Loretta Lynn: Heartbreak, Lies, And Country Music

Loretta Lynn’s brutal marriage to Oliver Doolittle Lynn was a hushed-up secret in country music, but in her memoir, Lynn finally revealed the worst thing he’d ever done, and it’s beyond twisted. When Loretta Lynn recorded a passionate cover of the song “Stand by Your Man,” one thing became very clear: she was standing by one of the worst husbands fate could have thrown her. Country singer Loretta Lynn was not only a huge, successful singer-songwriter, but she was also in some very intense relationships. Her devotion to fellow singer Patsy Cline became the source for a TV movie, but it was her violent and volatile relationship with her husband that really made Hollywood take notice. Coal Miner’s Daughter, the film about Lynn, became an award season sweetheart, and it was no surprise because her true story is just that astonishing. Loretta Lynn was born Loretta Webb in 1932 in Kentucky. She was only the Webbs’ second child, but there were lots more coming after her. In fact, by the time they were through, the Webbs had eight children.

Lynn’s father managed to barely put enough food on the table by working as a coal miner, but life for the Webbs was a constant struggle. There were 10 people living in the small family cabin, and winters were excessively cold. With very little money to pay to insulate the walls, Lynn’s mom came up with an imaginative way to keep warm and decorate their humble abode: she glued pages from the Sears catalog to the wall to keep the cold out. You couldn’t blame young Loretta if she was looking for a way out of that claustrophobic cabin, and soon a way out appeared out of nowhere. When Loretta was still a teenager, she met Oliver Vanetta Lynn, also known as Doolittle or just Doo. They met at a pie social. Loretta quickly fell for him, but according to many, he had a dark side. Everyone thought that Doo was lazy and that he was running moonshine, but for Loretta, it didn’t matter. Even though she was just 15, she married the 21-year-old Doo. It didn’t take long for Lynn to become pregnant and for her new husband to announce a big move.

Loretta Lynn and her husband left Kentucky and made their way to Washington state so her husband could work in the logging industry. Their first few children came quickly. There was Betty Sue in 1948, Jack Benny in 1949, and two more, Ernest Ray and Clara Marie, born in the early 1950s. Somehow, while tending to all these children, Lynn found the time to sing, but there was one thing stopping Lynn from performing. Doo saw that Loretta had talent as a singer, but he also saw the major problem holding her back: she was incredibly insecure about her abilities. The first thing that Doo did was go down to Sears and fork over $17 for a guitar. He then worked on Lynn’s confidence. He told her over and over again that she was as good as or better than the popular singers of the time. Lynn had trouble believing what her husband told her, but Doo wasn’t about to give up. There was a local talent show that was televised in nearby Tacoma, Washington, and Doo convinced Lynn she could take home the top prize. Lynn nervously sang her heart out and made a huge impression on the judges. Strangely, usually the prize was not a huge sum of money or a recording contract. When Loretta Lynn netted the top prize of the talent competition, she was in for a huge disappointment: the prize was a wristwatch. It wasn’t something more glamorous or that useful, but something good did come out of this experience. A Canadian man named Norm Burley noticed how lovely Lynn’s voice sounded. Burley loved her voice, but he had to come up with a way to help her get famous.

Burley was so inspired by Lynn’s voice that he arranged for her to have a recording session down in Hollywood. He generously paid for both Lynn and Doo to travel to California. When Burley heard the recording, he was so impressed that he started a recording company just for her, but Lynn and Doo weren’t about to leave her fate solely in Burley and Zero Records’s hands. They had a plan to make sure that Lynn’s song reached as many people as possible. While Burley was up in Vancouver starting Zero Records, Loretta Lynn and Doo had their boots on the ground in America. Doo used the postal service to send copies of the record and a picture of Lynn to radio stations all across the country. He sent 3,500 of these mailers, but he was in for a brutal surprise. He heard back from exactly zero of them, so it was time for Plan B, and it was a doozy. Since using the mail hadn’t worked, Loretta Lynn and Doo decided to get into their car and hand-deliver copies of “I’m a Honky Tonk Girl.” They drove around America to every radio station they could find. Of course, because of their lack of money, staying in hotels was out of the question. They slept in their car and ate sandwiches in the park. Eventually, they ended up in Nashville, Tennessee, where things started to turn around. When they arrived in Nashville, Lynn and Doo were in for a big shock. They found out that “I’m a Honky Tonk Girl” was a hit record.

