Dolly PARTON

From being crowned the Queen of Country to conquering Hollywood and funding a coronavirus vaccine, Dolly Parton is finally getting the respect she’s always deserved. Alley Pascoe pays homage to the rhinestone-bedazzled icon on her 75th birthday

- Alley Pascoe

Wearing five-inch heels, a plunging neckline and her trademark platinum-blonde wig, Dolly Parton raises her perfectly manicured eyebrows. It’s 1986, and she’s sitting in a quiet corner of her namesake theme park, Dollywood, in Tennessee, across from Australian 60 Minutes journalist Mike Munro. A crowd of adoring fans is waiting outside for a glimpse of the five-foot-nothing star, who spontaneously rides through the grounds on the back of a tractor, waving her cupped hand like the Queen. Towards the end of the interview, Munro brings up her “bust measurements” and Parton politely deflects the question. When Munro straight out asks her breast size, she lets out a shrill laugh and deadpans, “Up yours, Buster.”

Parton has heard all the jokes before. (“What’s worse than a giraffe with a sore throat? Dolly Parton with a chest cold.”) In fact, some of the best jokes she made up herself. Presenting the 2017 Emmy award for best supporting actor, she pointed to her chest and quipped, “Well, I know all about support.” It’s the kind of quick wit, self-deprecation and unapologetic humour that fans have come to expect from the country star. Her first hit single, called “Dumb Blonde”, ended on the formidable line: “Just because I’m blonde/Don’t think I’m dumb/Cause this dumb blonde ain’t nobody’s fool.”