May 22, 2025 • 15 mins
Dolly Parton joins the show to unveil her new line of Southern-inspired frozen meals and desserts, bringing comfort food classics like Chicken & Dumplings and Peach Cobbler to kitchens everywhere. Plus, she reveals that she lost her own look-alike contest!
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Live from the Mercedes Benz Interview Lounge.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
There's nothing more fun than being in Dolly Parton's kitchen.
And here we are. Good morning, Dolly, Well, good morning.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
I got my table set for you.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Oh okay, okay, what are we eating there? Go ahead,
take you give us a little.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Wi Do you know what?
Speaker 4 (00:17):
We've got single served meals? And this one is the
beef pot roast. This one is the shrimp and grits.
It's got a little bit of a kick to it.
If you like that, you wouldn't want to feed that
to the baby. It's called the biscuit battered peach cobbler,
and it serves a lot of people. But these are
single service, but they're big serving, so if you don't
(00:39):
eat like a hog, it'll serve too.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Aye, We're excited.
Speaker 4 (00:44):
It's in the frozen food OUs And this is something
I've been dreaming about for years, to have really good.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Meals that you could just go home into tartar cook I.
Speaker 5 (00:52):
Love it because this is the stuff I grew up eating.
I ate every one of these things growing up. It
was the chicken fried steak or country fried steak, and
of course cobbler. But you know my mama always had
a little vat of bacon drippings next to the stove.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Did your mom know that too?
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:08):
You still do?
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Oh yeah, people give me that for Christmas.
Speaker 4 (01:12):
Thank God, I SA save your bacon drippings because there's
so many things that tastes so much better with that.
I guess it's supposed to be healthy, but what is healthy?
Speaker 3 (01:21):
That's good? Right exactly?
Speaker 2 (01:25):
You know, it's some funny. I don't know how it
was not that many years ago.
Speaker 5 (01:28):
You came out with your your your baked good stuff,
and the strawberry cake is my favorite, just to be honest.
And now she has her chocolate pie in the freezer,
and now all this other stuff you never have to
cook in. Look, we have a whole list of things
we want to get to with you, and we start
with this. I'm want to get back to this as well.
Happy fortieth anniversary for Dollywood. Did you guys know it's
forty years old?
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (01:47):
I did not know.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
Last weekend we went up and celebrated the whole fortieth
anniversary of a couple of weeks ago, and it just
seems like it's fifteen years at the you know, at
the most. But then here it is it is like
forty years later and we're still going strong. So thank
you for bringing that up.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
We're very proud of that.
Speaker 5 (02:05):
And also, Danielle here is our biggest Broadway lover. Did
you know the Dolly Parton story is coming to Broadway?
Speaker 2 (02:11):
No idea, that's the big news. Tell everyone about this, Dolly.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
Well, actually it's called an original music musical. It's called
Dolly an original that'd be me, of course, but I
did write a whole lot of original songs for it
to carry the story. But of course it has all
the big hits, but it tells why and how and
the timeframe of how those songs came to be, and
it's just my journey from my early childhood up to
(02:39):
now and the behind the scenes that a lot of
people I think will be.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Surprised to know.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
But it's actually going to start previewing in Nashville here
on July the eighteenth, But the big world premiere is
going to be here at the Fisher Center of the
Performing Arts at Belmont University on August the eighth and
then it'll play through August and then we moved to
New York and open on Broadway next year.
Speaker 6 (03:02):
Well, did you have anything to do with casting, like
did you help them out with picking who you wanted
to play Dolly?
Speaker 4 (03:08):
Well, we had several people. We put out a casting
call and we actually sent about forty eight people to
New York to be interviewed for different parts, not just
the dollares, but yeah, it's really harder to find.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
There's three dollars.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
There's a little Dolly in the middle Dolly, and then
the older Dolly that kind of carries the story, narrates
the story in a way.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
So yeah, we had We've really had.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
Some wonderful artists on the show, and I think people
are gonna love it, and of course once we get
to New York that might even change some again. But
we've got a wonderful cast and I'm really looking forward
to seeing it myself. We've worked so hard for so
many years on it, and all the casts from New
York came down to work the show up because my husband,
Carl was ill and I would not go out of
(03:55):
town and so I.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Stayed here, so we started working it here.
