Coal Miner's Daughter (1980)

Coal Miner's Daughter is a 1980 biographical film which tells the story of country music legendary singer Loretta Lynn. It stars Sissy Spacek as Loretta, a role that earned her the Academy Award for Best Actress. Tommy Lee Jones as Loretta's husband Mooney Lynn, Beverly D'Angelo and Levon Helm also star. The film was directed by Michael Apted.

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.

The film was adapted from Loretta Lynn's 1976 autobiography written with George Vecsey. At the time of the film's release, Loretta was 48 years old.

Synopsis

Loretta Lynn is one of eight children born to Ted Webb (Levon Helm), a coal miner raising a family with his wife despite grinding poverty in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky (pronounced by locals as "Butcher Holler"). She marries Oliver Vanetta (Doolittle) "Mooney" Lynn (Tommy Lee Jones) when she is 15 years old and he was 22 years old. A mother of four by the time she is 19 (and a grandmother by age 29), Loretta begins singing the occasional songs at local honky-tonks on weekends as well as making the occasional radio appearance.

Actors