Dolly Parton
(CONTINUED FROM PAGE 67)
Run True and Deep
The irony of Dolly Parton is that, despite all the reinventions—the plastic
surgery, the late-’70s foray into pop
music, the entrepreneurial projects—
she has never really changed. She still
maintains a look and sound connected
to her early Nashville days. And her
personality is pure backwoods girl.
“The secret about Dolly is that the
artifice has only to do with the outward
appearance,” says Patricia Resnick, who
cowrote the screenplay for Nine to Five
and wrote the book for the new musical.
“Her greatest strength is how real and
accessible she remains, even after so
many years of being insanely famous.”
Recently Resnick and Parton joined
Robert Greenblatt, producer of the mu-
sical version of Nine to Five, for lunch at
his home. After Parton finished eating,
she took her plate to the kitchen sink
and rinsed it. Resnick commented that
most superstars wouldn’t bus their own
dishes, to which Parton replied, “Well,
then, they don’t deserve to eat!”
Parton says she has no interest in
following fashion trends. “When I fix
up,” she says, “I look good to me. I don’t
try to be something else.” Still, people
connect with her. “I always feel like I’m
going to a family reunion when I go out
there with my audience,” says Parton.
“I often say they don’t come to see me
be me, they come to see me be them.”
Says Fonda: “Dolly has got such self-
humor that she can do and say things
no one else could get away with. She’s
totally honest about her roots, and it
makes you love her. She is clearly real in
all that matters—her heart and soul.”
Don’t Just Hoard All That Money
Parton’s philanthropic drive is intertwined with her desire to help her people, as she calls them—her siblings and
nieces and nephews and cousins and
friends from back home. “Her notion of
giving back has always been ‘When you
make it, you help your family and your
hometown,’” Dotson says.
When Dollywood opened in 1986
