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. Dolly Parton has appeared in movies like 9 to 5, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, and Steel Magnolias. She is one of the most successful female country artists of all time and is known as "The Queen of Country Music."
Dolly Parton was born in Sevierville, Tennessee, the fourth of twelve children born to Robert Lee Parton (March 22, 1921 – November 12, 2000) and Avie Lee Parton (née Owens; October 5, 1923 – December 5, 2003). Robert and Avie's children include:
Willadeene Parton (b. March 24, 1940)
David Wilburn Parton (b. March 30, 1942)
Coy Denver Parton (b. August 16, 1943), who named his first daughter Dolly Christina Parton
Dolly
Robert Lee "Bobby" Parton Jr. (b. February 18, 1948)
Stella Mae Parton, (a singer, b. May 4, 1949)
Cassie Nan Parton (a singer, b. February 12, 1951)
Randel Huston "Randy" Parton (a singer and businessman, b. December 15, 1953)
Larry Gerald Parton (b. July 6, 1955, d. July 6, 1955)
Floyd Parton (a singer-songwriter) and Freida Estelle Parton (a singer) – twins (b. June 1, 1957)
Rachel Ann Parton (an actress, b. August 31, 1959)
Her family was, as she described them, "dirt poor". She described her family's shortness of money in a number of her early songs, notably "Coat of Many Colors" and "In the Good Old Days (When Times Were Bad)". They lived in a rustic, dilapidated one-room cabin in Locust Ridge, Tennessee, a hamlet just north of the Greenbrier Valley in the Locust Ridge area of the Great Smoky Mountains in Sevier County, a predominantly Pentecostal 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 Eastern 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 (the single "Puppy Love") 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 let 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: "Y'all 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.
Parton is also the godmother of actress and singer Miley Cyrus.
The couple are also the sole guardian of a family friend's son whose parents died within two years of each other, though in keeping with the very private nature of the family, not much is known of him.
On May 30, 2011, they celebrated their 45th anniversary. Later, she said, "We're really proud of our marriage. It's the first for both of us. And the last."
Parton in Honolulu, Hawaii, 1983.
"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, in February 1981, reached 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. Other chart hits during this period included Parton's chart-topping cover of the 1969 First Edition hit "But You Know I Love You" and "The House of the Rising Sun" (both 1981), "Single Women", "Heartbreak Express" and "Hard Candy Christmas" (1982) and 1983's "Potential New Boyfriend", which was accompanied by one of Parton's first music videos, and which also reached the U.S. dance charts.
She also continued to explore new business and entertainment ventures such as her Dollywood theme park, that opened in 1986 in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.
By the mid-1980s, her record sales were still relatively strong, with "Save the Last Dance for Me", "Downtown", "Tennessee Homesick Blues" (all 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 Columbia Records in 1987
1987–94: 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 somewhat stagnant 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.
After a further attempt at pop success with 1987's Rainbow, Parton refocused on recording country material. 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 Whitney 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 as Gold Album by the Recording Industry Association of America and helped revive both Wynette's and Lynn's careers.
Also in 1994, Parton contributed the song "You Gotta Be My Baby" to the AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Country produced by the Red Hot Organization.
1995–present
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 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 theme of uncritical acceptance of a transgender woman, 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. It was followed by the studio album, "Backwoods Barbie", which was released February 26, 2008, and reached number two on the country charts. The album's debut at number seventeen on the all-genre Billboard 200 albums chart has been the highest in her career. Backwoods Barbie produced four additional singles, including the title track, which 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.
On October 27, 2009, Parton released a 4-CD box set entitled "Dolly" which features 99 songs and spans most of her career. She is now 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 O2 Arena. She is also currently working on a dance-oriented album, "Dance with Dolly", which she hopes to release in 2010.
Longtime friend Billy Ray Cyrus, singer of Brother Clyde, released their self-titled debut album on August 10, 2010. Parton is featured on "The Right Time", which she co-wrote with Cyrus and Morris Joseph Tancredi.
