August 27, 2026 — 2:27pmIn one of Dolly Parton’s most memorable scenes in the film 9 to 5, secretary Doralee Rhodes flips the script on her handsy boss Mr Hart (Dabney Coleman) and puts him in his place.“Look, I’ve got a gun out there in my purse and up to now I’ve been forgiving and forgetting because of the way I was brought up,” she says. “But if you ever say another word about me or make another indecent proposal, I’m gonna get that gun of mine and I’m gonna change you from a rooster to a hen with one shot.”Dolly Parton (centre) with Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda, in 9 to 5.20th Century Fox That line, like many, has echoed in cinema history. Like 9 to 5 itself, it is a call to arms in the war against workplace sexual harassment. And for fans of Dolly Parton, it is one of her many, many memorable scenes in film and television.This week, under the headlines, you will have read essay after essay on the legacy of Dolly Parton. One of the world’s most beloved cultural icons, she was a legendary country singer, who cut an extraordinary path from the fringes to the mainstream, allowing many, including Taylor Swift and Orville Peck, to follow her path.Perhaps just as well known – depending on your age – is Parton’s other life, as a movie star and a television personality. There was The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982) and Steel Magnolias (1989). And on television, in Hannah Montana (2006-2011), she was Aunt Dolly to Miley Cyrus’ Miley Stewart, a middle school student who leads a secret life as a pop star known as Hannah Montana. That guest role was also a nod to the fact that Parton was, in real life, Cyrus’ godmother.9 to 5 (1980)In the Dolly Parton cinematic canon, one role stands above all others: that of secretary Doralee Rhodes in 9 to 5, who, with colleagues Violet Newstead (Lily Tomlin) and Judy Bernly (Jane Fonda), takes on their oppressive, harassing boss and transforms their workplace.Dolly’s character Doralee was a caricature on paper – a busty secretary ostensibly hired by a sleazy boss because of her looks – but she was given great humanity and dimension by Parton’s nuanced performance.“I’m as nice as I know how to be to every single person in that office,” she says in one scene. “Everyone treats me like a bastard at a family reunion.” Later, when Mr Hart’s corruption is exposed, she has this to say: “We keep underrating you, fella. We always knew you were an obnoxious, philandering, sexist backstabber ... but we didn’t realise you were a crook to boot.”What makes Doralee so perfect a reflection of Parton is that while the role itself was a step outside her real world, many of the smaller touches drew inspiration from Parton’s life.A feminist icon: besieged secretary Doralee Rhodes in 9 to 5.20th Century FoxThat iconic scene – the “rooster to a hen with one shot” scene – actually comes from Parton’s own encounter with a stranger in New York as a young woman. Parton told the story to Fonda, the film’s producer, and writer/director Colin Higgins, and it ended up in the scene.“We walked around ... and we ended up on 42nd street,” Parton told interviewer Conan O’Brien in 2005. “We didn’t know where we were. I was a country girl from the mountains, and I had a gun in my purse. This guy wouldn’t leave me alone because he was sure I was playing hard to get. So I just pulled my gun out, and I said, if you touch me one more time I’m gonna shoot you, so he backed off.”Parton’s film work would see her go on to star in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, as brothel owner Miss Mona Stangley opposite Burt Reynolds, Rhinestone (1984), a musical comedy in which she was paired with Sylvester Stallone, and then Steel Magnolias, in an incredible ensemble with Sally Field, Shirley MacLaine, Olympia Dukakis, Julia Roberts and Daryl Hannah.On television, as well as Hannah Montana, she had her own variety show Dolly (1976, 1987-1988), she produced and narrated the biopic Dolly Parton’s Coat of Many Colours (2015) and its sequel, Dolly Parton’s Christmas of Many Colours: Circle of Love (2016). In the latter, she played a small role, the town’s “painted lady”, on whom, in real life, she had modelled her style. There are many, many more.Dolly Parton as the angel Agnes in Grace and Frankie.Sebastian Smith/NetflixGrace and Frankie (2022)Then, in 2022, in the sitcom Grace and Frankie, Parton guest starred as Agnes, a working-class angel who is manning the reception desk at heaven’s gates when characters played by the show’s two stars Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin – Parton’s 9 to 5 co-stars – are electrocuted in a freak accident and wake up in the afterlife.“I’m not the Almighty, just a working-class angel,” Parton says in the scene, with the kind of humble divinity that could have come from the woman herself. “I haven’t had a promotion in 250 years, but the benefits are heaven,” she adds. (Boom, boom.)Of course, their arrival in heaven is a paperwork glitch and Agnes returns Grace and Frankie to earth. But the audience reaction to the reunion of the three women, 42 years after 9 to 5, was testament to their friendship, the power of their performances and the enduring appeal of the film.Steel Magnolias (1989)While 9 to 5 may be recorded as Parton’s most commercially successful and even memorable cinematic outing, it is also hard to under-measure Steel Magnolias, in which Parton played wise-cracking beauty shop owner Truvy Jones. Of all her screen roles, this is the one which is perhaps closest to the real Dolly.“I don’t trust anyone who does their own hair, I don’t think it’s natural,” Truvy says in a scene. In another: “Honey, time marches on, and eventually, you realise it is marchin’ across your face.” And in another: “Oh, honey, God don’t care which church you go to, long as you show up.”The stars of Steel Magnolias: Shirley MacLaine, Dolly Parton, Olympia Dukakis, Sally Field, Julia Roberts and Daryl Hannah.And while the life story of Dolly Parton may largely be told in the form of the albums which bear her name, likeness and extraordinary singing voice, those extraordinary, surprising and sometimes ordinary roles in film and on television form an enduring cinematic canon, and demonstrate powerfully how celluloid bestows on the people it captures a strange and magical kind of immortality.We may have lost Dolly Parton, but Doralee Rhodes, Mona Stangley, Truvy Jones, and indeed Hannah Montana’s beloved Aunt Dolly, will surely live forever.Read more on the death of Dolly Parton:Behind the legend: Iconic singer-songwriter’s wit and wisdom The self-made woman: How Dolly Parton became such a successful businesswomanDolly’s best songs: What are Parton’s best tracks?Opinion: Dolly was the United States’ last great unifier, writes Cory AlpertWatch: The life of a country music iconMichael Idato is the culture editor-at-large of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via X or email.From our partners