- Coal Miner's Daughter
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This article is about the film. For other uses, see Coal Miner's Daughter (disambiguation).
Coal Miner's Daughter
Theatrical release posterDirected by Michael Apted Produced by Bernard Schwartz Written by Loretta Lynn
George Vecsey (autobiography)
Thomas RickmanStarring Sissy Spacek
Tommy Lee Jones
Beverly D'Angelo
Levon Helm
Phyllis BoyensMusic by Owen Bradley Cinematography Ralf D. Bode Editing by Arthur Schmidt Distributed by Universal Pictures Release date(s) March 7, 1980 Running time 125 minutes Country United States Language English Coal Miner's Daughter is a 1980 American biographical film which tells the story of country music icon Loretta Lynn. It stars Sissy Spacek in her Academy Award for Best Actress winning role, Tommy Lee Jones, Beverly D'Angelo and Levon Helm, and was directed by Michael Apted.[1]
Contents
Background
The film was adapted from Lynn's 1976 autobiography written with George Vecsey. Loretta Lynn was one of eight children born to Ted Webb (Levon Helm), a coal miner raising a family despite grinding poverty in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky, pronounced by locals as "Butcher Holler". She married Oliver Vanetta (Doolittle) "Mooney" Lynn (Tommy Lee Jones) when she was 13 years old.
A mother of four by the time she was 19 (and a grandmother by age 29), Lynn began singing the occasional song at local honky-tonks on weekends as well as making the occasional radio appearance.
At the age of 25, Norm Burley owner of Zero Records a small Canadian record label heard her sing on one of her early Northern Washington radio appearances and gave the couple the money needed to travel to Los Angeles, to cut a demo tape from which her first single Honky Tonk Girl would be made.
After returning home from the sessions, Mooney suggested that they go on a promotional tour in order to push the record. He took his own publicity photo, spent many late nights tirelessly writing each individual radio disc jockey from a published list of country radio stations all over the South along with show promoters and after Loretta receives an emergency phone call from home telling her that her father has passed away, she and Mooney hit the road with records, photos and kids in tow.
After the funeral and dropping the kids off at Loretta's mother's house in Kentucky, Loretta and Mooney used the remaining money provided for the trip to L.A. to record, to embark on an extensive radio station promotional tour of the Greater South.
Enroute, and unbeknownst to the pair, Loretta's first single, "Honky Tonk Girl", had hit the charts based on radio as well as jukebox plays and earned her a spot on the Grand Ole Opry. After seventeen straight weekly performances on the Opry, she was invited to sing at the Ernest Tubb Record Shop Midnite Jamboree after her Opry performance that night. Country-female superstar Patsy Cline, one of Loretta's idols had recently been hospitalized from a near-fatal car wreck, and so Loretta used her time to dedicate Patsy's newest hit I Fall to Pieces to the singer herself as a musical get-well card.
Cline was in fact listening to the broadcast that night from her hospital room and sent her husband Charlie Dick down to Tubbs' record shop to fetch Loretta so the two could meet. A long and close friendship with Patsy Cline followed, ended only by the tragic death of her idol in a plane crash on March 5, 1963.
Extensive touring, keeping up her image, overwork and a great deal of stress from trying to keep her family and marriage together caused a nervous breakdown, however after a year off at her ranch in Hurricane Mills, TN she was back out on the road in fine form as the First Lady of Country Music.
Some months later, Mooney drives Loretta at breakneck speed out to what we discover is a proposed site for a new house. They argue about where to put the bedrooms, and finally, Mooney somewhat jokingly says if they can't settle the issue about where to put the bedrooms, he's going to go live in a treehouse up at the top of a hill. The film ends with Loretta performing the title track as well as her signature song to a sold out crowd, and we hear a medley of Loretta Lynn hits performed live over the credits which does not appear on any album.