Speaker 4 (03:59):
So we thought, well, we'll just go ahead and do
the whole premiere here since this is my second home
in Nashville. So I'm excited about the fact that it
is going to premiere here.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Is it bizarre to you ever to watch all of
these people pretend to be you in front of you?
Speaker 4 (04:14):
Very It's very bizarre, and it's very emotional. It just
takes you on such an emotional journey just seeing your
life done like that and seeing different people playing you. Course,
it's always hard, like you mentioned what my feelings were
about the different members of the cast, but they do
a great job, and they're just so talented these people
(04:37):
to play on stage.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
I have such.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
Admiration this now that I never knew before what all
goes into putting a show on Broadway or on stage
like that. I'm more used to television and performing on
stage as an entertainer, but boy, there's a whole world
of things that go on that you never know. How
hard these people work and how great they are. So
(05:00):
I really hope people are gonna like it.
Speaker 5 (05:03):
Oh you're never gonna love it, and it will be
their front front center. But you know, this is not
a new thing. People pretend to be Dolly. My favorites
were always when a big old Dolly drag queen will
come out, and a lot of them love meeting you,
because I I've seen some photos over the years of
these drag queens who are like twice your height with
maybe sister wigs.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
That must just make you feel kind of well.
Speaker 5 (05:25):
Cool, knowing that people love you, they just love your
presence and they want to they want to act it
out on their own.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
Well, I get a kick out of those drag queens.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
You're right, I'm little anyhow, and even with the high heels,
I'm still little.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
But these guys when they get dressed up, they're already
you know, six feet tall, and then they put on
those high heels and it's like you. But it's funny.
Speaker 4 (05:45):
People always say, oh, okay, believe you look so talk
about the drag queens. Like I said, look, I don't
care what they dragon, as long as the dragon to
my show.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Is it true that you actually and because I see
this theme all the time, you entered a drag show
and you lost to someone who looked more like you
than you.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
It's true.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
But that was just when I have my little gay hairdresser.
Speaker 4 (06:10):
At the time, UH lived up there near Santa Monica,
builder where did a lot of the gays hang out,
and every Halloween, of course, they'll all dress up, and
he said, well, let's go down, and he said they
get free drinks for you know, for the people that participate,
so they would just walk them across the stage, and
whoever got the most clause, uh, you.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Know, got free drinks for the rest of the night
or whatever.
Speaker 4 (06:32):
So he talked me into just kind of over exaggerating myself,
if that's possible. But you know, bigger beauty, mark, bigger hair,
bigger whatever. So I all these big drag queens going
across the stages Dolly, and then I walked across the stage,
you know, just trapeding across my little sawed off honky
legs here and.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Nobody put it like little trickle it up. That was
probably David, my hairdresser. But we lapsed, oh hard.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
So I always told the story that I entered a
Dolly lookalike contest and lost.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
I love that.
Speaker 5 (07:09):
And you know what, so hearing you tell these stories,
it takes you back to a time, back to a
place of all the millions of things, these memories you
have that have built up over over your life in lifetime,
as we have it in our lives as well.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
But to watch it being played out on stage.
Speaker 5 (07:24):
And also reading someone's biography about you, it makes you
learn a lot about you. You learn you're always learning
about you through what you've been through in your life.
And it must be just just a superchurch. You know
that so many people are interested in you, where you
came from and where you're going.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Well, I feel very lucky.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
You know that I've lived long enough to even and
did well enough to even Marrit having my life story
told her that have people that interested in me. It's
very humbling, but it is very emotional, just like when
putting the shows together then when I started seeing all
these actors playing out my life story, I mean I
would cry and then I would laugh, and then I
(08:03):
would just get kind of moody.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
You know.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
It was just like it was such an emotional journey
to watch your life like that and still be alive,
to watch your live story.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
I'm still living.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
But we did manage to cover it from the early
days until pretty much.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Up to now.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
And I wrote a book years ago called My Life
and Other Unfinished Business. So to me, some of this
is a lot of that unfinished business that I didn't
didn't get to tell back when the book came out
many years ago. So a lot of things happened since then.
