Dolly Rebecca Parton (born January 19, 1946) is an
American singer-songwriter, author,
multi-instrumentalist, actress and
philanthropist, best-known for her work
in
country music.
In the four-and-a-half decades since her
national-chart début, she remains one of the
most-successful female artists in the history of the country
genre which garnered her the title of 'The
Queen of Country Music', with twenty-five number-one
single, and a record forty-one top-10 country
albums. She has the distinction of having
performed on a top-five country hit in each of the last five
decades and is the only artist to score a number-one country single
in each of the past four decades.
She is known for her distinctive
soprano,
sometimes bawdy humor, flamboyant dress sense and
voluptuous figure.
Early years
Childhood
Dolly
Parton was born in Sevierville
, Tennessee
, the fourth of twelve children born:
- Willadeene Parton (a poet, b. 1940)
- David Parton (b. 1942)
- Denver Parton (b. 1943), who named his first daughter Dolly
Christina Parton
- Dolly Rebecca Parton
- Robert Lee "Bobby" Parton Jr. (b. 1948)
- Stella Parton (a singer, b.
1949)
- Cassie Parton (a singer, b. 1951)
- Randel Huston "Randy" Parton (a
singer and businessman, b. 1953)
- Larry Parton (b. 1955, d. 1955)
- Floyd Parton (a singer-songwriter) and
- Freida Parton (a singer) - twins (b. 1957)
- Rachel Dennison (an actress, b. 1959)
Her family was, as she described them, "dirt poor".
She described her
family's shortness of money in her song "Coat of Many Colors" They lived
in a rustic, dilapidated one-room
cabin in Locust Ridge, Tennessee, a
hamlet just north of the Greenbrier
Valley
in the Great Smoky
Mountains of Sevier County
, a predominantly Pentecostalist area.
Music formed a major part of her early church experience. She once
told an interviewer that her grandfather was a Pentecostal
"
holy-roller" preacher. Today, when
appearing in live concerts, she frequently performs
spiritual songs.
Career discovery
Parton began performing as a child, singing on local radio and
television programs in the
East
Tennessee area.
By age nine, she was appearing on
The Cas Walker
Show on both WIVK Radio and
WBIR-TV
in Knoxville
, Tennessee. At thirteen, she was recording on a small
Louisiana label, Goldband Records,
and appeared at the Grand Ole Opry
in Nashville
, Tennessee. It was at the Opry where she
first met
Johnny Cash who encouraged her
to go where her heart took her, and not to care what others
thought. The day after she graduated from high school in 1964,
Parton moved to Nashville taking many traditional elements of
folklore and popular music from
East
Tennessee with her.
Parton's initial success came as a songwriter, writing two top ten
hits with her uncle Bill Owens,
Bill Phillips's "Put it Off Until
Tomorrow" and
Skeeter Davis' 1967 hit
"Fuel to the Flame". She also wrote a minor chart hit for
Hank Williams Jr during this period. She
had signed with
Monument Records in
late 1965, where she was initially pitched as a
bubblegum pop singer, earning only one
national-chart single, "Happy, Happy Birthday Baby," which did not
crack the
Billboard Hot 100.
The label agreed to have Parton sing country music after her
composition, "Put It Off Until Tomorrow," as recorded by
Bill Phillips (and with Parton,
uncredited, on harmony), went to number six on the country-music
charts in 1966. Her first country single, "Dumb Blonde" (one of the
few songs during this era that she recorded but did not write),
reached number twenty-four on the country-music charts in 1967,
followed the same year with "Something Fishy," which went to number
seventeen. The two songs anchored her first full-length album,
Hello, I'm Dolly.
Marriage
On May 30,
1966, she and Carl Thomas Dean were married in Ringgold
, Georgia
. She had met Dean at the Wishy-Washy
Laundromat two years earlier on her first
day in Nashville. His very first words to her were: "You're gonna
get sunburnt out there, little lady."
Dean, who runs an
asphalt
road-surface-paving business in Nashville, has always shunned
publicity and rarely accompanies her to any events. According to
Parton, he has only ever seen her perform once. However, she has
also commented in interviews that, although it appears they do not
spend much time together, it is simply that nobody sees him. She
has also commented on Dean's romantic side claiming that he will
often do spontaneous things to surprise her, and sometimes even
writes her poems.
The couple partly raised several of Parton's younger siblings at
their home in Nashville, leading her nieces and nephews to refer to
her as "Aunt Granny"; she has no children of her own.
The couple are also the sole guardians of a family friend’s son,
whose parents died within two years of each other. Although, in
keeping with the secretive nature of the family, not much is
known.
