Dolly’s First Day at the Office: Revisiting Dolly Parton’s Brilliant “9 to 5” Film Debut
Effervescent. Luminous. Tough. Authentic before “authenticity” became something the culture at large demanded. Dolly Parton passed away on August 25, leaving a legacy that cannot be repeated.
Parton was, of course, a legendary musician. Her rise to superstardom in the world of country music and then to the kind of once-in-a-generation cultural ubiquity few artists ever achieve is best left tallied and analyzed by proper music journalists and fellow musicians. “She Come By It Natural” author Sarah Smarsh, perhaps, or Amanda Petrusich, who has written about Parton in the past and just posted this lovely piece on her legacy yesterday.
We can speak a bit more eloquently about Parton’s film career, which was its own remarkable story. There’s the great story of Parton’s first foray into film, when Jane Fonda was developing the fantastic 1980 workplace comedy 9 to 5. Fonda was inspired by the 9to5 National Association of Working Women, a grassroots labor movement founded in Boston in 1973 by female office workers fighting workplace discrimination, low pay, and the near impossibility of advancement. Fonda, no stranger to activism at the time (she was a very vocal, very famous anti-Vietnam War activist), was friends with a member of the 9to5 movement, a labor organizer named Karen Nussbaum, a Boston clerical worker, and Fonda set out to make a serious drama about the conditions 9to5 was fighting against.
As Fonda shaped her film project, she landed the excellent director Colin Higgins, known for movies that are a little less serious but no less striking; he directed the cult classic Harold and Maude and the Goldie Hawn/Chevy Chase comedy Foul Play. So Higgins, along with co-writer Patricia Resnick, reshaped 9 to 5 into something different: a workplace satire rather than a straight social-issue drama.
The cast already included two stars who would play women in the secretarial pool who are harassed and disrespected by their sexist boss, Franklin Hart Jr.; Fonda plays Judy Bernly, a newly separated woman entering the workforce for the first time. Lily Tomlin plays Violet Newstead, the highly competent longtime office supervisor who is continually denied the promotion and raise she’s earned. Dabney Coleman plays the smug, tyrannical boss, Franklin Hart Jr. Producer Bruce Gilbert thought they needed a third lead who could broaden the film’s appeal from urban liberals to a wider audience that would still understand the plight of working women. Enter Dolly Parton.
Dolly plays Doralee Rhodes, Hart’s secretary, who is unfairly sexualized by office gossip thanks to Hart’s constant harassment and lies. As 9 to 5 begins, Hart has the upper hand, exploiting Violet, harassing Doralee, and condescending to newbie Judy. Once the three women realize they’re allies, they turn the tables on him and expose his depravity. They also institute changes in the company, creating a proper meritocracy with flexible scheduling, childcare support, and a more humane workplace environment.
The film plays broadly as a farce, but the combustible chemistry between Fonda, Tomlin, and Parton is seriously electric. Acting next to two bona fide stars in Fonda and Tomlin, first-time film star Parton was simply magnetic. It didn’t hurt that she’d been on screen plenty before; she’d hosted her own variety series, award shows and specials, and had been on The Porter Wagoner Show, but 9 to 5 proved that film was yet another medium that Dolly Parton could command. Simply put, Dolly had it. She had it in spades.
The film was a mega-hit. It grossed $103 million in an era when a movie centering three women and their workplace empowerment was, to put it mildly, unheard of. It set the table for the hit films that would follow years and even decades later, including The First Wives Club and The Devil Wears Prada.
Parton didn’t just have a key role in 9 to 5; she also wrote and performed the film’s iconic theme song, which became a massive hit. It reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, Hot Country Songs, and Adult Contemporary charts in early 1981. Parton’s hit became associated with working women and earned her Grammys for Best Country Song and Best Country Vocal Performance, Female. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song.
She worked steadily in film after 9 to 5, with major roles in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982), Rhinestone (1984), Steel Magnolias (1989), Straight Talk (1992), and The Beverly Hillbillies (1993). She proved she wasn’t a novelty casting choice, but could also, as Steel Magnolias proved, be a winning part of an acclaimed dramatic-comedic ensemble.
Dolly Parton’s gifts were many. Her musical chops were truly the stuff of legend, yet in her film roles she brought the commitment and courage she gave her first love to this very different art form, investing her roles with warmth and wit in overflowing abundance. Lots of musicians cross into the film world and do a wonderful job. Dolly Parton was different, though, in that she never seemed to be trying to become a different type of star. She just brought the confidence and emotional intelligence that animated her music to the screen. She made it look easy, natural, but as any committed artist will tell you, that’s what can happen when you work really damn hard.
Featured image: DECEMBER 1980: Country singer Dolly Parton acts in a scene from the movie “9 to 5” which was released on December 19, 1980. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