But it's it's emotional when they get to the parks,
you know, because my husband plays a big part in
(08:42):
the show, my uncle Bill, who was very important in
my life, and all Importer, all those people that were
so important in my life they're dead now. And my friend,
my best friend Judy, she's in the show. She's not
in great health either. But I get I guess so
overwhelmed with emotion when we're doing those parts. But yet
at the same time, I'm just so proud of the
(09:04):
wonderful people that I have been able to have made
contact with and to have in my life. Because nobody
success is, you know, is by themselves. There's always wonderful
people that support you and help you emotionally, physically, and
even financially.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
So it's it's a good story.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
And I really I've really been willing to allow a
lot of truths and things to come out in this
that I've never really talked about in depth in books
or in interviews. So I think people are going to
be surprised for what this show really is.
Speaker 5 (09:40):
Well, the stories and the legacy Live Forever Dotty parton
of course, let's get back to the food, because you
know what, another way to.
Speaker 6 (09:45):
Tell them, I'll always get back to your food.
Speaker 5 (09:47):
We talk about we talk about where we're from, what
makes us who we are, the culture we're from, and
the foods that you have chosen to put in your
line that's coming out. It takes me back to like
I said to my childhood. I mean, what's one of
these dishes we're talking about in your new line that's
you gonna be out?
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Is it out now? Is it soon? It's soon?
Speaker 4 (10:08):
R Yeah, it's supposed to be nationwide now in the
frozen food isles.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Yeah, how long?
Speaker 4 (10:14):
Because the other stuff, as you mentioned before, is still
there and doing really well, and this just kind of
enhances it.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
But this is like you can have complete four meals.
Speaker 4 (10:21):
We got the cobbler for dessert, but you can also
bake all those other cakes and pies and cookies.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
But this is Southern.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
Food the way I remember it, the way I love it,
And I'm very involved in the food tasting when we
put these things together with ConAgra and so these are true, hearty,
flavorful meals. You get so many frozen foods, especially that
are just bland, and you think, Lord, you have to
put so much salt and pepper and butter on it,
(10:48):
you just wonder why you're even doing it.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
And I'm really proud of the whole.
Speaker 6 (10:52):
Long How many times did you say to them, No,
this is not right, it needs more spice, or it
needs less spice.
Speaker 4 (10:59):
Well, I said it to come to and they listened.
I said, always got it. That's not that's not rich
or hardy or flavorful enough. So we gotta have more seasoning.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
You gotta put more.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
You gotta put more salt and pepper and butter or
whatever it does to give it that flavor. Because these
these are not diet dishes. So I'm not promoting it
as that these are hardy meals. You gotta you gotta
really build a good eater to want these kind of things.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
I mean, before we.
Speaker 5 (11:23):
Come too, Amen, Amen's sister, But before we go, choose
one of those dishes that you grew up eating and
tell maybe it's a story behind it or something you're experiencing.
And you had to come in after a long day
working somewhere and then you sat down and there was
a big plate of whatever right in front of you,
and it just changed your night. Which is your favorite
(11:43):
dish out of all these that has probably the most
stories behind them.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
Actually, they're all favorite foods of mine and favorite dishes.
I've always been a fit, big fan of chicken and dumplings,
and I do make chicken and dumplings for my family,
and I even cook it and freeze it and give
it to my family, my brothers, and so there's nieces
and nephews, you know, for Christmas, I kind of I
cook food and give it to them because I still
cook like Mama and my aunts and my grandma's and
(12:08):
that's what a lot of this food tastes like. But
everybody has their own kind of chicken and dumpling recipe.
But we added more vegetables and things in this chicken
and dumplings, so when you do have a single meal,
you feel like rather than just having the dumplings and
the gravy, which a lot of people do, we added
vegetables to it as well, and it's really really tasty.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
But there's nothing in this world too, just like a
good old pot roast, don't you agree?
Speaker 4 (12:34):
When you go somewhere it's absolutely yeah, Because I would
never I could never be a vegetarian myself, because I
love I love meat.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
I love and pork and all all of the good meat.
Speaker 5 (12:45):
So and you know what they said about, you know, vegetarians.
If God had meant for us to be vegetarians, he
would not have made animals out of meat.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
I justify anything we want.