Music career
1967–1976: Country-music success
In 1967, Parton was asked to join the weekly country-music,
syndicated-television program
The Porter Wagoner Show, hosted by
Porter Wagoner, replacing
Norma Jean, one of the most popular
country female vocalists at the time, who was newly married and
semi-retiring.
Initially, Wagoner's audience was reluctant to warm to Parton and
chanted for Norma Jean, but with Wagoner's assistance, she was
accepted. Wagoner convinced his label,
RCA
Victor, to also sign Parton. The label decided to protect their
investment by releasing her first single as a
duet with Wagoner. The duo's first single, "
The Last Thing on My Mind,"
reached the country Top Ten early in 1968, launching a six-year
streak of virtually uninterrupted Top-Ten singles.
Parton's first solo single for RCA, "
Just
Because I'm a Woman", was released in the summer of 1968 and
was a moderate hit, reaching number seventeen. For the remainder of
the decade, none of her solo efforts – even "
In the Good Old
Days ," which would later become a standard – were as
successful as her duets. The duo was named
Vocal Group of the
Year in 1968 by the
Country Music Association, but
Parton's solo records were continually ignored. Wagoner and Parton
were both frustrated by her lack of solo success, because he had a
significant financial stake in her future – as of 1969, he was her
co-producer and owned nearly half of the publishing company
Owepar.
By 1970, both Parton and Wagoner had grown frustrated by her lack
of solo chart success, and Porter had her sing
Jimmie Rodgers' "
Mule Skinner Blues," a
gimmick that worked. The record shot to number three
on the charts, followed closely by her first number-one single,
"Joshua." For the next two years, she had a number of solo hits –
including her signature song "
Coat
of Many Colors" (number four, 1971) – in addition to her duets.
Though she had successful singles, none of them were
blockbuster until "
Jolene" reached number one in early 1974.
Parton stopped traveling with Wagoner after its release, yet she
continued to appear on television and sing duets with him until
1976.
She stayed with the Wagoner Show and continued to record duets with
him for seven years, then made a break to become a solo artist. In
1974, her song, "
I Will Always
Love You" (written about her professional break from Wagoner),
was released and went to number one on the country-music charts.
Around the same time,
Elvis Presley
indicated that he wanted to
cover the
song. Parton was interested until Presley's manager,
Colonel Tom Parker, told her that she
would have to sign over half of the publishing rights if Presley
recorded the song (as was the standard procedure for songs he
recorded). Parton refused and that decision is credited with
helping to make her many millions of dollars in royalties from the
song over the years. It was decisions like these, in fact, that
caused her to be called "The Iron Butterfly" in
show-business circles.
1977–1986: Branching out into pop music
From 1974 to 1980, she consistently charted in the country
Top 10, with no fewer than eight singles reaching
number one. Parton had her own syndicated-television
variety show,
Dolly! (1976–1977), and by 1977 had gained the
right to produce her own albums, which immediately resulted in
diverse efforts like 1977's
New Harvest ...
First
Gathering. In addition to her own hits during the late
1970s, many artists, from
Rose Maddox
and
Kitty Wells to
Olivia Newton-John,
Emmylou Harris, and
Linda Ronstadt, covered her songs, and her
siblings Randy and Stella had recording
contracts of their own.
Parton later had commercial success as a
pop singer, as well as an actress. Her 1977 album,
Here You Come Again,
was her first million-seller, and its title track ("
Here You Come Again") became her
first top-ten single on the pop charts (reaching number three);
many of her subsequent singles charted on both pop and country
charts, simultaneously. Her albums during this period were
developed specifically for pop-
crossover success.
In 1978 Parton won a
Grammy Award for
Best
Female Country Vocal Performance for her
Here You Come
Again album. Following that title track's success, she had
further pop hits with "
Two Doors
Down", "
Heartbreaker" (both 1978),
"
Baby I'm Burning" and "
You're the Only One" (both 1979), all of
which charted in the pop singles
Top 40, and
all of which also topped the country-singles chart. On April 3,
1978, Parton performed with
Cher on television
in
Cher... Special in the "Musical Battle to Save
Cher's Soul Medley". Parton was dressed in white and, with a team
of brightly clad singers, portrayed an
angelic
host while
punk band
The Tubes, dressed in black leather and
performing "Mondo Bondage", battled to send Cher's soul into
eternal damnation.
Parton's commercial success continued to grow during 1980, with
three number-one hits in a row: the
Donna
Summer-written "
Starting Over
Again," "
Old
Flames Can't Hold a Candle to You", and "
9 to 5."
