Lily Tomlin still remembers the day Dolly Parton walked onto the set of 9 to 5. In an exclusive interview with E! News, the 87-year-old looked back on making the 1980 comedy with Parton and Jane Fonda, and on what made her costar impossible to forget.
Highlights
- Lily Tomlin recalled Dolly Parton arriving on the 9 to 5 set with the entire script memorized.
- Tomlin said Parton was ‘great’ and described her as ‘totally innocent’ and ‘extremely well endowed.’
- The interview came about two months after Parton died at 80 following a brief battle with cancer.
Tomlin spoke to E! News’ Will Marfuggi alongside her friend George Schlatter, the Laugh-In creator. Both appear in the upcoming documentary Sock It to Me: The Legend of George Schlatter.
Lily Tomlin has known loss and longevity in equal measure. She is still close with Schlatter more than 50 years after starring on Laugh-In, and she told E! how grateful she was to have had Parton as a friend for so many years.
Schlatter, 96, returned the warmth. He said of meeting Tomlin, “You just walked in the room and the room lit up.” He called her a major part of his life, his career and his everything.
Two friendships, both measured in decades. Tomlin spoke about them in the same sitting.
Parton Memorized Entire Script for 9 to 5
Parton arrived on set with the whole script memorized. Not her scenes. The whole thing.
She did it, Tomlin explained, because she thought she was supposed to. Then she “hit with all chargers blazing,” as Tomlin put it to E! News. Tomlin and Fonda, two seasoned performers, looked at each other and said the same thing: Dolly is so great.
“And she was. She was great,” Tomlin said.
Out of everything Tomlin could have said about a film made more than four decades ago, she picked the memorized script. She did not lead with a famous scene or a box office number. She led with Parton, new to the set, arriving over-prepared, and with Tomlin and Jane Fonda trading a look. Colleagues tend to remember exactly that, long after the work itself blurs. Who showed up. Who took it seriously when nobody asked them to.
Tomlin Describes Parton as ‘Great’ and ‘Totally Innocent’
Asked what being close to the “Jolene” singer meant to her, Tomlin went straight to one word. “It meant the innocence that was totally Dolly,” she told E!
She praised “the absolute perfection that she brought to her look,” and then widened it. Her everything. Tomlin said it came out of something brilliantly thought out and wholesome, because Parton was that person, and that she delivered the essence of it to her audience.
Then the joke, delivered with obvious affection. Tomlin quipped that Parton was “extremely well endowed” and somehow “totally innocent” at the same time. A feat, as Tomlin framed it, that only Parton could have pulled off.
Old friends get to talk like that. The teasing and the reverence sit side by side, and neither cancels the other out. Tomlin’s description is funny and tender in the same breath, which is usually how people speak about someone they knew well rather than someone they admired from a distance.
The Interview Comes Two Months After Parton’s Passing
Parton passed away at 80 following a brief battle with cancer, according to E! Online. Tomlin’s interview came a little over two months later.
Two months after Dolly Parton passed away at 80, Tomlin spoke about her in the past tense. She had worked beside Parton and stayed her friend. The memory she reached for first was a script learned cover to cover. Parton believed she was supposed to do it, and she arrived on the 9 to 5 set ready.
Sock It to Me: The Legend of George Schlatter will be available to rent or buy on all digital platforms beginning Dec. 8. Schlatter described his years with Tomlin as “a magical, magical moment.” Lily Tomlin, it seems, has had more than one.
Related: Dolly Parton Opens Up: The Untold Story of 57 Years of Marriage Revealed · Bride-to-Be Criticized as a ‘Red Flag’ for Swiftly Grabbing Engagement Ring Mid-Proposal · Woman’s Hilarious Twist on ‘Jolene’ Lyrics Goes Viral, Leaving the Internet in Stitches · Demi Lovato Addresses Rumors that She is Engaged to Beau Jutes
Sources: E! Online
