What do you want on your tombstone? On my tombstone? I didn't write these.
I think u tombstone pepperoni mushrooms. There are celebrities and then there's the legendary Dolly Parton. From 9 to 5 and Steel Magnolia's to the best little wh house in Texas.
Dolly became one of Hollywood's most recognizable faces. And even after her passing at 80, it's impossible to forget just how hilarious she was when the cameras were rolling. with zero filter.
These are Dolly Parton's funniest moments. How are you defying age, Dolly? What you doing?
Oh, I don't know. Just I'm a cartoon, so I just look the same all the time. It's the same same thing.
I just put mine on. So, I No, but you've been you've been open about that you have had some work done. Some some tucks and pulls and stuff.
No, I haven't. I'll have some more when I need them. Really?
[applause] Nobody notices I've got a great, too. Dolly had spent decades mastering the art of making people laugh without ever looking like she was trying. But what made her so dangerous in an interview was that you could never quite tell whether the sweet southern lady was being innocent or setting [music] you up for the punchline.
These are rapid fire questions. You just answer them first thing that comes to your mind. Favorite color?
Clarall [music] number 249. That's funny. Do you Anybody else?
Do you ever wish you were born a guy? Do I ever wish I was born a guy? Lord, no.
I've always been a and if I'd have been born a man, I'd have been a drag queen. And the hosts usually realized what was happening about half a second too late because Dolly could deliver a line with the biggest smile in the room, wait for everyone to catch up, and then somehow make the entire audience lose it. Jimmy Fallon learned that the hard way.
I went over to him. I said, "Hey, I would have been happy, you know, to have paid your your bill, you know. " I said, "But [music] uh them you tell him you're my grandpa.
" And he took his walking stick and he started just beating me across the chest. I mean, just as hard as he could. Just wham, wham, wham, wham, wham.
And it hurt. Oh my gosh. I know.
But really, but then what what what happened? What do you What happened? [laughter] These two big lumps came up and they never did go down.
If this is how you want to remember Dolly, stay with us because some of her funniest moments [music] are still ahead. All you have to do Oh, perfect. All you have to Put it on.
You put it on. I've already got mine. Let's do yours.
[cheering] Show me [applause] how it works. They're not that big. It's just that I'm little and they're big in comparison to that.
Well, they're not true. Well, they are big. Yet, this was only the beginning because the sweeter Dolly sounded, the more dangerous the conversation [music] could become.
Dolly's secret was that she never needed to sound aggressive to get the biggest laugh. But, you know, I've always believed that women should be liberated from anything that restricts them. So back when everybody was burning their bras, I burned my girdle.
I would never have been so bold as to try to burn my bra. It would have taken the fire department 3 weeks to put the fire. [laughter] It was quite a big difference.
Your version of it is the best because it's it's of you and it's all about you. It's true. But I'm not going to about Whitney.
You're making me $6 million. [laughter] But underneath all that charm was a woman who understood exactly how famous she was, which meant she had absolutely no problem turning herself into the joke before anyone else could. Have you ever had uh trouble from people commenting on your quite extraordinary physique?
Well, I don't call it trouble. It's worked well for me. It's like, are you talking about these particularly?
It's like I said, they serve me well. I don't get offended when people make jokes about them because I kind of, you know, present myself the way I do. And like I say, I don't know if I'm supporting them or they're supporting me.
But we've worked out real well for each other through the years. Here's the part people sometimes forget. Dolly wasn't simply a country singer who became famous in Hollywood.
She built a career across music, television, film, business, and philanthropy while maintaining a public persona that was instantly recognizable. I started working in my own office when I moved to Nashville, started my publishing company and a lot of, you know, some business things. I started working with my uh best girlfriend, Judy Ogle, who was also from my hometown.
We grew up together. The actual uh beginning of the imagination library was based on my own life and my own dad who was not able to read nor write but one of the smarter people that one would ever want to know. And daddy got to live long enough to see it begin to take off and do good.
And to hear the kids call me the book lady. He got such a kick out of that. But daddy took a lot of pride in this.
And I wanted to make my dad proud. I wanted to honor him. When it comes to advice, Dolly doesn't sugarcoat a thing.
She gives it straight, adds a little humor, and somehow has everyone losing it. But this time, her honesty hit a little differently. If you could tell teenagers of America today one thing, whether it be advice or something of support, what would it be?
I would say act like it's raining every day and wear your rubbers. Adrian, she's about to get married. So, you've been married over 50 years.
Can you give her any advice? Yeah. Stay gone as much as you can.
[laughter] Then Dolly takes Jimmy Fallon back to a childhood memory involving a bear, a few drinks, and one person who clearly had too much time to think. But just when you think you've figured out where this story is headed, Dolly takes a turn that leaves Jimmy completely speechless. Can you believe how bad people are?
And the poor thing just went crazy and it broke out of the of the pin [music] and it started toward Sevirville cuz Pigeon Forge is about 8 miles from Sevirville and it just ran all the way down, you know, and it was just going down there and then, you know, all of a sudden it just fell over. Oh, and dead. No, it was out of gas.
Dolly's stories may be larger than life, but one thing about her is actually quite small, and she's never been shy about admitting it. In fact, being short comes with one very specific rule, and Dolly's more than happy to follow it. Well, I'm tacky as anybody at home.
