After 48 years of being happily married Dolly Parton has shared the secret of her success.
"The secret to a long marriage is to stay gone," she joked with journalists at a press conference in Melbourne where she kicks off the Australian leg of her Blue Smoke tour on Tuesday night.
The country music queen says she and husband Carl Thomas Dean, who remains in the US, will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary by renewing their vows.
"When we do celebrate our 50th we plan to maybe marry again," she said.
"It's his first marriage and mine and we're just best buddies, we get along really good - he really likes staying at home and I like to travel so it works out real well for both of us."
Dressed in a black pencil skirt and fitted top with a small keyhole cut-out, sparkling bangles and shiny red fingernails, she also dished out her style secrets.
"I have only, you know, one rule - it's to buy clothes that are a size too small and then have them taken in.
"I'm very conservative today, don't you think?
"I was trying to be dressed kind of like in basic black in something I thought would photograph well and look like a business woman and this is my idea of that."
The 68-year-old says she has no retirement plans, but hopes that when she dies it will be doing what she loves.
"I wouldn't really know what to do if I retired," she said.
"I hope to just fall dead right in the middle of a song, hopefully one I've written."
Parton will perform at Melbourne's Rod Laver Arena on Tuesday and Wednesday before heading to Adelaide.
