan Rather was interviewing her in the years after her husband died, she found a subtle way to let him know that she thought he was a ”good-looking guy.”
Loretta Lynn only ever married once, from 1948 to 1996
Through her songs, Lynn allowed listeners to get a view into her life. It was no secret that she was a teen bride and that by the time she made it to Nashville to start a country music career, she’d already had four of six of her children.
Lynn married her husband, Oliver, in 1948 at age 15. “Sometimes my husband tells me, ‘I raised you the way I wanted you to be.’ And it’s true,” Lynn wrote in her 1976 memoir Coal Miner’s Daughter (People). “I went from Daddy to Doo, and there’s always been a man telling me what to do.”
Despite his drinking, long-rumored cheating, and other abuses, the Lynns remained married until he died in 1996. Until her death, Lynn would often pay tribute to her late husband on social media.
“Today, my Doo would be 96 years old,” she wrote on Twitter only months before she died. “Wow! I still remember that young soldier I first met in Butcher Holler. Happy birthday, honey.”
Loretta Lynn told Dan Rather he was a ‘good-looking guy’ during an interview
Lynn might have only married one man, but she didn’t pretend he was the only one she ever found attractive. When she sat down with Rather for The Big Interview, they started talking about her family, and she told him, “… You remind me of Herman a little bit, my brother.”
Rather told her he’d “take that as a compliment,” and she said, ”Well, he’s a good-lookin’ guy. So, well, you know what I think about you.”
“Come on, you tell that to all the boys,” he replied, but she assured him that wasn’t the case. “Well, I thank you now. I’m unworthy of that. But I thank you,” he noted.
However, Rather wanted to know a little more about her personal life, specifically if there was ever a romance between her and Jack White. He pointed to how Lynn and White shared a kiss in a music video, but she assured him they were just friends, and added that she’d tell him if they were more.
Dan Rather wanted to know where Loretta Lynn got her ’character’ after she called him good-looking
After they got through the compliment, Rather questioned Lynn about where her ”character” came from. “You know, I think probably Mommy was quite the character,” she answered.
”She would be the one get me all dressed up to go to Sunday school, and she’d tell me now, ‘You don’t have … to act like you don’t have anything. Always feel like you do,'” the famous songwriter added. “And I think I always felt that way, no matter what I had, whether it was little, I felt that it was ok.”