It's only Tuesday and its already turning to be a week of Dolly's and Divas. Yesterday we were celebrating that announcement that the Divine Miss M is going to be playing Dolly Levi on Broadway this year, and today we are breaking open the bubbly as it is the 70th Birthday of our favorite sparkly country and western superstar Miss Dolly Parton.
It's not hard to see why this effervescent pint-sized larger-than-life singer/songwriter/actress with her rags to riches story is such a popular gay icon. With her outrageous dress sense that glorifies her magnificent breasts, she has a style that would make her a perfect drag queen. If truth were known, in the past she actually entered a Dolly Lookalike Drag Competiton and lost! When talking about her own appearance she once said 'it takes a lot of money to look this cheap".
On a serious note however, she has not just been a big ally of LGBT rights but she has put herself and hosted very successful Gay Days at Dollywood even though the drew the ire of the local Klu Klux Klan.
Dolly is the most honored female country singer of all time, but that is not why we love her. It's the fact (amongst other things) that she starred in both" 9-5," and "Steel Magnolias" plus she wrote the ultimate gay 'grab-your-kleenex' anthem of all time with 'I Will Always Love You' which she was such a massive hit for both her and Whitney Houston.
Handsome L.A. based identical gay twins Gary and Larry Lane loved Dolly so much they wrote her a screenplay for a movie based on her life and then went all the way to Dollywood to present it to her personally. They even made a documentary of the their journey "Hollywood to Dollywood" (available at Amazon). Like all good fairy tales it had a happy ending and whilst Dolly never made their movie, the boys did get to hang out with their idol.
11 year old Elizabeth Alison Gray is not gay BUT she knows how to fantasize like one. When she discovered that she had been adopted she decides on a whim that her birth mother was in fact Dolly and she sets off across country to be 'reunited' with her in a delightfully quirky comedy called "The Year That Dolly Parton Was My Mum" (available from Amazon).
We may not all go to quite the extremes as this but we do want to at least wish you a very happy 70th birthday, and tell you that we will always love you too.
