The life-changing lesson Dolly Parton taught Jane Fonda: “She’s kinda psychic”
Jane Fonda and Dolly Parton got to know each other while making the classic 1980 workplace comedy 9 to 5. Despite being a feminist movie helmed by an all-female cast (a deadly combination even in the best of circumstances), it went on to gross over $103million at the box office, making it the second highest-grossing film of the year behind Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.
Fonda and Parton were already wildly famous in their own right at the time the film was released. From birth, the actor’s claim to fame was being the daughter of Henry Fonda, but she quickly made a name for herself independent of her dad. By 1980, she’d already won two Oscars and been nominated for two more. She had starred in cult classics like Barbarella and critically acclaimed Oscar winners like Coming Home. She was a well-known activist and was starting to branch out into producing.
Parton was a superstar on the country music scene. She’d somehow only won one of the 11 Grammy Awards she now holds, but her albums were consistently going platinum, and it was clear that she was one of the biggest and most enduring musical stars of her generation. 9 to 5 was her feature debut, and it proved that her charisma was just as show-stopping on the silver screen as it was through a microphone.
In 1984, Fonda was preparing to make a movie based on the novel The Dollmaker, which required her to play an illiterate woman from rural Kentucky. Since Parton had famously grown up in one of the most deprived parts of the country, Fonda asked her friend if she could accompany her on-tour around the area where she spent her formative years.
“I said to her, ‘You’re the only hillbilly I know,’” Fonda quipped on the Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast. So she went to Nashville and stayed with Parton and her husband, Carl, and even sang backup for the country star during one of her performances at the Grand Ole Opry. “Anyway,” Fonda continued, “She put me on her tour bus with three or four friends of hers, and we spent 10 days touring Appalachia, Missouri, the Ozarks, Arkansas…”
Everywhere they went, Fonda was struck by how Parton presented herself. No matter how rural the setting or how challenging the living circumstances were for the people there, Fonda “never saw her not looking 100% Dolly Parton – the wig, the whole thing.” She presented herself the way her fans imagined her. That hyper-glamourous figure with impeccable hair and makeup was exactly who she made herself to be every day, and it was something of an epiphany for Fonda.
“I thought, ‘Yeah, that’s how to do it. You’ve gotta love those people who like you.’” she said. “And oh boy, does she have fans, and she just loves them and appreciates them. She taught me a lot. She didn’t say anything. She showed by example.”
This was a particularly powerful lesson for Fonda, who noted that when she was growing up, her father was so disconcerted by having fans come up to him in public that he would literally run away from them and descend into a dark mood for the rest of the day. Fonda’s admiration for Parton runs deep. “She is an amazing woman,” she said. “She is so smart, and she’s kinda psychic. She’s really profound. I am in awe of Dolly. I love her very much.”