With less time to spend songwriting as she focused on a burgeoning
film career, during the early 1980s Parton recorded a larger
percentage of material from noted pop songwriters, such as
Barry Mann and
Cynthia
Weil,
Rupert Holmes,
Gary Portnoy and
Carole Bayer Sager.
"9 to 5", the theme song to the
feature
film Nine to Five (1980)
Parton starred in along with
Jane Fonda
and
Lily Tomlin, not only reached number
one on the country charts, but also number one on the pop and the
adult-contemporary charts,
giving her a triple-number-one hit. Parton became one of the few
female country singers to have a number-one single on the country
and pop charts simultaneously. It also received an
Academy Award nomination for
Best Original
Song.
Parton's singles continued to appear consistently in the country
Top 10: between 1981 and 1985, she had 12 Top 10 hits; half of
those were number-one singles. Parton continued to make inroads on
the pop charts as well with a re-recorded version of "I Will Always
Love You" from the feature film
The Best Little
Whorehouse in Texas (1982) scraping the Top 50 that year
and her duet with
Kenny Rogers,
"
Islands in the Stream"
(written by the
Bee Gees and produced by
Barry Gibb), spent two weeks at number
one in 1983.
Most of her albums were dominated by the adult-contemporary pop
songs like "Islands in the Stream," and it had been years since she
had sung straightforward country.
She also continued to explore new business
and entertainment ventures such as her Dollywood
theme park, that opened in 1986 in Pigeon
Forge
, Tennessee. Her record sales were still
relatively strong, however, with "
Save the Last Dance for Me",
"
Tennessee Homesick Blues"
(both 1984); "
Real Love"
(another duet with Kenny Rogers), "
Don't Call it Love" (both 1985); and
"
Think About Love" (1986) all
reaching the country-singles Top 10. ("Tennessee Homesick Blues"
and "Think About Love" reached number one. "Real Love" also reached
number one on the country-singles chart and also became a modest
pop-crossover hit). However, RCA Records didn't renew her contract
after it expired that year, and she signed with
CBS Records in 1987.
1987–1994: Return to country roots
Along with Harris and Ronstadt, she released the
decade-in-the-making
Trio
(1987) to critical acclaim. The album strongly revitalized Parton's
temporarily stalled music career, spending five weeks at number one
on Billboard's Country Albums chart, selling several million copies
and producing four Top 10 country hits including
Phil Spector's "
To Know Him Is to Love Him",
which went to number one.
Trio won the Grammy Award for
Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal and was
nominated for a Grammy Award for
Album of the Year. In
1987, she revived her television variety show,
Dolly
White Limozeen (1989)
produced two number-one hits in "
Why'd You Come in Here
Lookin' Like That" and "
Yellow
Roses." Although it looked like Parton's career had been
revived, it was actually just a brief revival before
contemporary country music came in the
early 1990s and moved all veteran artists out of the charts.
A duet with
Ricky Van Shelton,
"
Rockin' Years" (1991) reached number
one but Parton's greatest commercial fortune of the decade came
when Houston recorded "I Will Always Love You" for the soundtrack
of the feature film
The
Bodyguard (1992); both the single and the album were
massively successful.
She recorded "
The Day I Fall In
Love" as a duet with
James Ingram
for the feature film
Beethoven's
2nd (1993). The songwriters (Sager, Ingram, and
Clif Mangess) were nominated for an Academy
Award for Best Original Song and Parton and Ingram performed the
song on the awards telecast.
Similar to her earlier collabrative album with Harris and Ronstadt,
Parton recorded
Honky Tonk
Angels (1994) with
Loretta
Lynn and
Tammy Wynette. It was
certified a
Gold Album by the
Recording
Industry Association of America and helped revive both
Wynette's and Lynn's careers.
Since 1995: career today
In 1995 Parton re-recorded "I Will Always Love You" as a duet with
Vince Gill on her album
Something Special for which they won
the Country Music Association's
Vocal Event of
the Year Award.
A second and more-contemporary collaboration with Harris and
Ronstadt,
Trio II (1999),
was released and its cover of
Neil
Young's "
After the Gold
Rush" won a Grammy Award for
Best
Country Collaboration with Vocals.
Parton was also
inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame
in 1999.
She recorded a series of critically acclaimed
bluegrass albums, beginning with
The Grass Is Blue (1999),
winning a Grammy Award for
Best Bluegrass Album,
and
Little Sparrow (2001),
with its cover of
Collective Soul's
"
Shine" winning a
Grammy Award for
Best
Female Country Vocal Performance. The third,
Halos & Horns (2002) included a
bluegrass version of the
Led Zeppelin
classic "
Stairway to
Heaven".
