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There’s been a lot of talk about approval ratings lately, so let’s pour one out, or a few billion, for Dolly Parton, the only superstar in the history of entertainment to rise to a 100% public approval rating for even
a moment, let alone 60 years. It doesn’t matter that no empirical surveys were regularly taken; intuitively, we know that virtually every American on any side of any musical or cultural equation would unabashedly own up to Dolly love. Charlie Chaplin, Elvis, the Beatles, Tom Cruise, Taylor Swift and all the rest can eat their relatively polarizing hearts out when it comes to the universality of adoration for the woman who began her career singing as inconsequential a novelty song as “Dumb Blonde.”
Being the most towering figure — at 5 foot 0! — in the history of country music was the tip of the iceberg. Beyond the songwriting that alone would have gotten her into multiple halls of fame, beyond the fleeting but still highly stream-worthy movie career, there were the enduring elements of persona and philanthropy. Like a messianic bombshell from right out of the backwoods, she was everyone’s favorite poet laureate who happened to have a new frozen-food product line in supermarkets in 2026; a favorite Johnny Carson guest for the boob-joke possibilities and the popular symbol for literacy advocacy; the closest thing we had or will ever have to a flirty Jesus.
I remember Dolly being playful with me the instant I met her. She was doing press for the 1987 “Trio” album that was about to come out in collaboration with Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris, and each of the three was being herded into different rooms with a different journalist. “You’ve going to leave me alone in a room with this handsome man?” she kidded, a line she must’ve used on a hundred other reporters. But of course she was untouchable, even in theory, with the whole world knowing of the nearly mythical union with Carl Dean, which allowed her to be wholesome and sexy in equal measure. But the other thing that sticks with me from that day speaks to her cred. I’d just written a review of “Trio” that said this return to traditional country was the sort of stuff she should have been doing for years, not the pop fluff. She had read the review, to my embarrassment, and she called me out on it — in her completely unthreatening yet firm way — and offered a great speech on why her pure showbiz side was as important and valid to her as honoring her east Tennessee roots. The other day, her great crossover smash “Here You Come Again” came on the radio, and I thought about how right Dolly was to very gently scold me; she belonged to the world, not traditionalist gatekeepers. And how much richer was the planet for everyone getting to share her?
There was the Dolly who had a short reign as a Hollywood leading lady; imagine all the “Rhinestone”/”Best Little Whorehouse”/”9 to 5” marathons about to take place in redneck and LGBTQ+ havens everywhere. But we never would have gotten there without Dolly the authentic songwriter, the one who made us feel the poverty in “Coat of Many Colors” before she could afford the glitzier side of Calvin Klein. She enjoyed playing with and embodying all these dualities.
“I’ve also always thought that a certain bit of what magic I may have in the minds of people was that I look completely artificial,” she told me in a later interview. ”People ask me, ‘Are you the real Dolly Parton?’ I say, ‘There’s no such thing as a real Dolly Parton!’ But even though I look phony, my heart ain’t.” Talking about giving less priority to her acting career, she said, “How do you do a character when you are a character? I could tear down all the garb, but I’m most comfortable being me … the big phony.”
So here’s to the self-aware, self-knocking realness of Dolly Parton, who talked about herself like a character actress yet, for more than 60 years, was the world’s most beloved IRL leading lady.
