Age key to autobiography claims
Certainly Lynn isn’t the first celebrity of a certain age to be less than forthcoming about a birthday, but the discrepancy is significant because age isn’t just a number for the Country Music Hall of Fame member.
Her age is woven into her compelling life story, made famous in her 1976 bestselling autobiography, Coal Miner’s Daughter, and the subsequent film starring Sissy Spacek.
The movie made $67 million nationwide and was nominated for seven Oscars. Spacek won accolades for her portrayal of Lynn.
The Grammy-winning singer recently announced that it will become a Broadway musical, starring actress and singer Zooey Deschanel.
The marriage certificate shows that Lynn instead married just shy of her 16th birthday, which was not unusual in Kentucky at that time. Her husband was 21.
It would have been illegal for a girl under the age of 14 to marry in Kentucky in 1948, said R. Eric Henninger of the Kentucky State Law Library. At that time, he said, “lots of folks didn’t have any sort of official proof of age.”
