During an interview with BlogTalkRadio.com, "Gossip Girl" star Matthew Settle, a native of Sevierville, reflected on his days as an employee at Dollywood.
"I met Dolly (Parton) when it just became Dollywood. She's beautiful and everyone in the world loves her. I was about 15 and she would introduce herself to all the workers there.
"She's probably the first celebrity I ever met," he said in the interview.
"I ran her country music jamboree, which featured all the country music singers that came through ... I'd sell their records by the train that would be passing through.
"I remember you'd get this incredible chili but you had to cover it when the train went by because there was so much soot falling from the train ... I'll have to go back and look Dolly up and see if she wants me to drive the mule wagon in the parade."
n No reality. Luttrell native Kenny Chesney says he'll never do a reality series. "Never! No, my life's real enough," he told Canadian radio station CJDC when asked if he'd ever star in a reality TV show.
"I would rather concentrate on trying to connect with fans in the audience and trying to write a great song and cut great music, and that takes up a lot of time, to be honest with you. I don't think you'll ever see me do that."
He is also not taking movie roles.
"I've even had a lot of people ask me if I want to act. I'm never saying never, but it's not something I wake up everyday wanting to do, and so I don't think I'd ever take a year off to go do a movie or something," he said in the same interview.
"I wouldn't be that good at it anyway. I think I realized doing the 'You Save Me' video where it took us three days to shoot three minutes of an opening of a video.
"I realized right then I wanted my day job back - that I was never gonna have the patience to act."
n 'Middle' man. Knoxville native John Cullum, best known for his Broadway work these days, had a cameo role on the Thanksgiving episode of ABC's sitcom "The Middle" with Patricia Heaton.
He played Big Mike, the hard-to-get-along-with father of Mike Heck (Neil Flynn). No word yet on whether Big Mike will be back for more episodes.
However, Cullum is still a semi-regular on "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," playing Judge Barry Moredock, this season.
At age 79, Cullum is as busy as ever as an actor. He has most recently appeared on Broadway in the show "August."
© 2009, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
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