Parton released
Those Were The
Days (2005), her interpretation of hits from the
folk-rock era of the late 1960s through the early
1970s. It featured such classics as
John
Lennon's "
Imagine",
Cat Stevens's "
Where Do the Children Play?",
Tommy James's "
Crimson and Clover", and
Pete Seeger's
anti-war
song "
Where Have All
the Flowers Gone?".
Parton earned her second Academy Award nomination for Best Original
Song for "
Travelin' Thru",
which she wrote specifically for the feature film
Transamerica (2005). Because of the
song's nature of accepting a
transgender
woman without judgment, Parton received
death threats. She also returned to number one
on the country charts later in 2005 by lending her distinctive
harmonies to the
Brad Paisley ballad,
"
When I Get Where I'm
Goin'".
In September 2007, Parton released her first single from her own
record company,
Dolly Records
entitled, "
Better Get to
Livin'", which eventually peaked at number forty-eight on the
Billboard's
Hot Country Songs
chart.
Her latest album,
Backwoods
Barbie, released February 26, 2008, reached number two on
the country charts. The album's début at number seventeen on the
all-genre
Billboard 200 albums chart
has been the highest in her career. The title track and video was
released in February 2009. The title song was written as part of
her score for
9 to 5: The
Musical, an adaptation of her feature film
Nine to
Five.
After the sudden death of
Michael
Jackson, whom Parton knew personally, she released a video in
which she somberly told of her feelings on Jackson and his
death.
She is set to release her second live
DVD and
album,
Live From London in October 2009 which was filmed
during her sold out 2008 concerts at London's 02 Arena.
Parton is currently working a dance album
Dance with Dolly
of which she has said should be released very soon, as well as a
4-CD box set
Dolly which will feature 99 songs and spans
most of her career. The box set was released October 27 in
America.
In concert and on tour
Parton
toured extensively
from the late 1960s until the early 1990s. In 2002 she returned to
the concert stage; she later went on the
Backwoods Barbie Tour in 2008
promoting
Backwoods Barbie.
Dollywood Foundation Shows
From the early 1990s through 2001, her concert appearances were
primarily limited to one weekend a year at Dollywood to benefit her
Dollywood Foundation. The
concerts normally followed a theme (similar to a
Legends in Concert or, for example, a
"fifties-music"-
tribute concert). They
have also included holiday shows during the
Christmas season.
Halos & Horns Tour
After a decade-long absence from touring, Parton decided to return
in 2002 with the
Halos &
Horns Tour, an 18-city,
intimate-club tour to promote
Halos & Horns (2002). House of
Blues Entertainment, Inc. produced the tour and it sold out all its
U.S. and
European dates (her first in two
decades).
Hello, I'm Dolly Tour
She returned to mid-sized-
stadium venues in 2004 with her 36-city, U.S. and Canadian
Hello, I'm Dolly Tour, a
glitzier, more-elaborate stage show than two years earlier. With
nearly 140,000 tickets sold, it was the tenth-biggest country tour
of the year and grossed more than $6 million.
The Vintage Tour
In late 2005 Parton completed a 40-city tour with
The Vintage Tour promoting her new
Those Were
the Days (2005).
European Tour 2007
Parton scheduled mini concerts in late 2006 throughout the U.S. and
Canada as a gear-up to her 17-city, 21-date
European Tour 2007.
Running
from March 6–April 3, 2007, this was her first world tour in many
years and her first tour in the United Kingdom
since 2002.
The
European Tour 2007 sold out
in every European city and gained mostly positive reviews. It took
grossed just over $16 million. The most-noted feature of the shows
was that very few in attendance, despite Parton being 60, had ever
seen her in concert. This, coupled with Parton's European
popularity, led to a very well-received reception when she took the
stage.
Backwoods Barbie Tour
In 2008 Parton went on the
Backwoods Barbie Tour. It was set to
begin in the U.S. (February-April 2008) to coincide with the
release of
Backwoods Barbie (2008), her first
mainstream-country album in 17 years. However, because of back
problems she postponed all U.S. dates. The tour started March 28,
2008, with 13 U.S. dates, followed by 17 European shows.
She
returned to the U.S. with a concert at Humphrey's By The Bay in San Diego
, California
, on August 1, 2008. She performed her
Backwoods Barbie Tour on August 3, 2008, at the Greek
Theatre
in Los
Angeles
, California, to a sold-out crowd and standing ovations. From August 1 to
November 1, she has scheduled 16 dates on both the east and west
coasts of the U.S.