Cast
- Sissy Spacek as Loretta Lynn
- Tommy Lee Jones as Doolittle 'Mooney' or 'Doo' Lynn
- Beverly D'Angelo as Patsy Cline
- Levon Helm as Ted Webb
- Phyllis Boyens as 'Clary' Webb
- Bob Hannah as Charlie Dick
- William Sanderson as Lee Dollarhide
- Ernest Tubb as Himself
Participants
Lynn personally chose Spacek to portray her, making the decision based on a photograph of the actress despite being unfamiliar with her films, a story Spacek recounts in a DVD commentary for the Collector's Edition of the film. Initially, Spacek was reluctant to participate, and asked to do her own singing in the film in hopes of scaring off the studio from pursuing her for the role. At the time that Lynn prematurely announced on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson that "Sissy Spacek is going to play me," the actress was torn between friends who advised her to do Lynn's film and those who advised her to choose instead a Nicolas Roeg project due to start filming at the same time. Talking it over with her mother-in-law that evening, Spacek was advised to pray for a sign, which she did. She and her husband subsequently went for a drive in his mother's car, where the radio was tuned to a classical music station that changed formats at sunset every evening. As the couple pulled out of the parking garage, the title line of the song "Coal Miner's Daughter" sallied forth from the radio.[2]
For her performance, Spacek won an Academy Award, as well as "Best Actress" awards from the Golden Globes, the National Board of Review, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the New York Film Critics Circle, and the Kansas City Film Critics Circle. Her co-star Beverly D'Angelo, who played Loretta's mentor, Patsy Cline, also chose to do her own singing rather than lip-synching; she was nominated for a Golden Globe, as was Tommy Lee Jones. Levon Helm (drummer for the rock group The Band) made his screen debut as Loretta's father, Ted Webb. Ernest Tubb, Roy Acuff, and Minnie Pearl all make cameo appearances as themselves.[3]
Awards
This film won the Academy Award for Best Actress (Sissy Spacek), and was nominated for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (John W. Corso, John M. Dwyer), Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Picture, Best Sound (Richard Portman, Roger Heman and James R. Alexander) and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium.[4][5]
Release
Home media
- This movie was released on LaserDisc on two separate releases. The first release was in May 1980, and the extended play version was released in July 1981. These releases were both made by MCA DiscoVision.
- The movie was released in the VHS format on March 1, 1992 by MCA/Universal Home Video
- On September 13, 2005, Universal Pictures released a 25th Anniversary Edition of this film on DVD, in widescreen (1.85:1) format and featuring the music tracks remixed to 5.1 Dolby Digital stereo, leaving the dialogue and effects tracks as they were on the original mono soundtrack from 1980.
Soundtrack
Coal Miner's Daughter Soundtrack album by Various Artists Released 1980 Genre Country Label MCA Producer Owen Bradley The original motion picture soundtrack for Coal Miner's Daughter was released in 1980, under the MCA Records label. It included music by Beverly D'Angelo, Levon Helm, and Sissy Spacek except for the "End Credits Medley" and material by other artists which were not under contract to MCA.
Reception
Professional ratings Review scores Source Rating Allmusic [6] Track listing
No. Title Performer Length 1. "The Titanic" Sissy Spacek 2:29 2. "Blue Moon of Kentucky" Levon Helm 2:51 3. "There He Goes" Sissy Spacek 2:11 4. "I'm a Honky Tonk Girl" Sissy Spacek 2:22 5. "Amazing Grace" Various 2:08 6. "Walkin' After Midnight" Beverly D'Angelo 2:21 7. "Crazy" Beverly D'Angelo 2:45 8. "I Fall to Pieces" Sissy Spacek 2:48 9. "Sweet Dreams" Beverly D'Angelo 2:37 10. "Back in Baby's Arms" Sissy Spacek, Beverly D'Angelo 2:10 11. "One's on the Way" Sissy Spacek 2:42 12. "You Ain't Woman Enough (To Take My Man)" Sissy Spacek 2:18 13. "You're Lookin' at Country" Sissy Spacek 2:26 14. "Coal Miner's Daughter" Sissy Spacek 3:04 Chart performance
Chart (1980) Peak
positionCanada Country Albums (RPM)[7] 1 Canada Top Albums (RPM) 23 US Top Country Albums (Billboard) 2 US Billboard 200 40 Preceded by
Together by The Oak Ridge BoysRPM Country Albums number-one album
May 10–31, 1980Succeeded by
Together by The Oak Ridge BoysReferences
- ^ "IMDB: Coal Miner's Daughter (1980)". http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080549/. Retrieved May 9, 2007.
- ^ Sissy Spacek and Michael Apted. Feature commentary track, Coal Miner's Daughter 25th Anniversary/Collector's Edition, 2005.
- ^ Coal Miner's Daughter (Motion Picture). MCA Universal. 1980. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080549/.
- ^ "The 53rd Academy Awards (1981) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. http://www.oscars.org/awards/academyawards/legacy/ceremony/53rd-winners.html. Retrieved 2011-10-07.
- ^ "1980 Academy Awards". 2007. http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0149488.html. Retrieved May 9, 2007.
- ^ "allmusic ((( Coal Miner's Daughter - Various Artist > Review )))". Allmusic. Rovi Corporation. http://www.allmusic.com/album/coal-miners-daughter-r84240/review. Retrieved July 17, 2011.
- ^ "RPM Country 25 Albums" (PDF). RPM 33 (7). May 10, 1980. http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/rpm/028020-119.01-e.php?brws_s=1&file_num=nlc008388.4710&type=2&interval=24&PHPSESSID=o3ef5vslg65n4hbj5quf5rl2n4. Retrieved July 17, 2011.
External links
- Coal Miner's Daughter at the Internet Movie Database
- Coal Miner's Daughter at AllRovi
- Coal Miner's Daughter at the TCM Movie Database
- Coal Miner's Daughter at Rotten Tomatoes
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