You know, we [laughter] all we all have our comfort zone and everybody's comfort zone is different. But I do wear the shoes. I'm so used to wearing them.
I loved high heels before I knew I was even going to be short. So, but I'll work it. [laughter] And this is where Dolly's beauty [music] routine takes a turn nobody saw coming because back in 2004 on Ellen, she revealed just how serious she was about never being caught without her glam.
But the reason she gave for keeping that makeup on overnight, that's the part that makes this story completely dolly. Do you ever not wear makeup? Well, I do.
Uh, but I would never go outside the house unless it would have to. Well, you know, it's like I I clean in my face, but [music] I usually try to wear a little makeup, especially when I'm in California with all the earthquakes. I always leave my makeup on at night.
And I do I leave a wig on a lamp post or somewhere nearby so case I have to be rushed out in the street and the news are there. You know, the news people are there like every day. Every day.
And how long does it take you to put makeup on? Are you down to like a science? Not long.
It's I'm down to a science. I wear the same makeup in daytime as I do at night. Dolly came from having almost nothing to building an empire most people could only dream of.
Yet somewhere along the way, she discovered something money could never quite buy. And the way she talks about it here says everything. People always say, "Why don't you retire?
" I said, "And do what? " I mean, what? What does that even mean?
Sit on your pile of money and awards. Do that. I don't care.
I always count my [music] blessings more than I count my money. I don't work for money. Never did.
I just wanted it was the arts. It was the job. I love the work and I've done well and I'm thankful for it.
Everybody loves hearing something good about themselves. It's human nature. Dolly, however, has a way of taking that simple truth somewhere completely unexpected.
And this time, her honesty lands harder than this interviewer was ready for. I think I may have said that you're you're a living legend, but I'm just wondering what you'd like people to be saying about you. Say in a 100 years time.
100 years from now, what I'd like people to say is, "Dang, she looks good for her age. [laughter] jokes are not near as funny as most of the boobs that tell them, [cheering] [applause] but I always also say that people are always talking about my boobs and I happen to have a nice ass. That kind of honesty didn't come out of nowhere.
It was shaped long before Dolly ever became a household name. And one unlikely woman from her childhood would leave an impression Dolly carried with her for years. And and it was not allowed to wear makeup and the hair.
And the most beautiful girl woman I had ever seen in my life lived. We didn't go to town that much, but when I would, I would go to see her because she had these long red fingernails. She wore bright lipstick.
She had peroxide blonde hair, wore tight clothes, short. And I thought she is the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. And my mother said, "Oh, she's just trash.
She's just a and I thought that's what I want to be when I grow up. [laughter] When it comes to feeling good about yourself, Dolly Parton doesn't exactly wait around for compliments to arrive. She knows how to hype herself up just fine.
And [music] the way she does it takes her zero filter attitude to a whole new level. I wanted to be noticed. I wanted to be seen.
I wanted to [music] give. And I wanted to get, you know, back all that that love and stuff. And I think that's also been the key thing that has [music] made me enjoy it.
I love the attention. I think I'm tough if I need to be. I think I'm strong when I need to be.
See, I don't try to be tough about [music] anything but myself. I'm certainly not a but I like to think that I got some sense. Like I've always said, I [music] got some brains under this wig and a heart beneath these boobs.
For Dolly, every morning was another chance to dream a little bigger. Even after she had already achieved more than most could imagine, that restless spirit never really left her. And what she chose to keep chasing says something beautiful about the woman behind the legend.
I wake up with new dreams every day. It doesn't matter how old I am or how old I'm not. It's like my life is new every day.
I always ask God to guide me and lead me and and give me new things to do and to to be able to do things that will help the masses, that will lift up mankind, not just for myself. And so I love being able to get out and perform and make people happy and it makes me happy as well. So if you can kind of do that, it's kind of like a wheel.
Dolly lived a life big enough to fill generations. Yet, she always seemed to care more about what she left in people's hearts than what she left behind on paper. And now that her story's reached its final chapter, the way she wanted to be remembered carries a little more weight.
What do you want your legacy to be? Well, I want to be remembered as a a good person if I can be. I want to be remembered as a giving person, a talented person if I am talented or at least to to say that I made the most of like [music] there's a great saying I loved.
I think it was uh Mother Teresa has said, "When I stand before God, I want to be able to say, Lord, I used everything you gave me. " And I love that [music] saying. And so that's kind of how I feel.
I just want to, you know, just say that I've done everything I could with everything I had. That wasn't the only time Dolly was asked what she hoped people would remember about her. A year later, the question came around again, and this time, her answer revealed just how deeply she understood the kind of mark she wanted to leave.
Do you ever think about what you'd want your legacy to be? There's a lot of wonderful things that's happened to me. I think one of the things I'm proudest of is the Imagination Library, but of course I'm a I'm a writer and a singer and I'm in both songwriter hall of fame, [music] you know, the the big boy and the country music and the other one up there with the big guys.
I'm just trying to leave as much stuff. I just want to see how much I can do in a lifetime. [music] And I've been blessed and I've been lucky and I don't take any of that for granted, but I just wanted to be remembered.
Well, [music] Dolly Parton, 1946 to 2026. And somehow a legacy like hers never really says goodbye.