Songwriting
Parton is a hugely successful songwriter, having begun by writing
country-music songs with strong elements of
folk music, based upon her upbringing in humble
mountain surroundings, and reflecting her family's
evangelical-
Christian background. Her songs "Coat of Many
Colors", "I Will Always Love You" and "Jolene" have become classics
in the field, as have a number of others. As a songwriter, she is
also regarded as one of country music's most-gifted
storyteller, with many of her
narrative songs based on persons and events from
her childhood. Parton has listed almost 600 songs with
Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) to
date and has earned 37 BMI awards for her material. In 2001, she
was inducted into the
Songwriters Hall of Fame.
In a 2009 interview with
CNN's
Larry King Live, Parton indicated that
she had written "at least 3,000" songs, having written seriously
since the age of seven. Parton went on to say that she writes
something every day, be it a song or an idea.
Compositions in films and television and covers
Parton's songwriting has been featured prominently in several
films.
In addition to the title song for
Nine to Five (1980), she
also recorded a second version of "I Will Always Love You" for
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982); the second
version proved to be another number-one country hit and also
managed to reach the pop charts going to number 53 in the
U.S.
"I Will Always Love You" has been covered by many country artists,
including Ronstadt, on
Prisoner
In Disguise (1975);
Kenny
Rogers, on
Vote for Love
(1996); and
LeAnn Rimes, on
Unchained Melody: The Early
Years (1997).
Whitney
Houston performed it on
The Bodyguard
(1992) film soundtrack and her version became the best-selling hit
ever both written and performed by a female vocalist, with
worldwide sales of over twelve million copies.
As a songwriter, Parton has twice been nominated for an
Academy Award for Best
Original Song, for "9 to 5" (1980) and "Travelin' Thru" (2005).
"Travelin' Thru" did win as Best Original Song award at the
Phoenix Film Critics
Society Awards (2005). The song was also nominated for both the
Golden Globe Award for
Best Original Song
(2005) and the
Broadcast Film Critics
Association Award (also known as the Critics' Choice Awards)
for
Best
Song (2005).
A cover version of "Love Is Like A Butterfly", recorded by singer
Clare Torry, was used as the theme music
for the British TV show
Butterflies.
American Idol appearance
The
music-competition,
reality-television show
American Idol (since 2002) has weekly
themes and the April 1–2, 2008, episodes' theme was
"Dolly Parton
Songs" with the nine then-remaining contestants each singing a
Parton composition. Parton participated as a "guest
mentor" to the contestants and also performed
"
Jesus and Gravity"
(from
Backwoods Barbie and released as a single in March
2008) receiving a standing ovation from the
studio audience.
9 to 5: The Musical
Parton wrote the score (and
Patricia
Resnick wrote the book) for
9 to 5: The Musical, a
musical-theatre adaptation of Parton's feature film
Nine to Five (1980).
The musical ran at the Ahmanson
Theatre
, Los
Angeles, California, in Fall 2008.
It opened
on Broadway
at the Marquis Theatre in New York City
, New
York
, on April 30, 2009, to mixed reviews. The
title track of her
Backwoods Barbie (2008), was written
for the musical's character Doralee.
Developing the musical was not an overnight process. According to a
broadcast of the
public-radio
program
Studio 360 (October 29, 2005), in
October 2005 Parton was in the midst of composing the songs for a
Broadway musical-theatre adaptation of the film. In late June 2007,
9 to 5: the Musical was read for industry presentations.
The readings starred
Megan Hilty,
Allison Janney,
Stephanie J. Block,
Bebe
Neuwirth and
Marc Kudisch.
Musician
Parton plays the
autoharp,
banjo,
drums,
dulcimer,
fiddle,
guitar,
harmonica,
pennywhistle and
piano.
She began composing songs at the age of four, her mother often
writing down the music as she heard Parton singing around the
house. Parton often describes her talent as having "the gift of
rhyme".
Acting career
During the mid-1970s, Parton wanted to expand her audience base.
Although her first attempt, the television
variety show Dolly! (1976–1977), had
high ratings it lasted only one season, with Parton requesting to
be released from her contract because of the stress it was causing
her
vocal cords. (She later tried a
second television variety show, also entitled
Dolly (1987–1988); it also
lasted only one season.)
Film
In her first feature film she portrayed a secretary in a
co-starring role with Fonda and Tomlin in
Nine to Five (1980). Parton
received Golden Globe Award nominations for
Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy and
New
Star Of The Year – Actress.
