Here she comes again: How Dolly Parton became one of the world’s richest entertainers

Fiona Smith Columnist

Here she comes again: How Dolly Parton became one of the world’s richest entertainers

Published 12 February 2014 08:53, Updated 12 February 2014 13:40

Parton’s appearance has always been a selling point.Photo: MCT

One of the best decisions Dolly Parton ever made was to turn down The King. That’s right, she said “no” to Elvis Presley back in the 1970s, when he was keen to record one of her songs.

Today, it’s difficult to imagine a jump-suited Elvis taking on Parton’s power ballad I Will Always Love You (famously sung by Whitney Houston), but he would have made a good fist of it with his powerful voice, which stretched three octaves.

But it wasn’t to be. Elvis’s manager, the ruthless Colonel Tom Parker, demanded that Parton sign over 50 per cent of the publishing royalties and she dug in her stilettos and refused.

Parton recorded the song twice – herself – and it reached first place on the Billboard country charts both times. It is said that royalties from the song earned her $US10 million ($11 million) from Houston’s version alone by the time of Houston’s untimely death in 2012.

Given that Parton is said to earn 8¢ each time the song is broadcast and $2 for each recording sold (and it is a stretch target for every ambitious karaoke singer), it should have earned considerably more than that since then.

Parton, who is currently in Australia on her Blue Smoke world tour, is one of the canniest entertainers around when it comes to career longevity and success. She has been performing for nearly 60 years and has amassed a fortune variously reported to be between $300 million and $500 million.

Much more than a pair of lungs

Her decision to hold on to her royalties was an early indication that the sassy country singer is also a very astute business person.

“It’s a nice feeling that I can do so many different things,” says Parton, as she charms a press conference in Melbourne. “I enjoy the business end of showbusiness too.”

Parton’s business interests start with her activities as an entertainer (with 41 top-10 country albums) and owner of the rights to more than 3000 songs that she has written, but also include investments in her home state of Tennessee:theme parks Dollywood (which attracts 2.5 million visitors a year) and Splash County.

These are owned in partnership with Herschend Family Entertainment.

There are also three themed restaurants (Dixie Stampede and Pirate’s Voyage) and plans under way for a $300 million 300-room resort, called DreamMore, adjacent to Dollywood in Pigeon Forge.

With a former manager, she also owns the Sandollar Productions film and television company, which produced Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt, which won an Academy Award for Best Documentary (Feature), the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Father of the Bride feature films.

Girl made good gives back

Parton is a philanthropist, having founded the Imagination Library – a scheme that makes monthly deliveries of books to children up to five years of age. Over the past 18 years, the library has delivered 56 million books to children in the United States, the UK and Canada.

This week, she announced that the library has partnered with United Way Australia to start the scheme in Australia as well.

Literacy is important to her. Her father, Robert Lee Parton, a tobacco sharecropper, never learned to read, but lived to see her start the library. Books were a rare sight as she was growing up with her 11 siblings in a one-room shack.

“We couldn’t take books home. Kids would chew ‘em up and pee on ‘em,” she says.

The president of the Dollywood Foundation, David Dotson, says Parton is significantly involved in all her projects as an owner, investor and manager, but tends to focus more on the “big picture” than the details.

“She trusts the people who are in management to run things,” he says. “She’s not a micro-manager . . . she has a very keen sense of opportunity.”

Dotson says Parton often says her songs have been very kind to her, financially.

“Dolly always holds on to the publishing rights. She owns more of her music than any other artist,” he says.

Some of her best-known songs are Nine to Five, Coat of Many Colours,Joelene, and Here You Come Again.

“She always talks of her songs as her children and that, when she grows old, they will come and take care of her.”

Music is natural, beauty is not

Parton has always made her appearance a selling point, giving new meaning to the term “dolled up”.

“I see something sagging, dragging and bagging, I get it nipped, tucked or sucked or plucked or whatever it takes to keep it going,” she says.

“I have one rule, which is to buy clothes that are one size too small and then have them taken in.”

She explains her fashion aesthetic: “I grew up, as most of you know, way back in the mountains of East Tennessee from a very poor family – there were 12 of us kids. And I think most little girls want to be pretty and we didn’t have the money to buy things to be pretty.

“So I just always used to put berry juice on my lips and different things to try to look pretty. But there was a lady in our home town . . . and she was the town prostitute. She was absolutely beautiful. She used to wear her clothes tight, like I do now, and her hair up all blonde and piled on top of her head, like I do now, and nails and high-heel shoes and I thought she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

“And every time I would say how beautiful she was, someone would say: ‘Well, she ain’t nothin’ but trash’, and I would think in my mind, ‘That’s what I am going to be when I grow up’.

“I ain’t no natural beauty so, as soon as I had a chance to get that peroxide and makeup and all those fancy clothes, well that’s what I did. It came from a very sincere place and that’s how I feel comfortable looking.

“I work really hard on my appearance. Music is natural.”

Domestic bliss, Dolly-style

When she travels, Parton lives with her friend Judy Ogle in a super-sized bus, stocked with all her “junk”. The band and entourage stay in hotels.

She says she has no plans to retire. “I don’t expect to ever retire unless I get sick, or my husband got sick. That would be the only thing that would slow me down.”

Parton’s marriage to Carl Dean has lasted 48 years and survives, in part, because they have separate interests: “The secret to a happy marriage is to stay gone,” she says, adding that the reclusive Dean likes to stay at home and she likes to travel.

“When we celebrate our 50th, we plan to maybe marry again. It’s his first marriage and mine and we are just best buddies.

“It kind of feels funny to be this old, but it feels good to know I am still around. I’ll never retire. I hope to fall dead right in the middle of a song – hopefully one I have written.”