Speaker 5 (12:56):
To gott you have one more thing she to talk about,
because we talked about this last time we spoke with you.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Yeah. I love everything you do. Obviously, you are one
of my very favorite people on the planet. And something
that I think doesn't get nearly enough attention as it
should is your Imagination Library. I just wanted to say
how much I love it and what a good program
it is. But for people who don't know about it,
can you tell us about it for a second.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Well, thank you for bringing that up.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
That's one of the things I'm proudest of in my
whole career is the Imagination Library, where we actually give
books to children from the time they're born.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
It's no cost to the parents. All you have to
do is sign up.
Speaker 4 (13:34):
For it and they get their own little book in
the mail once a month until let's start school. And
we started this twenty almost thirty years ago now, and
we just started in my home County.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
I did it with my dad.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
Who couldn't read and write, and it always troubled him,
and it troubled me that he was trouble. So I
wanted to do something special that dad could help me with,
and so he really got involved with me to help me,
give me some good pointers and all that, and he
got to live long enough to see it doing really well.
But we started out just in our home county. Then
we the governor at the time, Governor Phil Bretison, thought
(14:11):
it was a great program. We took at Tennessee wide, statewide,
then it went into Canada. Now we're in parts all
over the world and up to date we've given almost
three hundred million.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Books to.
Speaker 4 (14:23):
Children to learn to read, to love books, and more
than anything, if they get that little book with their
name on it in the mail, they're going to make
somebody sit down and read it. So it is my
philosophy in my belief that if you can read, you
can educate yourself. If you can't afford to go to
college or whatever, there's a book out there on anything
(14:44):
and everything you want to know, just like online these days,
you know you can you can find anything you want
to know.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
But if you can't read.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
That makes your life very limited. But I am proud
of that, and thank you for bringing that up.
Speaker 5 (14:57):
I just love yeah, Dolly, you were just something fabulous
and you know and and now we can go to
the grocer story and we can get a taste of
Dolly and everybody, Oh my god, this tastes like dollty partner.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Fabulous.
Speaker 5 (15:11):
Thank you so much for being with us, and I
hope you have the most wonderful day and you always have.
You always have a place at our table here, Dolly Parton.
We love you. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
That's baste. Thank you so much. I love you.
Live from the Mercedes Benz Interview Lounge.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
There's nothing more fun than being in Dolly Parton's kitchen.
And here we are. Good morning, Dolly, Well, good morning.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
I got my table set for you.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Oh okay, okay, what are we eating there? Go ahead,
take you give us a little.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Wi Do you know what?
Speaker 4 (00:17):
We've got single served meals? And this one is the
beef pot roast. This one is the shrimp and grits.
It's got a little bit of a kick to it.
If you like that, you wouldn't want to feed that
to the baby. It's called the biscuit battered peach cobbler,
and it serves a lot of people. But these are
single service, but they're big serving, so if you don't
(00:39):
eat like a hog, it'll serve too.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Aye, We're excited.
Speaker 4 (00:44):
It's in the frozen food OUs And this is something
I've been dreaming about for years, to have really good.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Meals that you could just go home into tartar cook I.
Speaker 5 (00:52):
Love it because this is the stuff I grew up eating.
I ate every one of these things growing up. It
was the chicken fried steak or country fried steak, and
of course cobbler. But you know my mama always had
a little vat of bacon drippings next to the stove.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Did your mom know that too?
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:08):
You still do?
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Oh yeah, people give me that for Christmas.
Speaker 4 (01:12):
Thank God, I SA save your bacon drippings because there's
so many things that tastes so much better with that.
I guess it's supposed to be healthy, but what is healthy?
Speaker 3 (01:21):
That's good? Right exactly?
Speaker 2 (01:25):
You know, it's some funny. I don't know how it
was not that many years ago.
Speaker 5 (01:28):
You came out with your your your baked good stuff,
and the strawberry cake is my favorite, just to be honest.
And now she has her chocolate pie in the freezer,
and now all this other stuff you never have to
cook in. Look, we have a whole list of things
we want to get to with you, and we start
with this. I'm want to get back to this as well.
Happy fortieth anniversary for Dollywood. Did you guys know it's
forty years old?
