When her musical 9 to 5 opened at the Savoy Theatre earlier this year, Dolly Parton stayed at the Savoy hotel itself. Very convenient, you might think: the walk between the two takes about ten seconds. But to ensure she arrived at the far end of the red carpet like everyone else, Dolly had to be collected from the back entrance of the hotel, and driven in a black SUV around to the front. Such are the lunacies of stardom.
We learned about this in Dolly Parton’s America, a nine-episode podcast from WNYC radio. ‘In this intensely divided moment,’ they claim, ‘one of the few things everyone still seems to agree on is Dolly Parton — but why?’ A clue came in the episode focusing on the star’s approach to politics. (This was subtitled ‘Dollitics’. Parton’s first name is made for puns. See also her theme park in Tennessee, ‘Dollywood’.) ‘You’re going to ask me whatever you ask me,’ Parton told presenter Jad Abumrad, ‘and I’m going to tell you whatever I want you to hear.’ She freely admits that political stances just aren’t her thing. Despite the #MeToo generation forming a new fan base for 9 to 5, with its plot of downtrodden female employees taking revenge on a seedy boss, Dolly refuses to get drawn into making critical statements about, for instance, Donald Trump.
Here she differs from Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, her co-stars in the 1980 movie version. When the trio appeared at the 2017 Emmys, Fonda and Tomlin, in a clear reference to the US President, reprised the film’s line about refusing to be controlled by a ‘sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot’. Standing between them, Parton took a fraction of a step back, no doubt thankful that decades of ‘work’ have left her face incapable of betraying her thoughts.
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