There are an awful lot of singers who take a shot at movie stardom. Most of them start out playing singing ingenues and trail off a few movies later, after their limitations become clear, the novelty wears off or their interests wander back to music. Dolly Parton, who died on 25 August at the age of 80, had the barest outline of such a film career: She had a big hit out of the gate with 9 to 5, endured a sizable flop about a decade later with 1992’s Straight Talk signaling the end of her movie phase, and had a couple of minor postscripts in the years that followed – more cameos-as-herself than fully fleshed-out roles. (Presumably she was busy releasing over a dozen albums, making countless TV appearances, sending books to children, and funding vaccine research, among other endeavors.) Yet within a modest filmography consisting of just half a dozen leading roles in theatrical releases (and more than one widely regarded as a minor disaster), she showed more genuine screen presence than countless other multihyphenates.
Maybe it helped that Parton introduced herself on screen in a non-musical role. Well, almost: 9 to 5, a 1980 workplace comedy where she starred alongside Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda, did yield a number one charting theme song, the Oscar-nominated tune of the same name. (The titular theme from Fame won, but which one still gets played on the radio more often?) The movie itself, where Parton plays an office secretary whose piggish boss (Dabney Coleman) lusts after her and whose co-workers (initially including Tomlin and Fonda) suspect, incorrectly, that she has given in to his desires, is a far more relatable comedy, sort of a neo-screwball-meets-women’s-picture with an additional early-‘80s feminist spin.
