Dolly Parton isn’t just a country music legend, fashion icon, and multi-hyphenate entrepreneur. She’s also a born-and-raised Southerner with a wicked sense of humor and penchant for storytelling, which she often combines to play practical jokes on unsuspecting bystanders to stunning effect. On one fateful night in the late 1970s, that unwitting victim was a famed producer who worked with giants like B.B. King, Joe Cocker, and Sly Stone.
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First, the setup: Dolly Parton was visiting the home of Apple Records manager Ken Mansfield, who had arranged a dinner party where the country star and Ringo Starr could meet. As he explained in his memoir, The White Book, both Parton and Starr had expressed interest in meeting the other to Mansfield, who worked with both of them separately. “Ringo was a giant country music fan,” Mansfield wrote. He added, “[Dolly] jokingly mentioned that someday she would like to meet [The Beatles], Ringo in particular.”
Both musicians were “thrilled” at Mansfield’s surprise. But there was one problem: the aforementioned producer was desperate to be on the guest list, and he made it clear he wasn’t taking no for an answer.
Three’s a Crowd, so They Say
When producer Stewart Levine asked Ken Mansfield if he could attend his dinner party that night in the late 1970s, it wasn’t an entirely unreasonable request. Levine, Mansfield, and even former Beatle Ringo Starr worked together and knew each other quite well. However, Mansfield wanted this particular evening to be as small as possible so Starr and Dolly Parton could meet each other without distraction. But Levine, a massive Parton admirer, couldn’t accept the rejection.
As Mansfield described in his memoir, Levine came up with a ruse that he would show up to Mansfield’s house to “deliver a tape as a fellow producer.” Then, Mansfield would quickly introduce Levine to Parton at the door, and Levine would leave. Simple enough—except that when Levine showed up that night, he blew past Mansfield and entered the home in search of Parton. The men began arguing, which the partygoers overheard from the other room.
How Dolly Parton Pranked This Unwelcome Party Crasher
While the men were bickering in the foyer, Ken Mansfield’s wife, who was sitting in the other room with Dolly Parton, informed the “Jolene” singer that the kerfuffle was with producer Stewart Levine, who was hopelessly head-over-heels for Parton. With this information in tow, Parton decided to have a little fun at Levine’s expense. She walked over to where the men were arguing under the guise of asking Mansfield for a fresh club soda. When Parton saw Levine, she froze.
“There was this momentary silence as the two locked gazes,” Mansfield later wrote. “After a very pregnant pause, Dolly began to speak, and in a stuttering, shaky voice asked Stewart if he was Stewart Levine, the famous producer. Dolly proceeded to gush over seeing him in person. She continued to explain that in her lifetime, she never expected that she would ever get the chance to be in the same room with Stewart Levine, let alone have the privilege of meeting him.”
Then, Parton dug even deeper, telling Levine that she had to leave the room, lest she “jump his bones right in front of everyone.” She did, and when the men arrived in the living room where the guests were waiting, the room broke out in laughter. Parton was just teasing Levine, proving her skill as a “master put-on artist” who pulled off these pranks “in a fun and kind way,” as Mansfield would later describe in Between Wyomings: My God and an iPod on the Open Road.
Practical jokes aside, we’d wager a bet that those first, brief moments of Parton “confessing” her love for Levine must have been some of the best seconds of the iconic producer’s life.
Photo by David Redfern/Redferns
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