She stated in 2010 that she would like to start recording a country-dance album in November, and that it should be set for release in 2011. On January 6, 2011, Dolly announced her new album would be titled, Better Day. In February 2011, Dolly announced that she would embark on the Better Day World Tour on July 17, 2011, with shows in northern Europe and the United States. The album's lead-off single, "Together You and I," was released on May 26, 2011, and Better Day was released on June 28, 2011.
In 2011 Dolly voiced the character Dolly Gnome in the British-made animated film Gnomeo and Juliet.
In concert and on tour
Parton toured extensively from the late 1960s until the early 1990s. In the 60's and 70's, Parton toured alongside other country musicians including Porter Wagoner, George Jones and Linda Ronstadt. Parton toured as a headline act in 1977 and 1978 for promote her albums, Here You Come Again and Heartbreaker. From 1984 to 1985, she toured alongside Kenny Rogers for the "Real Love Tour". She continued touring in 1986 with the "Thinkin' About Love Tour" and in 1989 for the "White Limozeen Tour". Her only tour in the 1990s was the "Eagle When She Files Tour" which was performed in 1991 and 1992. 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[clarification needed] 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).
An Evening with Dolly Parton
Parton scheduled mini concerts in late 2006 throughout the U.S. and Canada as a gear-up to her 17-city, 21-date An Evening with Dolly Parton. 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 tour sold out in every European city and gained positive reviews. It grossed just over $16 million. The most-noted feature of the shows, despite Parton being 60, was that most in attendance had never seen her in concert before. This, coupled with Parton's European popularity, led to a rapturous reception whenever she took to 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.
Better Day World Tour
In 2011, Dolly plans to embark on the Better Day World Tour visiting northern Europe, the United States and Australia (for the first time in almost 30 years).
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 leading role with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin in 9 to 5 (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), co-starring Burt Reynolds and Dom DeLuise. earned her a second Golden Globe nomination for Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy.
In 1984, she was teamed with Sylvester Stallone, for the comedy-film, Rhinestone. The film was released with high-hopes; but, upon release was critically panned, and is noted for being a box-office failure.
In 1989, Parton would regain her success with the "chick-flick" film Steel Magnolias. The film co-starred, Sally Field, Shirley MacLaine, and newcomer Julia Roberts.
In 1991, Straight Talk, co-starred Parton with James Woods, released by Hollywood Pictures. Released in April-1992, the film was critically panned, and met with little success at the box-office.
Parton then tried to launch a TV series entitled The Dolly Show, but the project never bore fruit.
In 1993 Parton played made a cameo appearance as herself in The Beverly Hillbillies (an adaptation of the long-running television situation comedy of the same name).
In 2002 Parton appeared as an overprotective mother in Frank McKlusky, C.I. with Dave Sheridan, Cameron Richardson and Randy Quaid.
In 2005 Parton again played herself in a cameo appearance in Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous (the sequel to Sandra Bullock's earlier Miss Congeniality (2000)).
In 2008 Parton was featured in The Book Lady a documentary about her campaign for children’s literacy. She was expecting to repeat her television role as Hannah's godmother in Hannah Montana: The Movie but the character was omitted from the final screenplay.
In 2011 Dolly was in the movie Gnomeo and Juliet, a film about Shakespeare's story of Romeo and Juliet about gnomes.
Parton co-stars with Queen Latifah in Joyful Noise, a gospel-choir feature film from Alcon Entertainment, which finished filming in April 2011. In Joyful Noise, Parton will plays choir director's widow who joins forces with Queen Latifah's mother of two teens to save the Pacashau gospel choir after the death of her husband.
Businesses
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. Starting in June 2011, the Myrtle beach location became Pirates Voyage Fun, Feast & Adventure; Parton appeared for the opening, and the South Carolina General Assembly declared June 3, 2011 Dolly Parton Day.
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 (Feature); 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. In a 2009 interview singer Connie Francis revealed that Dolly had been contacting her for years in an attempt to film the singer's life story. Francis turned down Parton's offers as she was already in negotiations with singer Gloria Estefan to produce the film, a collaboration which has now ended.
[edit]Other businesses
Briefly from 1987, Parton owned Dockside Plantation, a restaurant in the upscale neighborhood of Hawaiʻi 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 36 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.
