Dolly Parton's impact extended far beyond music, with a film career spanning more than four decades. The country music icon died yesterday aged 80 following a brief battle with cancer, prompting tributes from fans and celebrities. Her creative legacy and charity work will live on. She earned a Primetime Emmy Award, plus nominations for two Academy Awards and six Golden Globe Awards.
Joyful Noise (2012)
Available to rent and buy on Prime Video, Apple TV, Rakuten TV, and the Sky Store. Released in 2012, Joyful Noise follows a small-town gospel choir in Pacashau, Georgia, as they try to win a national competition while overcoming internal friction. Dolly starred as G. G. Sparrow alongside Queen Latifah's Vi Rose Hill, who clash while trying to lead the choir.
Speaking to Glamour, Parton explained how she related to the film and its musical elements. 'Well, I certainly grew up singing gospel music, but I wasn't in the kind of church with a choir. We had congregation singing, more like special quartets and duets and that sort of thing.'
Dolly Parton's Christmas in the Square (2020)
Available on Netflix. The festive flick follows the cold-hearted Regina Fuller (Christine Baranski) who plans to evict her hometown's residents and sell the land before Christmas, only to be visited by a guardian angel. Dolly wrote 14 original songs for the film and also starred as an angel.
During filming, she became good friends with Christine Baranski, telling Buzzfeed: 'I loved being with Christine. We got to be friends. We'd sit around and talk in between takes.'
Straight Talk (1992)
Available to rent and buy on Prime Video and Apple TV. Directed by Barnet Kellman, this romantic comedy stars Dolly as Shirlee, who leaves her unfulfilling rural life and neglectful boyfriend to start over in Chicago. After a mix-up, she appears live on air during a call-in advice show, becoming a hit with her homespun wisdom. Investigative reporter Jack Russell (James Woods) suspects she is a fraud.
'It's not hard for me to do this part because I'm always giving advice,' she said in a 1992 TV interview. 'Not unless somebody asks but boy, if they do, I'll let 'em have it.'
Dumplin' (2018)
Available on Netflix. While Dolly doesn't star in Dumplin', this film celebrates her music and personality. Based on the 2015 novel by Julie Murphy, it follows Willowdean 'Dumplin' Dickson (Danielle Macdonald), a confident plus-size teenager in Texas who enters the local Miss Teen Bluebonnet pageant to protest her mother Rosie's (Jennifer Aniston) pageant culture.
Dolly penned the original soundtrack, and her career and personality inspired the original story. She told Billboard how she worked with producer Linda Perry: 'Jennifer Aniston took Linda and me to see a rough cut of it. I got to know all the characters — the attitudes, the emotions, the feelings of all the people.'
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982)
Available to rent and buy on Prime Video, Apple TV, and the Sky Store. Only Dolly's second Hollywood role, it earned her a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy. Directed by Colin Higgins, the film follows Dolly's Mona Stangley and her lover, Sheriff Ed Earl Dodd (Burt Reynolds), who fight to keep her brothel The Chicken Shack open when it is targeted by television reporter Melvin P. Thorpe (Dom DeLuise).
Speaking on the WorkLife Podcast with Adam Grant in April 2022, she said: 'Everybody said, "She's trash." And in my little girl mind, I thought, "Well, that's what I'm going to be when I grow up."'
Nine to Five (1980)
Available on Prime Video. Dolly made her big screen debut in Nine to Five, a role that became her most iconic. She starred alongside Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin as three working women who fantasise about overthrowing their company's 'sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot' vice president Franklin Hart (Dabney Coleman). The film was later turned into a hit stage show with songs written by Dolly.
Film critic Roger Ebert reflected on meeting Dolly at the 1980 premiere: 'Dolly Parton has a unique comic presence, she seems to be having a lot of fun on the screen, and if she finds the right roles and the right direction, she can be so successful in the movies that her singing career will seem like an afterthought.'
Steel Magnolias
Available on Channel 4. The Academy Award-nominated drama, directed by Herbert Ross and written by Robert Harling, follows a close-knit group of women in a small Louisiana town. Dolly starred as Truvy Jones, the warm-hearted owner of the local beauty salon.
Earlier this year Julia Roberts told Oprah Winfrey of Dolly's advice while filming in sweltering temperatures: 'When I was a little girl, I wanted to be famous, and I wanted to be rich, and now I'm both of these things, I'm not going to complain about it.'
