Loretta Lynn was named after movie star Loretta Young.

Spacek's parents visited the set while the production was filming at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville and ended up becoming fast friends with musician Ernest Tubb, who played himself in the movie. Tubb went to visit the Spaceks in Quitman, Texas, parking his gigantic tour bus outside their home and getting a lot of attention from the locals.

Due to the picture's success, Sissy Spacek's home town, Quitman, Texas, declared May 31, 1980, Sissy Spacek Day with entertainment, presentations, and competitions. Spacek and her husband flew in for the celebration.

Shortly after the picture opened, Spacek got a telegram from Dolly Parton that read "Dear Sissy, I hope you make millions of dollars from Coal Miner's Daughter so that you can get a boob job and do the Dolly Parton story."

In 2012 a story broke that Loretta Lynn was not the age she said she was, not so significant for people in show business but important to the facts of her story. Lynn claimed to have been married at 13, but her birth certificate showed she was actually on the verge of 16 when she and Doolittle wed. When asked to confirm or deny, Lynn's representatives said she had emphatically told them before, "If anyone asks how old I am, tell them it's none of their business!"

German-born cinematographer Ralf D. Bode (1941-2001) was later hired by Sissy Spacek's husband Jack Fisk to shoot two films Fisk directed starring Spacek, Raggedy Man (1981) and Violets Are Blue... (1986). Bode received Emmy nominations for shooting two made-for-television adaptations of Broadway musicals, Gypsy (1993) and Annie (1999).

Sissy Spacek and Tommy Lee Jones also appeared together in the TV movie The Good Old Boys (1995) and Oliver Stone's feature JFK (1991).

Although he was snubbed by the Academy Awards for his work in this picture, Tommy Lee Jones has been nominated four times. He won Best Supporting Actor for The Fugitive (1993).

Levon Helm (1940-2012) was a professional musician making his acting debut in this movie. He appeared 16 more times in movies, shorts, and television shows, not counting his appearances as himself in numerous documentaries and concert footage. He and Tommy lee Jones worked together again in The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005).

Loretta Lynn's twin daughters, Patsy (named for Patsy Cline) and Peggy, were very young when they met Sissy Spacek while she was studying Loretta Lynn's speech and singing patterns for the movie. They asked their mother why she kept trying to talk like Sissy Spacek.

In her autobiography, Sissy Spacek wrote: "[Loretta] had missed watching her children grow up, missed out on her own life while she was stuck on the spinning merry-go-round of fame and obligations. The lessons weren't lost on me. I saw how easily it could happen. And I didn't want to give up all that she did for my own career. I wanted to keep some privacy. It's been important to me to live a regular life, around regular people, because these are the characters I portray in films: regular people, like me."

Back-up vocals are credited to the Jordanaires, who backed Elvis Presley on most of his big hits and movies.

The night Sissy Spacek won an Academy Award for Best Actress Loretta Lynn was in the audience. Making the event unique, Robert De Niro won for Raging Bull (1980) as the man he played, Jake La Motta, also watched from the audience.

By Rob Nixon

Memorable Quotes from COAL MINER'S DAUGHTER

DOLLARHIDE (William Sanderson): If you're born in Kentucky you've got three choices; coal mine, moonshine or move it on down the line.

LORETTA (Sissy Spacek): I'm goin' to have a baby.
DOOLITTLE (Tommy Lee Jones): You know, Loretta, we may have found something you know how to do.

DOOLITTLE: Loretta, I'm leavin' Kentucky. Goin' out west somewhere, find me another job. That damn coal mine about to kill me. There ain't nothin' in Kentucky for me except a chest full of coal dust and being an old man before I'm forty; ask your daddy, he'll tell you.
LORETTA: Were you goin' without me?
DOOLITTLE: Just long enough to get the money to send for you.
LORETTA: You promised my daddy you wouldn't take me far off.
DOOLITTLE: Darlin' you're goin' to have to decide if you're my wife or his daughter. Besides, you got to go; I love you.
LORETTA: You better come up with a better reason than that.

TED (Levon Helm): I ain't ever gonna see you again.
LORETTA: Yes you will, daddy.
TED: Maybe, but I ain't never gonna see my little girl again.

LORETTA: I'm getting' so sick of baloney.
DOOLITTLE: You are? Well, you know what they say about eatin' baloney, don't you?
LORETTA: No, what?
DOOLITTLE: Makes you horny.
LORETTA: What does that mean?
DOOLITTLE: Are you so dadburn ignorant you don't know what horny means?
LORETTA: No, what does it mean?
DOOLITTLE: I ain't gonna tell you.

LORETTA: Shoot, we've been driving so much, I don't know where I am half the time. But it's fun. We sing, and talk, and Doo--that's my husband--he'll get to acting horny.
SPEEDY WEST (Billy Strange): What!?
LORETTA: And the more I laugh, the hornier he gets, and then he'll say, "Loretta, spread me up another one of them baloney sandwiches!"

STATION MANAGER (Gary Parker): And come off that dumb hillbilly act!
DOOLITTLE: If you knew Loretta, you'd know that ain't no act.
LORETTA: Thank you, honey.

LORETTA: Woman, if you want to keep that arm, you better get it off my husband.

DOOLITTLE: What we got to do next is; figure out what to do next.

PATSY CLINE (Beverly D'Angelo): People are wantin' to know who you've been sleepin' with to get on the Opry so quick.
LORETTA: Well, I never... who would say such a thing?
PATSY: All those girl singers who've been sleepin' with everybody and still ain't got on the Opry.

LORETTA: Dadgum it, Doo! You never ask me nothing! You just say, "Hey baby, here's the deal, take it or leave it." Well, it's drivin' me crazy, Doo!
DOOLITTLE: Well, hell, then let's go up to the house, call a lawyer and get a divorce. I'm tired of this bullshit.
LORETTA: I don't want no divorce! I just want the dadgum bedroom in the back of the house!