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I’ve been fortunate in my life that my being a girl kind of helped me
along the way, and being from a strong family of men, and women, and
not being afraid to stand on my own or to say, ‘Go to hell,’ if that’s where
you needed to go.” Has she herself ever experienced workplace harass-
ment? “I’ve been fortunate, more fortunate than most women have. I’ve
certainly been harassed in my life. I’ve certainly had to put up with a lot
of BS. I was always strong enough to walk away from it and not to have
to fall under it. I was lucky that I was in a good country town, where the
men in the business have wives, and sisters, and cousins, and children.
It’s not like out there in the big world, like in California, where they
chew you up and spit you out, or in New York, where they don’t have
time, or in other big cities.”
She says the trio had talked about doing a 9 to 5 sequel that unfor-
tunately never came about due to script issues. “At our age, and with
all the projects we got going, we probably were not going to take the
time to have it redone.” However, the film was adapted into a success-
ful Broadway musical; for the West End version, Parton penned a new,
timely song, “Hey Boss.”
Parton is a boss herself, of course. Beyond her more public Holly-
wood successes, you probably didn’t know that her production compa-
ny brought us Buffy the Vampire Slayer
and the Father of the Bride movies. She
has a simple business philosophy: “Hire
people who know what they’re doing
to do the dirty work. I’m the creative
force. Then they have to do that day-
to-day, [fighting] all the battles, all that
kind of stuff that I don’t want to do. I’d
rather, behind the scenes, say, ‘Go fire
them. I ain’t doing it.’”
For anyone who’d question her fem-
inist integrity after all that, she says,
“I’m still out, living it, doing it, writing
it. People say, ‘Why don’t you get out and do more?’ I say, ‘I don’t have to
preach. I write it. I sing it. I live it.’ If I’m not a good example of a woman
in power, I don’t know who is. I’m out there just promoting mankind,
but I am most definitely going to get behind those gals.”
She has several projects coming up on her Hollywood slate, but
there’s one story she hasn’t yet told on the big screen: her own. A
Dolly biopic has existed mainly as a persistent rumor over the years.
Does she have a star in mind? “That depends on when I get it done,”
she says, noting that she’s thought of Reese Witherspoon and Scarlett
Johansson in the past.
Perhaps the most surprising realm that has embraced Parton is the
oft-snooty world of high fashion, which is crazy for her cornball glam-
our. Dolly’s face recently decorated a sweatshirt and jacket on the Gucci
runway; Moschino designer Jeremy Scott breathlessly emails that, as a
fellow country kid who grew up on a farm, “I had an instant connection
with her fresh yet folksy way of expressing herself, and of course her
love of all things shiny! I love her mix of humor and glamour; one not
being sacrificed for the other, as that is totally in keeping with my own
design philosophy.” Michael Kors calls her “fabulous, fearless, and fun.
I love that she has a sense of humor about herself,” he says, “and she’s
optimistic, which is something that always resonates with me. She’s an
icon and an inspiration, not only in how she presents herself but with
her unwavering talent.”
When I ask Parton if she ever thought she’d be impacting runways
like this, she says, laughing, “God, no. To me, that’s still one of the
funniest things, when people say that I am a fashion icon. I just al-
ways thought people thought I was so gaudy. I am! I’m flashy, and I’m
flamboyant. Had I not been a girl, I definitely would have been a drag
queen. I like all that flamboyance. I love all that sparkle, and shine, and
color.” She never tried to be stylish or follow trends, she says, “because
I didn’t know enough about it, nor would I have been willing to pay the
kind of money that it takes to truly be fashionable. I guess it’s always
fashionable to be yourself and to be comfortable with who you are, and
what you wear, and what you’re in.” Someday soon, she won’t just be
an inspiration to designers, but a designer herself. In May, she signed a
deal with IMG to develop her own fashion line. “I’m going to do it. I’m
going to get there,” she promises. “It’s one of my dreams—the makeup,
hair, and wigs, clothes, all of that sort of thing.” Wigs, of course, have
always been a signature: “I don’t always wear them in my daily life, but
I always still pouf up my hair. I still like to have that flashy hair. When
I’m around home, I wear my little scrunchies, but I always put on some
makeup and fix my own hair as cute as I can fix it. Wigs are just so handy.
