Dolly Parton energetically enters the room, with a broad smile that covers most of her face. She seems much younger than her 46 years and surprisingly smaller than one might expect.
Parton is wearing a tight black pants outfit that shows off her nearly non-existent waist. The neck is fairly low cut, but a black, beaded leather jacket, along with her long, flowing hair - a wig, of course - ensures her celebrated bustline isn't the center of attention.She happily greets the interviewer, sits at the other end of the couch in her suite at the Westin Hotel and answers every question during the 30 minutes with bubbly enthusiasm, peppering her remarks with "Dollyisms," down-home, country homilies that seem to be a natural part of her conversation.
An hour later, during a small press conference, her look has changed completely; her makeup and nails are different, she's now wearing a tight, white jumpsuit, with a white, beaded leather jacket. And is that a different wig? She explains this as "freshening up." For anyone else it would be a major overhaul.
"Straight Talk," her first solo movie starring role, is the primary subject of discussion as she does the publicity rounds across the country. In Denver, the publicistwho's been taking Parton to local media outlets is talking on the phone to a TV station, trying to arrange a back-door entrance. She says she's never seen a visiting celebrity so mobbed by the public as Parton has been during this visit.
And it's easy to see why. Her fans love her. And she loves her fans.
"They've been with me all the way," Parton says. "I've been singing since I was 10, and I've been in Nashville since 1964. So these people are like a part of me. They care about what I do, they're interested. And they're devoted to you. They'll be with me until I die, or until they die. I do care. I do care about what they want."
That's one of the reasons she's out doing the publicity rounds for the movie, for its accompanying soundtrack - and for her 87-acre theme park in Tennessee's Smoky Mountains, Dollywood, which opens April 25 for its seventh season. "I figure if I'm going to go, I might as well do it all at once."
"Straight Talk" is an old-fashioned, PG-rated romantic comedy about an uneducated Southern gal who, through a series of misadventures, becomes Dr. Shirlee, the popular host of a Chicago radio talk-show, a call-in advice program. A hard-nosed reporter (James Woods) sets out to prove she isn't really a credited psychologist, but he falls in love with her instead. Dr. Shirlee is just too genuine to resist. And so is Dolly Parton.
"The script came to me about seven years ago," Parton said, but she was unable to take it at the time. Through the years it fell into the hands of Bette Midler, Goldie Hawn and Julia Roberts. And when Roberts let it go, Parton called Hollywood Pictures (a division of Walt Disney Productions) and asked to have it back.
"This movie kind of reminds me in spirit of `9 to 5' (her first film, a huge hit in which she co-starred with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin) and we certainly `Dollyized' it. It was a wonderful script, but a lot of (the dialogue) was ad-libbed. I can't hardly not ad-lib when I get something like this."
The choice of James Woods, an intense actor who has played mostly villains and heavy anti-heroes, as a light romantic interest seems unlikely, but Parton says he did a screen test and their chemistry was immediate. "I love James Woods, I think he's got a magnetism about him."
The film is also filled with Parton's music, songs keeping in theme with the story that are sung in the background. "At first there was just a theme song - any movie I take I do a theme song. Then they had this big idea of making it a musical. But I said no. I felt this was such a good script, it could be really good for me. So, then they said, would you be interested in doing some songs as a voice-over. I thought that would be great. Any way I can incorporate my songwriting . . . ."
Parton said she planned to go for hard-core country tunes, but the folks at Disney insisted on more of a pop-music sound. "I wanted to do a good, solid country soundtrack, but they said, `We don't want it to be country, we want it to be more mainstream.' Of course, after the movie was almost ready to come out, with Garth Brooks and this new surge in country music, they wanted to hang themselves. But I'm proud of it, because the lyrics are very country, they're very Dolly. Everything that's said is very simple and basic."
She's also proud of the film.
"Even if this movie is not a success with the public, I will always be really proud, because this is the movie - no matter what else I ever do - that really has all that I am. If I died tomorrow and never did another movie, it's a way for my family, my nieces, the younger kids in my family to see me and say, `OK, that was Dolly the songwriter, that was Dolly the singer, that was Dolly the producer of the songs, that was Dolly the personality, Dolly the attitude, Dolly the values, the principles, the sense of humor.' It's just some of everything that I am, more than anything I've ever done."
And if it works, expect to see more. "If this is successful, which I hope it is, it will be twofold. It will give me a chance to use my music more. And, plus, it's going to put me in the mainstream of doing movies again. I'd like to spend the next three to seven years working seriously in the movies if this does well. I'd like to do some lighthearted romantic-comedy things, very much like the Doris Day movies of the past, like `Pillow Talk,' if I could find me a great Rock Hudson. I'd love to find a good leading man, make two or three movies in a row with a great leading man."