The Billboard Hot Country Songs put it at the number 14 spot. Not bad for her first record. Lynn was on the radio, and once others heard her talent, they wanted her as well. The first thing that happened once Lynn’s voice was out there was that she got an invitation to tour with The Wilburn Brothers. Another invitation soon came in, and this was from Ernest Tubb, who hosted a radio show called Midnight Jamboree. The exposure on Midnight Jamboree led to a call that every country musician wants to receive. Grand Ole Opry is a radio show dedicated to country music and is now America’s longest-running broadcast. Loretta Lynn got the call to perform, and this was something huge. Grand Ole Opry gives its stars amazing exposure, and the future looked bright for Lynn. Of course, now she had the task of writing songs. Well, she didn’t have to look very far for inspiration. You see, her marriage was no walk in the park. Doo had a temper, and he did scary things like smashing a jar against the wall in the middle of a fight, but it didn’t stop there.

Doo also hit Lynn. Before you feel too sorry for her, you need to know that Lynn wasn’t the type to take this lying down. She later said she hit him back twice for every time he hit her, one time even with a skillet of creamed corn. But there was one episode where Lynn went too far. During one of their spectacular fights, Loretta Lynn hit Doo so hard that she heard his teeth land on the floor. Lynn had an intense fear that Doo would be so angry that he’d do serious damage. Instead of getting revenge, Doo just started laughing. The one positive thing about their marriage was that it gave Lynn lots to write about. It seemed that Lynn just needed a friend to confide in. Well, she was about to meet the best friend a woman could ask for. In 1961, Loretta Lynn got the opportunity of a lifetime. She was going to sing “I Fall to Pieces” on the radio. This was a song made famous by Lynn’s hero, Patsy Cline. Cline was at home recovering from a car accident and she heard Lynn singing her song. Cline liked what she heard a lot. She liked it so much that she sent her husband to the studio to invite Lynn to her house. When they met, they got on like a house on fire. Lynn and Cline became very close, and Cline even helped pay for things like drapes for Lynn’s house. Lynn also later said that Cline gave her an odd gift: she gave her her old underwear.

Obviously, they were close, close enough to inspire a TV movie called Patsy & Loretta. Lynn had found a kind soul in Cline, but some of the others she met in the industry were ready to take advantage of her. Loretta Lynn was now recording under the Wilburn Brothers publishing company, and they had even helped her move from Zero Records to the more influential Decca Records. But there was a dark side to that deal. Lynn was horrified to discover that the publishing company insisted that they now owned all of her music. She had to spend the next 30 years fighting to be the owner of her own music. In spite of her fighting, Lynn still had time for success. Even though Loretta Lynn was fighting with the Wilburn Brothers, it didn’t stop her from succeeding with Decca Records. In fact, her first single with the label even had “Success” as its title. This song sat on the Billboard Hot Country and Western Sides chart for an amazing 16 weeks, and she followed it up with more and more hits. There was only one problem: Lynn wasn’t writing any of these hit songs. It wouldn’t be until after Lynn gave birth to twins that she would have a song that she wrote become a hit. This was “Dear Uncle Sam,” and it told the story of a woman saying goodbye as her husband goes to Vietnam to fight for his country. The lyrics stunned the country and western crowd, as they’d never heard such a serious topic in a song.