I’m so busy, and I have so many choices. I never have a bad hair day, and
that’s a good thing.”
The rise of yeehaw fashion has seen younger stars, from Kacey
Musgraves to Lizzo, riffing on traditional country-western looks in
look-at-me ensembles that evoke Dolly’s style. “I love that. I think
people are kind of wanting to go back to the old ways,” she says. When
she played the Newport Folk Festival with Brandi Carlile and other
younger performers this past summer, she coordinated with their
looks, rocking a sequined wagon-wheel suit. “People just want to be
nostalgic; they appreciate the old things. With all these young girls that
have taken to me, it thrills me to death, and it’s such a great compliment
that all these young people say that I’ve
been an inspiration, and that I still am.”
Musgraves thinks Parton’s populari-
ty among people her age boils down
to her inclusivity. “Dolly was proud
to include and accept many different
kinds of people way before others in
her time period caught up with her,”
she points out. “Gen Z is also very open
and accepting of all the variances of
humanity. And in a time when truth
and authenticity are craved and needed
more than ever, it’s obvious why Dolly
is still just as loved.” She adds, “They should just go ahead and carve
her into the face of Mount Rushmore.”
At the 2019 Grammys, admirers including Musgraves, Katy Perry,
and Parton’s goddaughter, Miley Cyrus, performed with her. They’re
just some of the young artists who have been unabashed about their
Dolly fandom. “It’s a very humbling, but warm and wonderful, expe-
rience for me to get up there and do a whole set with all those young,
wonderful, talented girls. I’m proud to be that big ole gal in there, being
their Aunt Dolly, or big sister Dolly, or their mama!” she says, laughing,
breaking into a fluent pun. “The Dolly Mama. I’ll be their Dolly Mama.”
When Lil Nas X released “Old Town Road,” the country establish-
ment wasn’t entirely welcoming, bumping him from the country charts
in a move that smacked of racism. (He had the last laugh: The song’s
remix with Billy Ray Cyrus ended up breaking Mariah Carey and Boyz
II Men’s Hot 100 chart record.) “I was so happy for him,” Parton says.
“The fact that that was such a country song, I mean, that’s as corny as
any country song could be. I don’t mean corny in a bad way. I don’t care
how we present country music or keep it alive. I hope it stays alive for-
ever. The fact that all these other people in other fields of music want
to be part of that, are able to be part of that—I’m all about acceptance.”
In July, Lil Nas X tweeted, “y’all think i can get dolly parton and megan
thee stallion on a old town road remix?” Parton responded with horse
and unicorn emojis. “I had an opportunity to be part of that [song],” she
says now, “but it had done so well with so many people. I thought, ‘Well,
I’ll wait and do something later on. No point in going down that same
Old Town Road. We got other roads to travel.’” ▪“I LOOK TOTALLY ARTIFICIAL,
BUT I AM TOTALLY REAL,
AS A WRITER, AS A PROFESSIONAL,
AS A HUMAN BEING.”- Performing in a Bob Mackie butterfly dress in the ’70s. 2. In a 1980
publicity still for 9 to 5 with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin. 3. With Julianne Hough
(playing Jolene) in Netflix’s Heartstrings. 4. In Nashville with Porter Wagoner
in 1968. 5. Parton, at 14, in a high school photo from 1960. 6. Performing with
Katy Perry and Kacey Musgraves at the 2019 Grammy Awards. PREVIOUS PAGE: PARTON IN FLORAL DRESS: PHOTOGRAPHED BY JASON BELL FOR NETFLIX. OPPOSITE PAGE: PARTON IN BOB MACKIE DRESS: MEDIAPUNCH INC./ALAMY;
9 TO 5: 20TH CENTURY FOX/GETTY IMAGES;HEARTSTRINGS:TINA ROWDEN/NETFLIX; PARTON AND WAGONER: MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES; PARTON IN HIGH SCHOOL: NANCY BARR/MEDIAPUNCH INC./ALAMY; GRAMMY PERFORMANCE: EMMA MCINTYRE/GETTY IMAGES.