Dolly Parton was born in Sevierville, Tennessee, the fourth of twelve children born to Robert Lee Parton (March 22, 1921 – November 12, 2000) and Avie Lee Parton (née Owens; October 5, 1923 – December 5, 2003). Robert and Avie's children include:
Willadeene Parton (b. March 24, 1940)
David Wilburn Parton (b. March 30, 1942)
Coy Denver Parton (b. August 16, 1943), who named his first daughter Dolly Christina Parton
Dolly
Stella Mae Parton, (a singer, b. May 4, 1949)
Cassie Nan Parton (a singer, b. February 12, 1951)
Randel Huston "Randy" Parton (a singer and businessman, b. December 15, 1953)
Larry Gerald Parton (b. July 6, 1955, d. July 6, 1955)
Floyd Parton (a singer-songwriter) and Freida Estelle Parton (a singer) – twins (b. June 1, 1957)
Rachel Ann Parton (an actress, b. August 31, 1959)
Her family was, as she described them, "dirt poor". She described her family's shortness of money in a number of her early songs, notably "Coat of Many Colors" and "In the Good Old Days (When Times Were Bad)". They lived in a rustic, dilapidated one-room cabin in Locust Ridge, Tennessee, a hamlet just north of the Greenbrier Valley in the Locust Ridge area of the Great Smoky Mountains in Sevier County, a predominantly Pentecostal 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 Eastern 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 (the single "Puppy Love") 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 let 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: "Y'all 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.
Parton is also the godmother of actress and singer Miley Cyrus.
The couple are also the sole guardian of a family friend's son whose parents died within two years of each other, though in keeping with the very private nature of the family, not much is known of him.
On May 30, 2011, they celebrated their 45th anniversary. Later, she said, "We're really proud of our marriage. It's the first for both of us. And the last."
"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, in February 1981, reached 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. Other chart hits during this period included Parton's chart-topping cover of the 1969 First Edition hit "But You Know I Love You" and "The House of the Rising Sun" (both 1981), "Single Women", "Heartbreak Express" and "Hard Candy Christmas" (1982) and 1983's "Potential New Boyfriend", which was accompanied by one of Parton's first music videos, and which also reached the U.S. dance charts.
She also continued to explore new business and entertainment ventures such as her Dollywood theme park, that opened in 1986 in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.
By the mid-1980s, her record sales were still relatively strong, with "Save the Last Dance for Me", "Downtown", "Tennessee Homesick Blues" (all 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 Columbia Records in 1987
Along with Harris and Ronstadt, she released the decade-in-the-making Trio (1987) to critical acclaim. The album strongly revitalized Parton's somewhat stagnant 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.
After a further attempt at pop success with 1987's Rainbow, Parton refocused on recording country material. 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 Whitney 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 as Gold Album by the Recording Industry Association of America and helped revive both Wynette's and Lynn's careers.
Also in 1994, Parton contributed the song "You Gotta Be My Baby" to the AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Country produced by the Red Hot Organization.
1995–present
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 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 theme of uncritical acceptance of a transgender woman, 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. It was followed by the studio album, "Backwoods Barbie", which was released February 26, 2008, and reached number two on the country charts. The album's debut at number seventeen on the all-genre Billboard 200 albums chart has been the highest in her career. Backwoods Barbie produced four additional singles, including the title track, which 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.
On October 27, 2009, Parton released a 4-CD box set entitled "Dolly" which features 99 songs and spans most of her career. She is now 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 O2 Arena. She is also currently working on a dance-oriented album, "Dance with Dolly", which she hopes to release in 2010.
Longtime friend Billy Ray Cyrus, singer of Brother Clyde, released their self-titled debut album on August 10, 2010. Parton is featured on "The Right Time", which she co-wrote with Cyrus and Morris Joseph Tancredi.
She stated in 2010 that she would like to start recording a country-dance album in November, and that it should be set for release in 2011. On January 6, 2011, Dolly announced her new album would be titled, Better Day. In February 2011, Dolly announced that she would embark on the Better Day World Tour on July 17, 2011, with shows in northern Europe and the United States. The album's lead-off single, "Together You and I," was released on May 26, 2011, and Better Day was released on June 28, 2011.
