Christine Baranski has opened up about her friendship with Dolly Parton, weeks after the country music icon’s death at the age of 80.
The Good Wife star Baranski opened up about her interactions with Parton in a new interview in The Telegraph, which happened to be conducted on the day of Parton’s death, shortly after the news broke.
“I had the great pleasure of working with Dolly Parton, in a Christmas show,” she recalled. “So I was thinking, imagine that woman becoming an international superstar.”
The show in question was the 2020 Netflix musical film Christmas on the Square.
“She’s one of the great humans, in my opinion,” Baranski continued.
Baranski rose to fame on the 1980s sitcom Cybill, later starring in TV series such as The Good Wife, The Good Fight, and The Gilded Age, as well as films including Mamma Mia!. She can next be seen on stage in London, opposite Richard E Grant in the Noël Coward comedy Hay Fever.
“[Parton] came from nothing,” Baranski said. “And then I thought: Noël Coward! Same thing. Not that level of poverty, but he decided to be Noël Coward. And we still think of him in a silk robe, the cigarette, the witty bon mot.”
Towards the end of the interview, conversation again turned to Parton, with Baranski revealing that she and Parton had connected over the shared experience of watching a partner experience serious illness.
Parton was married to Carl Thomas Dean for 59 years, until his death in 2025, with Parton explaining that he had been “ill for quite a while”.
Baranski was married to the actor Matthew Cowles from 1983 to 2014, when he died of heart failure.
“Life is rather magnificent, if you’re lucky enough to live long enough. And if you’re a performer,” said Baranski. “I mean, I was just thinking of Dolly.
“She and I rather bonded, because she was married for almost 60 years, but she was nursing her husband for years, he was very ill. And when I met Dolly, I told her about Matthew and his illness and what a challenge it was when you’re watching someone you love just get weaker and weaker, and how torn you are being a working woman.
“She and I had some beautiful conversations.”
Elsewhere in the interview, the 74-year-old actor also opened up about her husband’s life, and his death at the age of 69.
“I remember being nervous because it’s so… I would say death is… death is not just sad, it’s disorienting. It’s so weird,” she said. “Death is weird for the people left behind.“
“When you lose a spouse with whom you lived for 30 years… Things aren’t quite right in so many ways. And I worried about my concentration, my ability to just focus.”
Read MoreDolly Parton once turned down $7 million for major superhero movie role
Dolly Parton’s sister urges fans to have more ‘compassion’ after singer’s death
Julia Roberts will never forget Dolly Parton’s response to her complaining
