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The Indelible Dolly Parton

By Jesse Monteagudo
Photos: Dolly.net

Of all musical genres, country music is the one that's most willing to accommodate female stars. The greatest of them are the stuff that country dreams are made of: Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Dottie West, Tammy Wynette and Reba McEntire.

Though a case could be made for any of these ladies, in my opinion Dolly Parton is the greatest of them all. "Dolly Parton is the most famous, most universally beloved, and most widely respected woman who has ever emerged from country music, a role model not only for other singers and songwriters, but for working women everywhere," wrote Mary A. Bufwack and Robert K. Oermann in Finding Her Voice, the definitive study of women in country music.

"Hers is a true Horatio Alger, up-by-your-bootstraps success story--Daisy Mae Yokum of Dogpatch who turned into Mae West of Hollywood, a mountain butterfly who soared with eagles."

Like country music itself, Dolly Parton's career is torn between her down-home roots and her mainstream aspirations, between Daisy Mae Yokum and Mae West. Bufwack and Oermann described her public image as "possum-stew-and-Dom-Perignon", while Parton herself called it "burlap and satin".

Her famous looks, which influenced her career as much as her music did, was a deliberate ploy to win attention from a general public that still thinks of country singers as illiterate hillbillies. Dolly wants to be heard, and if it takes a big blond wig and big tits to do it so be it:

"It costs a lot to make a person look this cheap," she admits. Parton's Southern floozy look also satisfies a deep-seated need to be wildly extravagant, born perhaps of the singer's childhood poverty: "If I were a man I would have been a drag queen," she adds.

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Still, there's more to Dolly Parton than meets the eye. "Parton's appeal came through a fortuitous combination of physical attractiveness, singing talent, and a genius for song composition," wrote Bill C. Malone in his classic Country Music U.S.A.

Her distinctive, "clear as a bell" soprano, which takes us back beyond Hank Williams's nasal twang to the original Carter Family, combines with a unique gift for writing songs to make Parton a musical force to be reckoned with. And while Dolly's "caricature busty blonde" looks are definitely pre-feminist, she rightly became a role model for women during the early days of the modern women's movement.

"In contrast to the often tragic and always exhausting lives of so many female country singers, Dolly Parton somehow always retained an impression of being mistress of her own destiny, adapting, but never compromising, her style and material to suit the demands made of her," wrote Charlie Gillett in The Sound of the City.

Cline, Lynn and Wynette all had to endure drunk, abusive and unfaithful husbands. Parton's husband, on the other hand, is Carl Dean, who stays in the background and lets his wife lead her own life.

No matter how far away she's gotten, Dolly Rebecca Parton always returns to her "Tennessee mountain home". She was born on January 19, 1946, in a proverbial log cabin near Sevierville, the fourth of twelve children. While still a child, Dolly began singing in churches and local theaters and (in 1959) on Knoxville radio.

In 1964 she graduated from high school--the first in her family to do so--and moved to Nashville. By 1966 she had married Carl Dean, signed with Monument Records, and had her first hit (the ironically-titled "Dumb Blonde").

She also caught the eye of established country singer Porter Wagoner, who hired Dolly to replace Norma Jean as the "girl singer" on his syndicated TV show. As part of her partnership with Wagoner, Parton signed with his record label, RCA, in 1967. In 1969 she joined the Grand Ole Opry.

dolly1.jpg - 20.29 K The years of the Wagoner-Parton partnership, which she insists was platonic but which he claims had a sexual dimension, were also her most productive. In addition to a string of duets with Porter, Dolly ruled the country charts with a series of songs she wrote that pushed the boundaries of country music: "Just Because I'm a Woman" (1967), "Joshua" (1971), "Coat of Many Colors" (1972), "Jolene" (1973) and, most famously, "I Will Always Love You" (1974).

By 1977, Parton was ready to take off. She dropped Wagoner like a hot potato, hired the openly-gay Sandy Gallin as her personal manager, and "went Hollywood" with the pop tune "Here You Come Again".

Though Parton protested that "I am not leaving country music. All I want is a chance to do everything I want to do in life," her down-home country fans would not forgive her. Never again would Parton dominate the country charts the way she did during the first half of the 1970's.

The 1980's were a mixed bag for Parton. She had two number one pop hits: "9 to 5" in 1981 and "Islands in the Stream" (a duet with Kenny Rogers) in 1983. Intent on becoming a movie star, she starred in 1980's 9 to 5 and in 1982's The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.

Though the tabloids hinted at a romance with co-star Burt Reynolds, Parton protested that the only things the two had in common were the fact that "we both wear wigs, high heels, and have a roll around the middle."

In 1986 Dolly left RCA for Columbia Records and opened "Dollywood", a theme park near her "Tennessee mountain home." Unfortunately, Dolly's post-"Whorehouse" films and albums were critical and commercial disappointments and her 1987 TV series "Dolly" was canceled after only 13 weeks.

Even worse, tabloid stories about illicit romances and breast augmentation(!!!) joined real-life weight loss, gynecological and depression problems to sidetrack Parton's career just as a new generation of country singers emerged to take her place. On the other hand, Parton ended this decade with a well-acclaimed part in Steel Magnolias, this generation's answer to The Women.

In spite of her blowzy public persona, Parton is reticent about her private life. Her autobiography, the entertaining Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business (1994) hides as much as it reveals about its author.

Though Dolly is still married to the reclusive Carl Dean, the two lived apart for most of their union, and they have no children. When Parton moved to Hollywood in 1977 she left Dean in Tennessee and took with her Judy Ogle, her lifelong "best friend."

By all indications the two women are very close-- they even sleep together, according to Dolly's memoirs. On the other hand, Parton hotly denies having a lesbian relationship with Ogle, and publicly proclaims a personal preference for men in general and Dean in particular. It must be said that Dolly is a long-time supporter of lesbian and gay rights, and has many gay friends and countless gay fans.

"Once upon a time and far, far away, back in the hollers at the foothills of the great Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee there lived a little girl with yellow hair, blue-green eyes, fair skin, and freckles. She loved to read almost as much as she loved to dream. She read everything she could get her hands on, the Bible, The Farmer's Almanac, the funeral home directory, the directions and descriptions on the garden and flower seed packets, all medicine bottles, catalogues, any and all kinds of mail, school books . . . but mostly she loved fairy tales. So I grew up to be a fairy princess of a sort, more of a Cinderella story, the rags to riches kind."

Though she no longer rules the country charts, Dolly Parton has retained the public's love and respect. In 1999 Parton was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame and pleased fans and critics alike with The Grass Is Blue, her first bluegrass album. Whatever her ups and downs, Parton's career is not over yet.

Jesse Monteagudo, Florida's foremost GLBT scholar, is featured in James T. Sears' forthcoming history of the gay South: Rebels, Rubyfruit and Rhinestones to be published in May by Rutger's University Press.




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