Dolly Parton

Dolly Parton began and ended her performance at the Rosemont Theatre Thursday night with "Light of a Clear Blue Morning," a 1977 hit inspired by her emergence from a painful period of professional difficulty. The song set the tone for a concert that emphasized hope in the face of hard times, a theme the 65-year-old Parton reinforced with her still-effervescent personality and emphasis on her personal rags-to-sequins story. For her new record, ""Better Day," Parton wrote a collection...

Emmy and Tony winner Kristin Chenoweth was the featured performer at the annual Goodman Theatre Gala at the Hilton Chicago on May 17. Chenoweth charmed the crowd of 600-plus throughout her 45-minute, 10-song set that included many Broadway favorites. Roche Schulfer, the Goodman's executive director, introduced co-chairs Joan Clifford, chair elect/president of the Board of Trustees and Women's Board member, and Andra Press and Lorrayne Weiss, Women's Board members. "The Women's Board has...

The producers of Elizabeth Taylor's next TV movie, "Poker Alice," have asked Dolly Parton to sing and write the title tune. But Parton is so busy, she hasn`t decided whether or not she`ll do it. Parton recently completed her own film, a two-hour movie for ABC, tentatively titled "The Christmas Angel," in which she plays an entertainer who goes home for Christmas to the Tennessee Smoky Mountains and finds seven little kids hiding out in her cabin....

LOS ANGELES, May 21 (Reuters) - Grammy-winning rockers the Black Keys debuted at the top of the Billboard 200 weekly album chart on Wednesday, coming in ahead of an album of original songs from late singer Michael Jackson and country music star Dolly Parton's latest album. "Turn Blue," the eighth studio album from the Ohio duo, sold 164,000 copies in its first week, according to figures from Nielsen SoundScan. "Xscape," a posthumous collection of eight...

Dolly Parton appeared onstage at the Grand Ole Opry at age 13, and she's been dazzling us ever since. On her latest album, "Backwoods Barbie," the little ol' gal from rural Tennessee brings the country pop and even includes a cover of Fine Young Cannibals' "She Drives Me Crazy." Perhaps this is not surprising coming from a woman who wears hot pink and leopard print -- at the same time. After a tour postponement brought on by back problems (which she good-naturedly blamed on her breasts)

Claire Lynch is the International Bluegrass Music Association's reigning female vocalist of the year. She's a respected songwriter, a Grammy nominee and has sung harmonies with Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt. So why doesn't she have her own Wikipedia page? "I did!" Lynch laughs ruefully over the phone from her home in Nashville. "We contributed to it, but we put the wrong kind of copy there. It was too glowing. Wikipedia pulled it before I had a chance to redo it....

Dolly Parton said that her ABC-TV show, despite unspectacular ratings, "has been the most energizing thing" for her personally. Asked to compare her network TV experience with that of Barbara Mandrell, who after two years quit an NBC series complaining of exhaustion and health problems, Parton noted that Mandrell had an ailing throat during her TV stint and that her show also was extensively choreographed. "Although I`ve had problems with my voice in the past," Parton...

Por Bernard Vaughan (Reuters) - El método para clonar animales como a la famosa oveja Dolly puede ser patentado, pero los animales resultantes no, dictaminó el jueves una Corte de Apelaciones federal de Estados Unidos. "La identidad genética de Dolly a su padre donante la vuelve imposible de patentar", escribió el juez Timothy Dyk para la Corte de Apelaciones del Circuito Federal en Washington. Pilar Ossorio, profesora de leyes y...

"I'm No. 1 on iTunes," says Dolly Parton, who recently released a back-to-basics country disc, "Backwoods Barbie." "Who knew?" Up next: a musical version of "9 to 5" that hits Broadway next spring, and, possibly, a children's book and cosmetics line. But first: Three things about her that might surprise you (and one that probably won't): 1. She almost always leaves the house looking like that. "I wouldn't wanna go out not looking like the Dolly people have come to know, because I've come to...

By Bernard Vaughan (Reuters) - The method for cloning animals such as the famed Dolly the Sheep can be patented, but the resulting animals themselves cannot, a U.S. federal appeals court has ruled. "Dolly's genetic identity to her donor parent renders her unpatentable," Judge Timothy Dyk wrote Thursday for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C. Pilar Ossorio, a professor of law and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin Law...

Dolly Parton's new program to encourage schooling in her native Sevier County, Tennessee, may have more effect than more highbrow education plans. Always one to cut to the heart of matters, Parton bases her program on something high in the consciousness of both children and adults: money. Her new Buddy Contract with participating 7th and 8th graders planning to attend any Sevier County high school, pledges $1,000 upon graduation for every two paired students, in return for each...

LOS à NGELES, EEUU (Reuters) - Las actrices Jane Fonda y Lily Tomlin protagonizarán una nueva comedia para el servicio de "streaming" de Netflix sobre dos mujeres rivales que forjan una nueva relación después de que sus maridos se enamoran. Netflix ha encargado 13 episodios de media hora de la serie, llamada "Grace and Frankie", dijo la compañía en una declaración el miércoles. La serie se estrenará en 2015 y estará producida por...

Few in the music industry have been able to pull off the feat of gaining fans across multiple genres quite like Dolly Parton. But, the well-endowed blond bombshell utilized her talents to cross over into more than just music. Parton parlayed her charm and comedic timing into cinematic roles. She sings, she acts and she writes music (just remember who was originally behind Whitney Houston's big hit, "I Will Always Love You"). Sherrill Douglas brings Parton to life in "A Tribute...

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (Reuters) - Singer Dolly Parton was slightly injured on Monday when the SUV she was riding in as a passenger was hit by a car, police said, but the country music star posted on Facebook that she was fine and resting at home. Parton, 67, was riding as a passenger in the front seat of a Nissan Xterra that was in a collision with another vehicle, Nashville police said. "Parton received minor injuries," the Nashville Police Department said in a...

"You think boobs, you think Dolly Parton," says Dolly Parton. "So if there's a new story out, they`re going to plaster me on the cover of a tabloid saying I`m dying with this leaking implant-which is absolutely not true." Parton is laughing, sitting on a downtown hotel suite couch promoting her latest movie, "Straight Talk," which was filmed in Chicago and opens Friday. "I`ve been known for my boobs long before people started having the implants, and I have never had silicone injections," she...

From anyone else it would have been a hopelessly hokey entrance. A lone fiddler enters the stage playing a sad mountain melody. Gradually he's joined by six other musicians as the tune picks up speed and turns into a bluegrass breakdown. Suddenly the fiddle changes tune as four backup singers break into a chorus of "Hello Dolly." And suddenly there she is atop a stage riser, shoehorned into a rhinestone-studded dress. And then there's that blond wig that makes no pretense of being real.

"Is Dolly Parton really as nice as they say?" "Is she really that short?" Those are a couple of the questions floating this week around Lemont, a southwest suburb in the grip of Dollymania. The answer to both seems to be yes. Pop music and movie star Parton has been filming "Straight Talk" since Monday in Lemont, a town chosen because its picturesque hills convinced the producers that it looked like a small Arkansas town. In the romantic comedy,...