Audiences loved “Dear Uncle Sam,” but there was something even bigger coming her way. Just two years after giving birth to her twins, something surprising happened: Lynn actually became a grandmother at the age of 34. By this time, her oldest daughter was 18 years old and she had her first child in 1966. Lynn’s family was growing quickly, and she needed a big place to house everyone. In 1966, Loretta Lynn and Doo came across a ranch they liked and were eager to buy it, but there was a strange catch that came with the purchase. If they bought this rundown ranch, they would also be buying the entire town of Hurricane Mills, Tennessee. Lynn and Doo knew it was a big decision, but they decided to dive right in and buy up the entire town. Lynn, the proud owner of Hurricane Mills, was ready to start handing out advice. Loretta Lynn was backstage before a performance and met a woman who told her that she was afraid that she was losing her husband to his mistress. Lynn’s simple advice was, “Honey, she ain’t woman enough to take your man.” The sentence stayed with Lynn, and when she had a moment, she wrote a song that would change her life. Lynn penned the song “You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man),” and it was so popular that it handed Lynn a first. With this song, she was the first country female recording artist to write a number one hit. It seemed that there was no limit to what Lynn could do. Well, there was one thing she still couldn’t fix: her own marital problems. Doo was fooling around with women left, right, and center, but one really got under Lynn’s skin, so Lynn wrote a letter to this mistress. When Doo found out, he got angry and told Lynn to mind her own business. Then he went a cruel step further: he told Lynn that he didn’t love her anymore. This was something that hurt Lynn to the core, and she took to songwriting to heal herself. Loretta Lynn had had it with her husband’s fooling around and took the matter into her own hands. In 1968, Lynn wrote a song called “Fist City.”

This was a warning to all the women that her husband was fooling around with. If they wanted to mess around with her husband, they would get a sound beating. It didn’t take long for Lynn’s unorthodox lyrics to get her into trouble, however. While one critic called “Fist City” the greatest song title of all time, others found the subject matter controversial. Lynn was clearly speaking her truth, but it was too much for many radio stations, and this song received a ban. Lynn’s real life was too hard for radio listeners, and it was even harder than most knew. Not only did Doo cheat on Lynn, but he also had a problem with the bottle. When Lynn came home from a tour, she never knew what state she would find her husband in. She later admitted that some days she didn’t even want to return home at all. Next in line for Lynn was even more heartache. Lynn’s friendship with Patsy Cline was epic, but it also had a sense of doom. You see, Cline had confided that she didn’t think she would live a very long life. This gruesome premonition came true in 1963 when Cline tragically passed in a plane crash. In one night, Lynn had lost her best friend and her mentor. Luckily, Lynn had learned a great deal from Cline, and she was ready to take on America. The ’70s were the decade for Lynn, and she amassed a huge fan base. She became so popular with women that Procter & Gamble hired her to sell one of their most iconic products: Crisco shortening. By the end of the 1970s, the Academy of Country Music named her the Artist of the Decade. She was the first woman to hold this honor. Lynn was at the top of her game, and Hollywood noticed. In 1980, Lynn was famous enough to have a movie made based on her life. Lynn was very excited about the project and happily announced on a talk show that Carrie star Sissy Spacek would be playing her in Coal Miner’s Daughter. There was just one problem: Spacek hadn’t agreed to be in the film. Spacek had been avoiding deciding whether to appear in Coal Miner’s Daughter and had even tried to scare the producers off by insisting she would sing the songs herself.

One major hurdle for Spacek was the fact that she didn’t even like country music. Lynn really wanted Spacek to say yes, so the pressure was on. Spacek eventually came to her decision in an unorthodox way. Loretta Lynn had picked Spacek herself for the role, and the producers had even fired a director who didn’t want her in the lead. Spacek prayed about the decision and then got an answer from God when she was listening to a car radio. Suddenly, “Coal Miner’s Daughter” came through the speakers, but that’s not the weirdest part: she was listening to a classical music station at the time. Spacek said yes and began her rather unorthodox preparation for the role. When Spacek had agreed to play Lynn, her first decision was to follow Lynn around everywhere. You see, Spacek quickly became obsessed with getting Lynn’s mannerisms down right and watched her carefully both on and off the stage. But Spacek wasn’t the only actor to nail their part in this film. One day, when Lynn was visiting the set of Coal Miner’s Daughter, she thought she saw a ghost.