In 2011 Dolly voiced the character Dolly Gnome in the British-made animated film Gnomeo and Juliet.
In concert and on tour
Parton toured extensively from the late 1960s until the early 1990s. In the 60's and 70's, Parton toured alongside other country musicians including Porter Wagoner, George Jones and Linda Ronstadt. Parton toured as a headline act in 1977 and 1978 for promote her albums, Here You Come Again and Heartbreaker. From 1984 to 1985, she toured alongside Kenny Rogers for the "Real Love Tour". She continued touring in 1986 with the "Thinkin' About Love Tour" and in 1989 for the "White Limozeen Tour". Her only tour in the 1990s was the "Eagle When She Files Tour" which was performed in 1991 and 1992. In 2002 she returned to the concert stage; she later went on the Backwoods Barbie Tour in 2008 promoting Backwoods Barbie.
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[clarification needed] 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).
An Evening with Dolly Parton
Parton scheduled mini concerts in late 2006 throughout the U.S. and Canada as a gear-up to her 17-city, 21-date An Evening with Dolly Parton. 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 tour sold out in every European city and gained positive reviews. It grossed just over $16 million. The most-noted feature of the shows, despite Parton being 60, was that most in attendance had never seen her in concert before. This, coupled with Parton's European popularity, led to a rapturous reception whenever she took to 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.
Better Day World Tour
In 2011, Dolly plans to embark on the Better Day World Tour visiting northern Europe, the United States and Australia (for the first time in almost 30 years).
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.)
In her first feature film she portrayed a secretary in a leading role with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin in 9 to 5 (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), co-starring Burt Reynolds and Dom DeLuise. earned her a second Golden Globe nomination for Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy.
In 1984, she was teamed with Sylvester Stallone, for the comedy-film, Rhinestone. The film was released with high-hopes; but, upon release was critically panned, and is noted for being a box-office failure.
In 1989, Parton would regain her success with the "chick-flick" film Steel Magnolias. The film co-starred, Sally Field, Shirley MacLaine, and newcomer Julia Roberts.
In 1991, Straight Talk, co-starred Parton with James Woods, released by Hollywood Pictures. Released in April-1992, the film was critically panned, and met with little success at the box-office.
Parton then tried to launch a TV series entitled The Dolly Show, but the project never bore fruit.
In 1993 Parton played made a cameo appearance as herself in The Beverly Hillbillies (an adaptation of the long-running television situation comedy of the same name).
In 2002 Parton appeared as an overprotective mother in Frank McKlusky, C.I. with Dave Sheridan, Cameron Richardson and Randy Quaid.
In 2005 Parton again played herself in a cameo appearance in Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous (the sequel to Sandra Bullock's earlier Miss Congeniality (2000)).
In 2008 Parton was featured in The Book Lady a documentary about her campaign for children’s literacy. She was expecting to repeat her television role as Hannah's godmother in Hannah Montana: The Movie but the character was omitted from the final screenplay.
In 2011 Dolly was in the movie Gnomeo and Juliet, a film about Shakespeare's story of Romeo and Juliet about gnomes.
Parton co-stars with Queen Latifah in Joyful Noise, a gospel-choir feature film from Alcon Entertainment, which finished filming in April 2011. In Joyful Noise, Parton will plays choir director's widow who joins forces with Queen Latifah's mother of two teens to save the Pacashau gospel choir after the death of her husband.
Businesses
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. Starting in June 2011, the Myrtle beach location became Pirates Voyage Fun, Feast & Adventure; Parton appeared for the opening, and the South Carolina General Assembly declared June 3, 2011 Dolly Parton Day.
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 (Feature); 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. In a 2009 interview singer Connie Francis revealed that Dolly had been contacting her for years in an attempt to film the singer's life story. Francis turned down Parton's offers as she was already in negotiations with singer Gloria Estefan to produce the film, a collaboration which has now ended.
[edit]Other businesses
Briefly from 1987, Parton owned Dockside Plantation, a restaurant in the upscale neighborhood of Hawaiʻi 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
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.
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