She also wrote and recorded the biggest solo hit of her career with
the film's title song. It received a nomination for
Academy Award for Best Song
along with a Golden Globe Award nomination for
Best Original
Song. Released as a single, the song won two Grammy Awards:
Best
Female Country Vocal Performance and
Best Country Song. The
song also reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and in was
placed number 78 on the
American
Film Institute's "
100
Years... 100 Songs"
list released in 2004. Parton was also named Top Female Box Office
Star by the
Motion Picture
Herald in both 1981 and 1982.
Parton's second film
The Best Little
Whorehouse in Texas (1982), earned her a second Golden
Globe nomination for Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion
Picture Musical or Comedy.
She followed with
Rhinestone (1984), co-starring
Sylvester Stallone, and
Steel Magnolias (1989),
with an
ensemble cast.
The last
leading role for Parton was
portraying a plainspoken
radio-program
host (with listeners telephoning in to share their problems) in
Straight Talk (1992),
opposite
James Woods.
She played an overprotective mother in
Frank McKlusky, C.I. (2002) with
Dave Sheridan,
Cameron Richardson and
Randy Quaid.
Parton played herself in a
cameo
appearance in
The
Beverly Hillbillies (1993) (an adaptation of the
long-running television
situation
comedy of the same name) and also in
Miss Congeniality 2:
Armed and Fabulous (2005) (the sequel to
Sandra Bullock's earlier
Miss Congeniality
(2000)).
She was featured in
The Book
Lady (2008) a
documentary
about her campaign for children’s
literacy
and she was expecting to repeat her television role as Hannah's
godmother in
Hannah Montana: The Movie
(2008) but the character was omitted from the final
screenplay.
Television
In addition to her performing appearances on the Wagoner Show in
the 1960s and into the 1970s; her two self-titled television
variety shows in the 1970s and 1980s; and on
American Idol
in 2001 and other guest appearances, Parton has also acted in
television roles. In 1979 she received an Emmy award nomination as
"Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Variety Program" for her guest
appearance in a
Cher special.
She starred in the television movie
Smoky Mountain Christmas
(1986);
Unlikely Angel
(1996), portraying an angel sent back to earth following a deadly
car crash; and
Blue Valley
Songbird (1999), where her character lives through her
music.
Parton has also done
voice work for
animation for television
series, playing herself in the
Alvin & the
Chipmunks (episode "Urban Chipmunk", 1983) and the
character Katrina Eloise "Murph" Murphy in
The Magic School Bus (episode "The
Family Holiday Special", 1994).
Dolly guest starred on an episode of
Designing Women (episode "The First Day
of the Last Decade of the Entire Twentieth Century") as herself,
the guardian movie star of Charlene's baby. She also appeared in
the situation comedy series
Reba
(episode "Reba's Rules of Real Estate") portraying a
real-estate agency owner,
and on
The Simpsons (episode
"Sunday, Cruddy Sunday", 1999).
She also made cameo appearances on the
Disney Channel as "Aunt Dolly" visiting
Hannah and her family in the fellow Tennessean
Miley Cyrus's series
Hannah Montana (episodes "Good Golly,
Miss Dolly", 2006, and "I Will Always Loathe You", 2007). The role
came about because of her real-life relationship as Cyrus's
godmother.
Businesses
In 1998,
Nashville Business
ranked her as the wealthiest country-music star.
The Dollywood Company
Parton
invested much of her earnings into business ventures in her native
East Tennessee, notably Pigeon Forge. She is a co-owner of
The Dollywood Company, which operates the theme park Dollywood (a former Silver Dollar City
), a dinner theatre,
Dolly Parton's Dixie
Stampede, and the waterpark, Dollywood's Splash Country, all
in Pigeon Forge.
Dollywood is ranked as the 24th-most-popular theme park in the
U.S., with about three million visitors annually. The area is a
thriving
tourist attraction,
drawing visitors from large parts of the Southeastern and
Midwestern U.S. This region of the U.S., like most areas of
Appalachia, had suffered economically for
decades; Parton's business investment has helped revitalize the
area.
The Dixie
Stampede business also has venues in Branson
, Missouri
, and Myrtle Beach
, South
Carolina
.
A former
Dixie Stampede location in Orlando, Florida
closed in January 2008 after the business's land
and building were sold to a developer.