But it wasn’t a ghost; it was just the man who was playing her father. As it turned out, the hair and makeup people did such a great job of turning Levon Helm into Lynn’s father that she almost fainted when she saw him. Sadly, Doo wasn’t quite as happy with the other actor playing him. When Lynn’s husband Doo heard that Tommy Lee Jones was going to portray him in the movie, he didn’t have any intention of even meeting the actor. That’s when Jones did something outrageous: he went full method. Jones got himself some moonshine and drove a Jeep through town completely inebriated. The local sheriff took him to the station, where they beat him up for resisting arrest. His gambit worked; this pleased Doo, and he and Jones became friends. When Coal Miner’s Daughter did eventually reach theaters, the reception was nothing short of astonishing. It reached number one at the box office, taking in $3.6 million on its opening weekend. The critics also loved it, and when award season came around, it got seven Oscar nominations and four Golden Globes. Spacek won both the Oscar and Golden Globe, and a slew of other awards. Lynn’s life story had taken Hollywood by storm, so she turned around and did something completely un-Hollywood to follow it up. In 1981, motocross race promoter Dave Coombs came across Lynn’s ranch and had an idea.

He was looking for an out-of-the-way location for a national motocross race and asked if Lynn would have an interest in hosting the event. Lynn gave an enthusiastic thumbs-up, and the event has been held there ever since. Sadly, the ranch is also a source of sorrow for Lynn. In July of 1984, Lynn’s son Jack Benny went for a horseback ride at his mother’s ranch. When he came to Duck River, he decided to try and cross it on horseback. What happened next was one of the worst tragedies in Lynn’s life. Jack Benny drowned in the river that day. When this happened, Lynn wasn’t at home; she was dealing with her own catastrophe. As it turned out, Loretta Lynn was actually in the hospital when Jack Benny had his accident. Lynn had been on tour and she was suffering from extreme exhaustion. While she was recovering at the hospital, she had to deal with the news of her son’s passing. Sadly, Lynn would soon be spending even more time in hospitals. Doo’s hard-living lifestyle eventually took its toll on him. He had heart surgery in 1992, then his fight with diabetes led to a stunning announcement from his doctor: they were going to have to remove both of his legs. Even though Lynn had a thriving and money-making career, she put it all on hold to take care of her husband.

Sadly, her care wasn’t enough. Five days before he turned 70, Doo passed. Lynn’s life with Doo had been full of love and trauma. She confessed that without Doo, she would not have had a musical career at all. Now she was all alone, and it was going to be really hard to adjust to her new solitary life. Lynn needed a way to deal with her sorrow, and she knew exactly what to do. When Lynn looked back at getting married so young, she realized that she went directly from taking orders from her dad to taking them from her husband, but she missed him, and for many years she said she thought she saw him everywhere. To deal with her loss, Lynn turned to songwriting. She wrote “I Can’t Hear the Music” as a tribute to Doo. What Lynn needed now was to try and stay young. She found it in a remarkable way in 2004 when any other 72-year-old would have been contemplating retirement. Lynn was working with a young musician. This was The White Stripes’ Jack White, who produced and performed on her 42nd album, which was called Van Lear Rose. This late-in-her-life album managed to reach the number two spot on the US Billboard Top Country Albums. Younger musicians had a great respect for Lynn. Loretta Lynn’s tempestuous and occasionally violent marriage to Oliver Doolittle Lynn was an open secret in country music, but in her autobiography, she revealed the worst thing he’d ever done to her. In the midst of one of his many affairs, he told her he was leaving her when she was giving birth to one of their sons. That is going to bring us to the end of the video. If you enjoyed this Factinate video, give it a thumbs up and subscribe for more incredible stories. Want a say in who we cover next? Join our membership program through the link in the description for exclusive perks. Your support means everything to us. Thanks for watching, and we’ll see you in the next one.