COMMENTARY
As the world remembers Dolly Parton’s influence on everything from pop culture to the people she helped through her charities, parts of her life may forever remain an enigma.
We in the entertainment media who love peeling back the ultra-private layers of celebrity in search of viral gossip, knew that she was — ahem — a steel magnolia. Her brand was bulletproof.
Interviewing Dolly Parton was on par with talking to a beloved Sesame Street character. Of course we would take the call! But we also knew what role we were playing. The pleasure was always ours.
Years ago, while profiling her for a book of famous Tennesseans, I was struck by a less-heralded part of her awe-inspiring resume, a side of her personality she rarely bragged about. The story of Dolly Parton, secret CEO.
While her talent brought her fame and fortune, her business acumen multiplied it. She was the Appalachian Walt Disney. Like "Uncle Walt," Aunt Dolly created a lovable, animated character (herself!) and used it to build an empire. They also shared a signature vision. Her spirit lives on in every aspect of her undertakings, from the designs of her hotels to the storyboarding of roller coasters at Dollywood.
One filmmaker told me that as an executive producer she was both a dream collaborator— insisting on a respectful and efficient work environment—and a decisive leader. By the time of the first production meeting, she was already halfway to the finished product. She didn't just put her name on things. She owned them.
Any Forbes or Wall Street Journal reporter would have considered it a major scoop to have spent a season with her behind-the-scenes studying her leadership philosophy, like Trent Crimm, the reporter in "Ted Lasso." But we would never see her in a marketing meeting, or discussing earnings, or making her own version of "The Apprentice" (the BEST version, in my mind.)
In one interview about founding Dolly Parton's Imagination Library, she admitted to not reading many books as a child, then joked about all the reading required of her as an adult. I’d speculate she wasn’t talking about beach-read novels, but of budgets, marketing plans, contracts, memos—reading that wouldn’t come across as folksy in an interview.
CEO wasn’t her public brand. To fans, she was always the gifted singer-songwriter and homespun humanitarian who spoke to the masses because she was one of them.
Until the very end, fans could project whatever they wanted on Dolly Parton, whether they were conservative Christians or liberal drag queens. Maintaining that aura of lovability over an entire career without a major misstep or scandal, to a level in which her passing prompts a half-masting of both the American flag and the Pride flag, reveals a commitment to character development that Andy Kaufman would envy.
I’m not accusing Dolly of insincerity or false advertising. But while many are lauding her musical talent, her kindness, her love of humanity—all real and well-documented—there’s a C-Suite side of Dolly that the public may never know.
She cultivated—or calculated—a knack for laughing at her own exaggerated (and, yes, feminist) style as a comical case of over-confidence, an independent streak that, as she once told me, her husband Carl patiently endured.
“That’s just our Dolly!” traditionalists could shrug away, then buy her records. This dixie chick would never face a backlash. But her confidence was sly and tenacious—and you’ll find it in every corner office occupied by a woman in any male-dominated industry.
She was a creative capitalist; she loved doing business, as she noted in one of her last public statements. “You know me — as I’ve often said — I’ve dreamed myself into a corner and I still have so many things I want to achieve, so I’m gonna keep on working as long as I can to see everything come to life.”
The entertainment industry is now full of artists and influencers who leverage fame into other moneymaking ventures, often through product endorsements. Some even start companies. Francis Ford Coppola bought a winery. Paul Rudd co-owns a candy store.
Dolly was the pre-Internet image pioneer who, famously, took control of her own career to eclipse the biggest stars of country music. From theme parks to hotels to cosmetics to movie production, she farmed her persona to become one of America’s richest self-made women.
She did this while treating her employees well and re-investing in the communities that invested in her. Since 2022, Sevier County's largest employer, Dollywood, has covered the college tuition for all its workers. Like her brand, her business is distinctively ultra-Christian and ultra-progressive in a state that gives business owners great license to maximize profits.
We may never know the “executive” Dolly Parton. She never did a TED Talk.
But for good reason the world is taking her death harder than it might for a similarly famous person. The brand she created for herself lived up to its message of love and compassion. The more than $600 million in charitable giving over her lifetime attests to that.
In a era that feeds on authenticity while also demanding one form of correctness or another, she always struck the perfect balance. This boss knew her business.
Hers was a beloved brand that more politicians, celebrities, tech bros, and so-called “geniuses”— folks desperate to be as universally admired as Dolly Parton—would do well to emulate.
