Dolly Parton Gushes She’s Been ‘Fortunate’ To Have A Successful Career Ahead Of Her 73rd Birthday

As Dolly Parton makes plans to celebrate her 73rd birthday on Jan. 19, she can’t help but be moved by her personal journey. “I’ve been fortunate to live long enough to see that I have made it,” she previously told AARP The Magazine. “Some people say that I’ve been an inspiration.”

She hopes her next big project will allow her to share even more of herself with fans. “I’m thinking about doing my life in many colors,” the star previously confided to Deadline and said she envisions creating an autobiographical film like Loretta Lynn’s Coal Miner’s Daughter. “I have so many stories about my life in show business as a country kid trying to make it,” Dolly explained. “I think there’s a lot of good stuff in that.”

Growing up in an Appalachian Mountains tin-roof shack, Dolly, the fourth of 12 kids, never doubted show business was her destiny. “We used to come down to Nashville in [my uncle Bill’s] rickety car,” she recalled to AARP of her teen years trying to get a record contract. “We’d clean up in service stations. I’d wash my hair in those old, cold sinks and put my makeup on in the mirrors in the car.”

Her eagerness to explore the sorrows and triumphs she’s known keeps Dolly popular today — and gives her more to write about. Following her success with 2015’s TV movie Coat of Many Colors, Dolly is producing an eight-part Netflix series based on her songs called Dolly Parton’s Heartstrings: Stories of the Soul.

Meanwhile, it’s likely that “Girl in the Movies,” a tune she co-wrote for the film Dumplin,’ will earn her a third Oscar nomination. There’s also a sequel to 9 to 5, her hit 1980 comedy with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, in the works. “I’m not going to run out of stuff to do,” Dolly said with a laugh to Deadline. “I’m going to have a job as long as I live, which I hope is a long time.”

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