Dolly Parton Gets Her Own TV Show — And Her Own Fungus!
Fans of country and western singer Dolly Parton will be very excited to hear that many of her hit songs will be turned into two-hour TV movies. The first one will be called Coat of Many Colors, and while not all the movies will be based on Dolly’s life, considering this particular song is largely autobiographical, it will focus on Dolly’s early life and the way she was raised in the Tennessee Smoky Mountains. While no release date has been set for this first movie, there is the potential for both Dolly to star and even sing in it — and subsequent movies — if that fits with the movie, according to Bob Greenblatt, NBC Entertainment Chairman and long time friend of Dolly Parton’s.
“We have not talked about them being musicals, but you know it’s not out of the question. I think they will have a lot of her music in them, but I don’t think they’ll be musicals, per se.”
Rolling Stone magazine says the Coat of Many Colors TV movie “takes us inside the tight-knit Parton family as they struggle to overcome devastating tragedy and discover the healing power of love, faith, and a raggedy patchwork coat that helped make Dolly who she is today.”
Greenblatt, alongside Dolly Parton, is hoping to create a string of TV movies that will be more family friendly — and what’s more family friendly than Dolly Parton?
“I don’t know anyone in the world who doesn’t love Dolly Parton, and the idea of developing television movies inspired by her incredible life and the stories she has sung about for decades is exciting to all of us at NBC. I hope we will create some uplifting movies that the entire family can enjoy together, a genre of programming that still seems largely untapped on television.”
Alongside NBC’s string of Dolly Parton-inspired movies, Castanea journal have honored Dolly by naming a lichen after her! According to the journal, the lichen is found in the Appalachian Mountains of Eastern North America.
“Japewiella dollypartoniana is described as new to science based on material from the Appalachian Mountains and adjacent regions of the Atlantic Coastal Plain. It is distinguished from other species of Japewia and Japewiella by its sorediate thallus and production of norstictic acid. Placement in Japewiella is supported by characters from fertile populations discovered in the Unicoi Mountains of western North Carolina which have apothecia that resemble those of Japewia tornoënsis (Nyl.) Tønsberg but differ in having a well-developed proper exciple and ascospores without a thick, gelatinous sheath.”
The Dolly Parton lichen was named only last week and honored the singer due to her great love for the area in which it is found. Scientist Jessica Allen acknowledged the fact they named the lichen after Dolly Parton because the star “has championed the Appalachians both in America and around the globe.”
Dolly Parton has also been in the news recently as she geared up to celebrate 30 years of her theme park, Dollywood.
[Image credit: Richard Martin-Roberts/Redferns/Rolling Stone magazine]
