Guys. You guys. I uh... God, today is all about one word, one name. Dolly. Right? I just wanted to throw down uh... just wanted to jump on live and throw down uh some thoughts. I was just on with Don Lemon live um and his followers on his Lemon Live at 5 show.
Um, and uh we were throwing down some... Yeah, we were just having some thoughts about Dolly. Um, I'd never seen a um... never seen a Dolly concert. I'd never seen her live. Wish I had. Um, there's that. And I also want to make sure that I can get to see you guys here. Um, all right, there we go. I want to make sure that we're live um on Substack. Okay.
And hm, how do I want to put this? She was amazing. Um, there's so many levels um where I'm in such appreciation and admiration and awe, really, of her. Let's start with talent, okay? This is a woman who is such an accomplished, gifted... um, even before she was accomplished, you know, from the jump, she was clearly a very talented musician. Uh, musically, lyrically, arrangements, all of it. She just... The story about how she wrote 'I Will Always Love You' um is one of my favorite stories in all of popular music, popular American music. It's a great story.
Um, and uh, just the talent is undeniable from... and it always was undeniable. And this is someone who could sit at a piano, a guitar, a band... uh, pick up a guitar, a banjo. I don't know what other instruments she played, but wow. And sing, and then did all of this um, you know, with nails, with long nails. I don't know how you do that. And the story of how she started off with '9 to 5' with the sound of her nails. Um, you know, so there's that talent. I'm going to try to do a little ASMR. I can't do it cuz I don't really have nails.
But um, such talent. What other anecdotes about Dolly do I love? I love the story about how she showed up on the set of '9 to 5' on her first day of work with not just her lines memorized, but she had the entire script memorized including everyone else's dialogue because she thought that's how you're supposed to do it.
And not for nothing, but in '9 to 5', the film where she wrote the hit single, the title track of course, um, she was really good in it. She was such a sweet character, uh, Doralee. Doralee was so sweet. This is her debut film, her first time acting in front of a camera in a big movie. And she was such a delight.
Um, and then the other one that comes to mind is of course 'Steel Magnolias'. I don't know, one of my favorite lines in 'Steel Magnolias', and she's... after Shelby dies and she's in her beauty trailer with Sam Shepard plays her husband. And uh, he's just kind of tooling around with the wax and he goes, 'What's this for?' And she said, 'Makes you pretty.'
Uh, she was really gifted, really gifted and an amazing woman. And then of course there are the now known stories of her generosity. Over the years she had given millions to medical research. Um, let's just go through some of that actually. I'm looking at her obituary right now uh in the New York Times. And uh... Oh God, let's just... yeah, let's talk about the money here. Um, God, all the songwriting. My God. You know, like I think of people like Prince who just could not stop. Like they just exhaled music. They just kept creating. Okay.
Um, in 2016, Ms. Parton, I'm reading from the New York Times obituary, uh, Ms. Parton organized a telethon, 'Smoky Mountains Rise', which raised over $9 million after devastating wildfires in Eastern Tennessee. This is in 2016. Uh, and she funded grants for families whose homes had been destroyed. In 2024, after Hurricane Helene, she, her foundation and her businesses gave $2 million toward relief efforts. She also donated $1 million in 2017 to the Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville in honor of a niece who had been treated for leukemia there. She gave another $1 million to Vanderbilt in 2020 to help fund the development of Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine and $1 million more for pediatric infectious disease research in 2022.
Wow. You know, what a soul. What a soul. They're teaching people how to do it. Like teaching people how to be rich and famous. That's how you do it. She wasn't loud about it. These were... I recall, or rather I don't recall, massive announcements about these things. I knew about the COVID vaccine, giving them a million dollars uh to help fund the development of Moderna's COVID-19 vax, but I didn't know about the other stuff.
Um, what a woman, you know? And also uh, I'm thinking about people who try to make their way in show business and try to sort of imitate or try to be like somebody else. And I think about people like Dolly. Cher would be another one who are total originals. Total originals. There was nobody like them. The ones who come up... They don't... Tina Turner was another one. A total original. But um, Dolly was an original.
Um, she didn't follow a template. She wasn't imitating. She wasn't, you know, a younger, newer version of someone who had come before. She was a total original. Unabashed. And if she was afraid, she was real good at showing it. And she hid it well. And she just kind of went for it. Um, yeah. She marched by the beat of her own drum, truly.
