Newsletter – September 4, 2026
PHOTO: NBC
When I was twenty I had little interest in Dolly Parton, her music was too twangy, her costumes were too glittery, and her chest size was too, too big.
That was the year 9 to 5 came out.
I respected Jane Fonda for her superb acting and I thought Lily Tomlin was hilarious, having grown up watching her on Laugh-In. Okay, so what was Dolly Parton doing in this movie? She probably got in it by writing the title song. Well I guess I can put up with her if she doesn’t have too much screen time.
She won me over playing a straightforward domestic scene with Jeffrey Douglas Thomas as her husband. She wore a simple long T-shirt, without extravagant make-up or a beehive hairdo, and she was real. It was a bedroom scene but she was discussing her boss at work like any other working woman with such honesty and truth that I completely changed my opinion about her.
She became a real person to me in that moment, not just a punchline in a Tonight Show monologue.
Since then, my opinion of her climbed ever higher.
Dolly Parton’s singing was worth listening to, even if it was country music. Her stories about growing up in the hills of Tennessee were all genuine, and her work for charity, her generosity, and her desire to leave the world a better place than when she arrived were all sincere.
She deserves all the praise and love she’s been receiving.
“If I hadn’t been a girl, I’d have been a drag queen.” – Dolly Parton
The LGBTQ+ crowd adore Dolly for just loving and accepting them. How very simple and profound that is.
I had my drag experience when I was in a musical called The Perfect People of Pepper Street. I played a man who pretended to be his own sister when he needed to be more assertive. He was Dell, she was Delilah.
I felt awkward dressing as Delilah, but I had seen the originator of the role do an amazing job and decided to rise to the challenge. The picture below is of me exiting the dressing room after a quick change. Someone called my name, I turned, and the camera flashed.
Yes, complete with Dolly Parton sized boobs.
I’ll never forget a song from the show called “My Old Friend.” Three men sang the song and my part was a soprano falsetto that I sang as Delilah. At the end of the song I took the high note of the final chord and would hear gasps from the audience when it came out sweetly and purely.
It taught me something about what I could do if—like Dell—I embraced my feminine side.
Powerful stuff.
TTFN
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My middle grade novel, The Most Amazing Museum of Los Angeles is available through The BookBaby Bookshop at https://store.bookbaby.com/book/the-most-amazing-museum-of-los-angeles
Eric Margerum 