Julia Roberts said she’d never forget Dolly Parton’s response to her complaining on the set of the 1989 movie Steel Magnolias.
Parton, who died on Tuesday in Nashville, Tennessee, appeared with Roberts, on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1989 to promote the movie.
In a clip from that appearance that has resurfaced in the wake of Parton’s death, Roberts shared that Parton had given her a crucial piece of advice during a sweltering day filming in the Louisiana summer heat.
“Everyone had ice on their wrist and was doing the whole thing, everyone was like, ‘It’s hot, can I get some water?’ And I finally just had to say, ‘Dolly, I mean, you’ve got a wig and the wool. Come on, it’s hot, sweat a little, you know? Just say ‘I’m hot,’ you know. ‘This is a drag!’” Roberts recalled to host Winfrey.
She continued: “And she said — I remember we were sitting on the porch, do you remember this? And she said to me, ‘When I was a little girl, I wanted to be famous and I wanted to be rich, and now I’m both those things. I’m not going to complain about it.’”
Roberts said that she took the advice to never complain very seriously and that she’s “never forgotten it.”
“I thought, ‘Okay, I’m going to be quiet for the rest of the day,’” she said at the time.
“It was the way she said it, and I didn’t really do it her way, or else it’ll choke me up, but it was this thing and I’ve never forgotten it. And every time I go to complain or just kind of moan, I always hear Dolly sitting on the porch and saying that, and it kind of keeps you quiet.”
In the film, Dolly Parton played the Louisiana beauty salon owner Truvy Jones, while Julia Roberts, who was only two years into her acting career at the time, played Shelby Eatenton-Latcherie, a young, headstrong bride.
The movie, which followed the lives of a group of women supporting each other through life’s ups and downs, also starred Sally Field, Daryl Hannah, Shirley MacLaine, Olympia Dukakis, Tom Skerritt and Sam Shepard.
For those unversed, Dolly Parton’s death was announced Tuesday by her nephew Bryan Seaver, who served as Parton’s head of security.
Her representative later confirmed that she had died in Nashville, following a “brief battle” with cancer, surrounded by loved ones.