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (01:47):
I did not know.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
Last weekend we went up and celebrated the whole fortieth
anniversary of a couple of weeks ago, and it just
seems like it's fifteen years at the you know, at
the most. But then here it is it is like
forty years later and we're still going strong. So thank
you for bringing that up.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
We're very proud of that.
Speaker 5 (02:05):
And also, Danielle here is our biggest Broadway lover. Did
you know the Dolly Parton story is coming to Broadway?
Speaker 2 (02:11):
No idea, that's the big news. Tell everyone about this, Dolly.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
Well, actually it's called an original music musical. It's called
Dolly an original that'd be me, of course, but I
did write a whole lot of original songs for it
to carry the story. But of course it has all
the big hits, but it tells why and how and
the timeframe of how those songs came to be, and
it's just my journey from my early childhood up to
(02:39):
now and the behind the scenes that a lot of
people I think will be.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Surprised to know.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
But it's actually going to start previewing in Nashville here
on July the eighteenth, But the big world premiere is
going to be here at the Fisher Center of the
Performing Arts at Belmont University on August the eighth and
then it'll play through August and then we moved to
New York and open on Broadway next year.
Speaker 6 (03:02):
Well, did you have anything to do with casting, like
did you help them out with picking who you wanted
to play Dolly?
Speaker 4 (03:08):
Well, we had several people. We put out a casting
call and we actually sent about forty eight people to
New York to be interviewed for different parts, not just
the dollares, but yeah, it's really harder to find.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
There's three dollars.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
There's a little Dolly in the middle Dolly, and then
the older Dolly that kind of carries the story, narrates
the story in a way.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
So yeah, we had We've really had.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
Some wonderful artists on the show, and I think people
are gonna love it, and of course once we get
to New York that might even change some again. But
we've got a wonderful cast and I'm really looking forward
to seeing it myself. We've worked so hard for so
many years on it, and all the casts from New
York came down to work the show up because my husband,
Carl was ill and I would not go out of
(03:55):
town and so I.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Stayed here, so we started working it here.
Speaker 4 (03:59):
So we thought, well, we'll just go ahead and do
the whole premiere here since this is my second home
in Nashville. So I'm excited about the fact that it
is going to premiere here.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Is it bizarre to you ever to watch all of
these people pretend to be you in front of you?
Speaker 4 (04:14):
Very It's very bizarre, and it's very emotional. It just
takes you on such an emotional journey just seeing your
life done like that and seeing different people playing you. Course,
it's always hard, like you mentioned what my feelings were
about the different members of the cast, but they do
a great job, and they're just so talented these people
(04:37):
to play on stage.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
I have such.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
Admiration this now that I never knew before what all
goes into putting a show on Broadway or on stage
like that. I'm more used to television and performing on
stage as an entertainer, but boy, there's a whole world
of things that go on that you never know. How
hard these people work and how great they are. So
(05:00):
I really hope people are gonna like it.
Speaker 5 (05:03):
Oh you're never gonna love it, and it will be
their front front center. But you know, this is not
a new thing. People pretend to be Dolly. My favorites
were always when a big old Dolly drag queen will
come out, and a lot of them love meeting you,
because I I've seen some photos over the years of
these drag queens who are like twice your height with
maybe sister wigs.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
That must just make you feel kind of well.
Speaker 5 (05:25):
Cool, knowing that people love you, they just love your
presence and they want to they want to act it
out on their own.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
Well, I get a kick out of those drag queens.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
You're right, I'm little anyhow, and even with the high heels,
I'm still little.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
But these guys when they get dressed up, they're already
you know, six feet tall, and then they put on
those high heels and it's like you. But it's funny.
Speaker 4 (05:45):
People always say, oh, okay, believe you look so talk
about the drag queens. Like I said, look, I don't
care what they dragon, as long as the dragon to
my show.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Is it true that you actually and because I see
this theme all the time, you entered a drag show
and you lost to someone who looked more like you
than you.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
It's true.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
But that was just when I have my little gay hairdresser.
Speaker 4 (06:10):
At the time, UH lived up there near Santa Monica,
builder where did a lot of the gays hang out,
and every Halloween, of course, they'll all dress up, and
he said, well, let's go down, and he said they
get free drinks for you know, for the people that participate,
so they would just walk them across the stage, and
whoever got the most clause, uh, you.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Know, got free drinks for the rest of the night
or whatever.