Film and television production company
Parton is a co-owner of
Sandollar
Productions with
Sandy Gallin, her
former manager. A film-and-television-
production company, it produced the
Common
Threads: Stories from the Quilt (1989) which won an
Academy Award for
Best
Documentary ; the television series
Babes (1990–1991) and
Buffy the Vampire
Slayer (1997–2003); and the feature films
Father of the Bride
(1991),
Father of the Bride:
Part II (1995)
Straight Talk (1992) (in which
Parton also starred),
Sabrina (1995), among other
shows.
Other businesses
Briefly
from 1987, Parton owned Dockside Plantation, a restaurant in the
upscale neighborhood of Hawai i
Kai in Honolulu
, Hawaii
. She
also had a "signature line" of
wigs from
Revlon in the early 1990s. The best-selling
style, "Dolly's Own", is still sold by Revlon, albeit under a new
style name.
Philanthropic efforts
Since the mid-1980s Parton has supported many charitable efforts,
particularly in the area of literacy, primarily through her
Dollywood Foundation.
Dolly Parton's Imagination Library
Her literacy program, "Dolly Parton's Imagination Library", a part
of the Dollywood Foundation, mails one book per month to each
enrolled child from the time of their birth until they enter
kindergarten. It began in Sevier County but has now been replicated
in 566 counties across thirty-six U.S. states (as well as in
Canada).
In December 2007 it expanded to Europe with
the South
Yorkshire
town of
Rotherham
, United
Kingdom, being the first British locality to receive the
books.
The program distributes more than 2.5 million free books to
children annually.
In 2006 Parton published a
cookbook
Dolly's
Dixie Fixin's: Love, Laughter and Lots of Good Food. The
net profits support the Dollywood
Foundation.
Other philanthropy
Dollywood has also been noted for bringing jobs and tax revenues to
a previously depressed region.
She has also worked to raise money on behalf of several other
causes, including the
American Red
Cross and a number of
HIV/AIDS-related
charities.
In December 2006, Parton pledged $500,000 toward a proposed
$90-million
hospital and
cancer center to be constructed in Sevierville
in the name of Dr. Robert F. Thomas, the physician who delivered
her; she also announced plans for a benefit concert to raise
additional funds for the project. The concert went ahead playing to
about 8,000 people.
In May
2009, Dolly gave the Graduating Commencement Address at the
University
of Tennessee
. Her speech was about her life lessons, and
she encouraged the graduates to never stop dreaming.
Awards and honors
Parton is one of the most-honored female country performers of all
time. The Record Industry Association of America has certified 25
of her single or album releases as either Gold Record, Platinum
Record or Multi-Platinum Record. She has had 26 songs reach number
one on the Billboard country charts, a record for a female artist.
She has 42 career-top-10 country albums, a record for any artist,
and 110 career-charted singles over the past 40 years. All
inclusive sales of singles, albums, hits collections, paid digital
downloads and compilation usage during Parton's career have
reportedly topped 100 million records around the world.
She has received seven Grammy Awards and a total of 42 Grammy Award
nominations. At the
American Music
Awards she has won three awards, but has received 18
nominations. At the Country Music Association, she has received 10
awards and 42 nominations. At the
Academy of Country Music, she has
won seven awards and 39 nominations. She is one of only six female
artists (including
Reba McEntire,
Barbara Mandrell,
Shania Twain,
Loretta
Lynn, and
Taylor Swift), to win the
Country Music Association's highest honor, Entertainer of the Year
(1978). She has also been nominated for two
Academy Awards and a
Tony Award.
She was
awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
for Recording in 1984, located at 6712 Hollywood
Boulevard in Hollywood
, California; a star on the Nashville Star Walk for Grammy winners;
and a bronze sculpture on the courthouse lawn in
Sevierville. She has called that statue of herself in her
hometown "the greatest honor," because it came from the people who
knew her.
Parton was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry in 1969, and in 1986
was named one of
Ms.
Magazine's Women of the Year. In 1986, Parton was inducted
into the
Nashville
Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 1999, Parton received country
music's highest honor, an induction into the Country Music Hall of
Fame.
She
received an honorary doctorate
degree from Carson-Newman
College (Jefferson City
, Tennessee) in 1990. This was followed by
induction into the
National Academy of Popular
Music/
Songwriters Hall of
Fame in 2001. In 2002, Parton ranked number four in
CMT's 40 Greatest Women of Country
Music.
She was honored in 2003 with a tribute album called
Just
Because I'm a Woman: Songs of Dolly Parton. The artists who
recorded versions of Parton's songs included
Melissa Etheridge ("I Will Always Love
You"),
Alison Krauss ("9 to 5"), Twain
("Coat of Many Colors"),
Me'Shell
NdegéOcello ("Two Doors Down"),
Norah
Jones ("The Grass is Blue"), and
Sinéad O'Connor ("Dagger Through the
Heart"); Parton herself contributed a rerecording of the title
song, originally the title song for her first RCA album in 1968.