So before I get on with the rest of my evening, uh, I am going to go to Spotify and fire up some Dolly. I want to listen to '9 to 5'. I want to listen to 'Jolene'. I want to listen to Whitney's 'I Will Always Love You'. I want to listen to Dolly's 'I Will Always Love You'. I think a good thing to do might be to go to the Spotify section. I'm sure Apple Music has another version of this where it's like, 'This is Dolly,' you know, and just sort of like a, you know, a playlist of, you know, their essential material.
And today's a good... today a good day to do that with the music of Dolly Parton and also to be reminded to not pull up the ladder behind us. Dolly had... Thank you, Fran. Got a nice contribution here from my friend Francis McTamney. Um, and a good evening to you, sir. And no, to echo your sentiment, there'll never be another Dolly, for sure, as you so perfectly put it. Thank you, Fran, for that um contribution.
Um, but what I was going to say was be sure to um remember to be generous and helpful when you can, you know? And if you reach a certain amount of... if you have... if you get a certain amount of money or get a certain platform or fame or something, don't just be vulgar with it. Be generous with it. Be helpful.
I look at Dolly's obituary here in the Times and I'll read some others. I'll read like Rolling Stone. I'll read a bunch of them. And I'm going to learn more about a woman who... I'm sure more details about this woman who was so giving. You know? And had this... this goodness that transcended ideologies and politics and, you know, pick a color, you know? I mean, she just kind of... How did I say it on Don's show? I said she had um, you know, an... it should have been 'transcendent'... way of disarming people and situations. She was transcendently... supernaturally disarming. That's what I meant to say. She was super... supernaturally disarming. Yeah.
So, um, wow, Donna Maynard, thank you for your um... another contribution to the over here... Donna Maynard firm, and both Fran and Donna on YouTube. Thank you, guys. Um, thank you. Yeah.
Um, someone here, Barbara, said... Barbara, a Broadway musical on Dolly's life is scheduled. Yeah, and I have a friend who, um, very talented friend who did a show, uh, sort of like a jukebox show based on Dolly, and she sings. My friend Trisha Polucio. She... she's an actress, obviously, and also a singer, and she does a killer Dolly. And she had done the show on the road. Um, anyway, wow.
So, yeah, Dolly is um a figure in our pop culture landscape. Um, Melissa, thank you for that. Look at that. 'Thank you, George. She will be missed. We lost a good one.' Yes, we did. Thank you, Melissa McQueen, another generous viewer here on YouTube. Um, yeah.
It's hard to uh imagine, I don't know, what I'm trying to say here. There are very few people... uh, not that many people in our pop culture timeline uh for whom like one name, you know, kind of just says it all. Yeah, there was Tina, there's Cher, Madonna, but one of the biggest, Dolly. Dolly. You just say Dolly, we know who you're talking about. There's no other. There is no other.
So, in terms of taking care of other people and sharing your gifts and being generous with what you've been given, be like Dolly. You know, she's a great reminder for us. Uh, with that, I'm going to uh exit out of here. And um, thank you guys for hanging out. I want to thank Melissa, um, Fran, and Donna for your generous contribution on YouTube, keeping love alive there.
And um, also to remind you all, later this week, Friday to be specific, at 1:30, I will be speaking live to the one and only Jessica Tarlov, speaking of smart, savvy women. Um, yeah, Jessica Tarlov has a new book coming out in September called 'I Disagree: How to Argue and Not Lose Friends' or I forget the subtitle, forgive me. But um, I have between now and Friday to uh get into the book cuz I got a little advanced digital copy courtesy of Jessica.
So, tune in for that. You'll be able to watch also, of course, and listen later. It'll be on YouTube. It's going to be live on YouTube, Substack, and Instagram, and it'll be available in perpetuity there. And also to listen on Apple Music and Spotify. And I'm so grateful to uh Substack for creating a platform that enables me to blast it out to all these platforms. But anyway, that's the deal.
Um, I'm going to go listen to some Dolly Parton, and I suggest everybody else do the same, and watch '9 to 5' tonight. That's going to be tonight's movie. I mean, why else? Why listen to anything else tonight? So, um, yeah. All right, kids. Thanks for hanging out. And uh, let me get my media assets correct here. I'll talk to you later.