Speaker 4 (06:32):
So he talked me into just kind of over exaggerating myself,
if that's possible. But you know, bigger beauty, mark, bigger hair,
bigger whatever. So I all these big drag queens going
across the stages Dolly, and then I walked across the stage,
you know, just trapeding across my little sawed off honky
legs here and.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Nobody put it like little trickle it up. That was
probably David, my hairdresser. But we lapsed, oh hard.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
So I always told the story that I entered a
Dolly lookalike contest and lost.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
I love that.
Speaker 5 (07:09):
And you know what, so hearing you tell these stories,
it takes you back to a time, back to a
place of all the millions of things, these memories you
have that have built up over over your life in lifetime,
as we have it in our lives as well.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
But to watch it being played out on stage.
Speaker 5 (07:24):
And also reading someone's biography about you, it makes you
learn a lot about you. You learn you're always learning
about you through what you've been through in your life.
And it must be just just a superchurch. You know
that so many people are interested in you, where you
came from and where you're going.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Well, I feel very lucky.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
You know that I've lived long enough to even and
did well enough to even Marrit having my life story
told her that have people that interested in me. It's
very humbling, but it is very emotional, just like when
putting the shows together then when I started seeing all
these actors playing out my life story, I mean I
would cry and then I would laugh, and then I
(08:03):
would just get kind of moody.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
You know.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
It was just like it was such an emotional journey
to watch your life like that and still be alive,
to watch your live story.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
I'm still living.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
But we did manage to cover it from the early
days until pretty much.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Up to now.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
And I wrote a book years ago called My Life
and Other Unfinished Business. So to me, some of this
is a lot of that unfinished business that I didn't
didn't get to tell back when the book came out
many years ago. So a lot of things happened since then.
But it's it's emotional when they get to the parks,
you know, because my husband plays a big part in
(08:42):
the show, my uncle Bill, who was very important in
my life, and all Importer, all those people that were
so important in my life they're dead now. And my friend,
my best friend Judy, she's in the show. She's not
in great health either. But I get I guess so
overwhelmed with emotion when we're doing those parts. But yet
at the same time, I'm just so proud of the
(09:04):
wonderful people that I have been able to have made
contact with and to have in my life. Because nobody
success is, you know, is by themselves. There's always wonderful
people that support you and help you emotionally, physically, and
even financially.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
So it's it's a good story.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
And I really I've really been willing to allow a
lot of truths and things to come out in this
that I've never really talked about in depth in books
or in interviews. So I think people are going to
be surprised for what this show really is.
Speaker 5 (09:40):
Well, the stories and the legacy Live Forever Dotty parton
of course, let's get back to the food, because you
know what, another way to.
Speaker 6 (09:45):
Tell them, I'll always get back to your food.
Speaker 5 (09:47):
We talk about we talk about where we're from, what
makes us who we are, the culture we're from, and
the foods that you have chosen to put in your
line that's coming out. It takes me back to like
I said to my childhood. I mean, what's one of
these dishes we're talking about in your new line that's
you gonna be out?
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Is it out now? Is it soon? It's soon?
Speaker 4 (10:08):
R Yeah, it's supposed to be nationwide now in the
frozen food isles.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Yeah, how long?
Speaker 4 (10:14):
Because the other stuff, as you mentioned before, is still
there and doing really well, and this just kind of
enhances it.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
But this is like you can have complete four meals.
Speaker 4 (10:21):
We got the cobbler for dessert, but you can also
bake all those other cakes and pies and cookies.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
But this is Southern.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
Food the way I remember it, the way I love it,
And I'm very involved in the food tasting when we
put these things together with ConAgra and so these are true, hearty,
flavorful meals. You get so many frozen foods, especially that
are just bland, and you think, Lord, you have to
put so much salt and pepper and butter on it,
(10:48):
you just wonder why you're even doing it.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
And I'm really proud of the whole.
Speaker 6 (10:52):
Long How many times did you say to them, No,
this is not right, it needs more spice, or it
needs less spice.