Parton was awarded the
Living Legend Medal by the
U.S.
Library of Congress
on April 14, 2004, for her contributions to the
cultural heritage of the United States.
This was followed in 2005 with the
National Medal of Arts, the highest
honor given by the U.S. government for excellence in the arts and
is presented by the
U.S. President.
On
December 3, 2006, Parton received the Kennedy Center Honors from the
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing
Arts
for her lifetime of contributions to the
arts. Other 2006 honorees included
Zubin Mehta,
Steven
Spielberg,
Smokey Robinson and
Andrew Lloyd Webber. During the
show, some of country music's biggest names came to show their
admiration.
Carrie Underwood
performed Parton's hit "Islands in the Stream" with Rogers,
Parton's original duet partner. Krauss performed "Jolene" and
duetted "Coat of Many Colors" with Twain. McEntire and
Reese Witherspoon also came to pay
tribute.
Philanthropy-related honors
In 2003, her efforts to preserve the
bald
eagle through the
American
Eagle Foundation's sanctuary at Dollywood earned her the
Partnership Award from the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service.
Parton
received the Woodrow Wilson Award
for Public Service from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for
Scholars
of the Smithsonian Institution
at a ceremony in Nashville on November 8,
2007.
For her work in literacy, Parton has received various awards
including:
On May 8,
2009, Parton gave the commencement
speech at the commencement ceremony
in Knoxville, Tennessee, for the University of Tennessee,
Knoxville's College of Arts and Sciences. During the
ceremony she received an
honorary
degree, a
doctorate of
humane and musical letters, from the university. It was only
the second honorary degree to be given by the university and in
presenting the degree, the university's
chancellor, Jimmy G. Cheek, said,
"Because of her career not just as a musician and entertainer, but
for her role as a cultural ambassador, philanthropist and lifelong
advocate for education, it is fitting that she be honored with an
honorary degree from the flagship educational institution of her
home state."
Image
Parton has turned down several offers to pose for
Playboy magazine's similar publications,
although she did appear on the cover of
Playboy's October
1978 issue wearing a
Playboy bunny
outfit, complete with ears.
Breast-obsessed filmmaker
Russ Meyer wanted to make movies about her 40DD
breasts. The association of breasts with Parton's public image is
illustrated in the naming of
Dolly the
sheep after her, since the sheep was cloned from a cell taken
from an adult ewe's mammary gland. She admitted to having plastic
surgery.On a 2003 broadcast of
The Oprah Winfrey Show, Winfrey
asked what kind of
cosmetic surgery
Parton had undergone. Parton stated that she felt that cosmetic
surgery was imperative in keeping with her famous image, but
jokingly admitted, "If I have one more
facelift, I'll have a beard!" Parton has repeatedly
joked about her physical image and surgeries, saying, "If I see
something sagging, bagging, and dragging, I’m going to nip it, tuck
it, and suck it. Why should I look like an old barn yard dog if I
don't have to?" and "It takes a lot of money to look this cheap."
Her size 40DD breasts also garnered mention of her in several songs
in the 1980s and 1990s, including "Dolly Parton's Hits" by
Bobby Braddock, "
Talk Like
Sex" by
Kool G Rap and
DJ Polo, "Dolly Parton's Tits" by
MacLean & MacLean, and
Crazy Rap by
Afroman.
Press agent
Lee Solters represented
Parton and has remarked that he knew her "since she was
flat-chested".
Discography
Solo studio albums:
Filmography
See also
References
Bibliography
Further reading
External links
- dollypartonmusic.net, (official music website)
- dollyparton.com, (official website - not fully
launched at September 4, 2009 and requires Adobe Flash)
- dollyon-line.com (unofficial fansite)
- "Dolly Parton", inductee page at countrymusichalloffame.com Country
Music Hall of Fame and Museum
's official website
- "Dolly Parton" biography at legacyrecordings.com, Legacy Recordings's official website
- "Dolly Parton – Interview", posted November 18,
2008, at countrymusicpride.com
- "A Conversation with Singer and Actress Dolly
Parton", a June 5, 2009, video interview (requires Adobe Flash) from the Charlie Rose (talk show),
a PBS television program, at charlierose.com, Rose's official website
- Dolly Parton video interview from the talk show
'Parkinson' at BBC
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