Excerpt from Playgirl, July 2007.
Dolly Parton’s lifelong contribution to country music made her the most prolific, admired, and well-known female country performer ever. Proof are 25 gold, platinum, and multi-platinum honors; 26 No. 1 songs; more than 40 top-10 albums; seven Grammys, and three American Music Awards trophies.
Her newest album, “Backwoods Barbie,” is due out this month; she recently completed a European tour and slew of benefit concerts, and she’s working on the Broadway version of 9 to 5. In the midst of this, Dolly makes time for humanitarian projects like Imagination Library, which gives children a book a month until kindergarten.
Dolly embodies the life of a true Playgirl: She’s confident, curious, intelligent, compassionate, and sexual.
PLAYGIRL: You granted interviews with Playgirl in 1978 and again in 1981, when you said you planned your life preparing for success. Did you expect to be such an icon for country music and women?
You never know when you’re planning and dreamin’; you just hope you’re gonna be as big as you imagine. I knew I was gonna be a big star. I didn’t know how, but I did believe I would be successful. Things have been wonderful…[For me] it’s like wow, I’m glad I was good. I’m glad I left something good behind…knowing what I did affected people makes me happy.
Are there songs you associate with certain times in your life?
I remember every song, what was goin’ on in my life. Certainly all the key songs, you know why you wrote them and what you were feelin’. I remember writing “Coat of Many Colors”—I was on the tour bus and snatched a tag off some dry cleaning and wrote on that. And “I Will Always Love You,” I remember bein’ in mine and my husband’s first home, in the den we had converted from the garage, and I remember siftin’ on the couch; and I also wrote “Jolene” that night—it was a good songwritin’ night, I guess.
How do you feel about TV shows that discover talent, versus artists paving their own way, as you did?
Any way you get a helping hand is great… [but] it’s a little harder for the others, because they think they have to beat everyone on “American Idol.” I get asked to go on those shows to be a judge, but I can’t— I know even if they’re bad, how sincere they are…I would encourage them even if they sucked…I’d baby the person.
What advice would you give women coming into their sexuality?
Know how to love and accept yourself, don’t pattern yourself after anyone …That’s how you and God made you. I don’t think he minds if you kind of help him out [laughs]. But if you try to fake it, you’ll have a damn nervous breakdown. Be comfortable in your skin, in your sexuality, in your spirituality. I’ve always loved bein’ a woman… I always say if I was born a man, I would’ve ended up a drag queen. I was strong in my faith, about who I am and what I had to offer, and thought, “I don’t have to take a backseat to anybody.”
What’s the best advice you’ve been given about men?
If I’d gotten any advice, I would’ve laughed at it. I grew up one of 12 siblings; I was surrounded by men. Every man I see, I see a man in my family. If he says something, I’ll say, “Don’t shit me, I know who you are.” I think like a man, but I look like a woman.
How did you learn about sex?
If we went to [my mother] about something, she would just say it out… She would make like it was the most ordinary thing in the world… [When I was little] I wanted my boobs to be, like, pushed up; I would go to Mama and say “Mama, can you sew this, so it pulls like right here?” I’d take shoulder pads from my grandma’s coat and put them in my bra and say, “Mama, how does this look?” And she’d say, “You better not let your daddy see…” She’d give me advice too, like if you wanna push your boobs —kitties, she called ’em— “If you wanna push your kitties up you don’t need somethin’ so low.” She’d always say, “That’s a little much.”
Your look is based on the “town tramp.” You defined this as sexy; what is “sexy” to you now?
I’ve often been misunderstood. The fact she was a tramp don’t mean nothing to me. I still feel the same way; I’ll still be dressin’ like a whore when I’m 100 if I live that long.
How do you balance being a sex symbol with being strong and independent?
I was never pressured to be fashionable …I’m more of a cartoon character. Many men don’t find me sexy—maybe some truckers… I’m a little overdone or cheap-looking for many men. It’s not a balancing act to me; I just know who I am. I put on the same makeup in the morning as I do at night…
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