Speaker 4 (10:59):
Well, I said it to come to and they listened.
I said, always got it. That's not that's not rich
or hardy or flavorful enough. So we gotta have more seasoning.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
You gotta put more.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
You gotta put more salt and pepper and butter or
whatever it does to give it that flavor. Because these
these are not diet dishes. So I'm not promoting it
as that these are hardy meals. You gotta you gotta
really build a good eater to want these kind of things.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
I mean, before we.
Speaker 5 (11:23):
Come too, Amen, Amen's sister, But before we go, choose
one of those dishes that you grew up eating and
tell maybe it's a story behind it or something you're experiencing.
And you had to come in after a long day
working somewhere and then you sat down and there was
a big plate of whatever right in front of you,
and it just changed your night. Which is your favorite
(11:43):
dish out of all these that has probably the most
stories behind them.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
Actually, they're all favorite foods of mine and favorite dishes.
I've always been a fit, big fan of chicken and dumplings,
and I do make chicken and dumplings for my family,
and I even cook it and freeze it and give
it to my family, my brothers, and so there's nieces
and nephews, you know, for Christmas, I kind of I
cook food and give it to them because I still
cook like Mama and my aunts and my grandma's and
(12:08):
that's what a lot of this food tastes like. But
everybody has their own kind of chicken and dumpling recipe.
But we added more vegetables and things in this chicken
and dumplings, so when you do have a single meal,
you feel like rather than just having the dumplings and
the gravy, which a lot of people do, we added
vegetables to it as well, and it's really really tasty.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
But there's nothing in this world too, just like a
good old pot roast, don't you agree?
Speaker 4 (12:34):
When you go somewhere it's absolutely yeah, Because I would
never I could never be a vegetarian myself, because I
love I love meat.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
I love and pork and all all of the good meat.
Speaker 5 (12:45):
So and you know what they said about, you know, vegetarians.
If God had meant for us to be vegetarians, he
would not have made animals out of meat.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
I justify anything we want.
Speaker 5 (12:56):
To gott you have one more thing she to talk about,
because we talked about this last time we spoke with you.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Yeah. I love everything you do. Obviously, you are one
of my very favorite people on the planet. And something
that I think doesn't get nearly enough attention as it
should is your Imagination Library. I just wanted to say
how much I love it and what a good program
it is. But for people who don't know about it,
can you tell us about it for a second.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Well, thank you for bringing that up.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
That's one of the things I'm proudest of in my
whole career is the Imagination Library, where we actually give
books to children from the time they're born.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
It's no cost to the parents. All you have to
do is sign up.
Speaker 4 (13:34):
For it and they get their own little book in
the mail once a month until let's start school. And
we started this twenty almost thirty years ago now, and
we just started in my home County.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
I did it with my dad.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
Who couldn't read and write, and it always troubled him,
and it troubled me that he was trouble. So I
wanted to do something special that dad could help me with,
and so he really got involved with me to help me,
give me some good pointers and all that, and he
got to live long enough to see it doing really well.
But we started out just in our home county. Then
we the governor at the time, Governor Phil Bretison, thought
(14:11):
it was a great program. We took at Tennessee wide, statewide,
then it went into Canada. Now we're in parts all
over the world and up to date we've given almost
three hundred million.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Books to.
Speaker 4 (14:23):
Children to learn to read, to love books, and more
than anything, if they get that little book with their
name on it in the mail, they're going to make
somebody sit down and read it. So it is my
philosophy in my belief that if you can read, you
can educate yourself. If you can't afford to go to
college or whatever, there's a book out there on anything
(14:44):
and everything you want to know, just like online these days,
you know you can you can find anything you want
to know.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
But if you can't read.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
That makes your life very limited. But I am proud
of that, and thank you for bringing that up.
Speaker 5 (14:57):
I just love yeah, Dolly, you were just something fabulous
and you know and and now we can go to
the grocer story and we can get a taste of
Dolly and everybody, Oh my god, this tastes like dollty partner.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Fabulous.
Speaker 5 (15:11):
Thank you so much for being with us, and I
hope you have the most wonderful day and you always have.
You always have a place at our table here, Dolly Parton.
We love you. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
That's baste. Thank you so much. I love you.
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