C200 Beyond 9 to 5, Dolly Parton

Dolly Parton has a new series on Netflix called Heartstrings.  This is just another notch in her very successful acting-music career.

The starter for the series is her number #1 hit, Jolene, a country ballad of  a “hussy” trying to steal Dolly’s husband.  It debuted in 1973 and was a  surprise hit  as heavy metal (Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Black Sabbath) & country rock and roll (Poco, the Eagles. Rolling Stones (who played both sides of that bill) ) were battling for the top of the chart.  Jolene’s success showed the American appetite for heartfelt ballads had yet to abate, and fifty years later is still strong.

Smoky Mountain Songbird

Dolly Rebecca was born January 19, 1948 in Pittman Center, Tennessee in the Great Smoky mountains.  She was  the fourth of twelve children. Her father was a tobacco farmer, traditionally a good cash crop and perhaps is why her Sun is right on the Aquarius cusp :  Capricorn is the tobacco, a lazy waste of time, that eventually just ends up in smoke. 

But that Sun has lots of company in her chart, including the ruler of her chart right next to it, and business minded Mercury right at the end of its orb.  

Trademarking Dolly

While Venus in Taurus gives a lovely and distinctive voice.  It also rules money & acquisitions (Dollywood), curvaceous figures, and luxuriant hair.

Dolly’s twosome  really live up to their nickname of Dolce and Gabbana, as she has them insured for $600,000.  Their prominence in both her appearance and popular culture inspired the name for the first genetically created sheep cloned from a mammary gland no less. 

Both sheep and bulls (Taurus is her ascendant) are herbivore mammals under the suborder Ruminantia.  This means they are even-toed ungulates (hoofed)  animals with  four-chambered stomachs allowing them to graze and enjoy the outdoors.

While her luxuriant hair  is obviously all  wigs, like  the other singer icon Cher, they are nonetheless still part of her public ensemble  and hence trademark (Mercury) identifying a  very singular Dolly Parton.

An hourglass pattern

Ironically, Dolly’s planetary pattern is an hourglass, perhaps here we see in a microcosm, what is above idealized below, with her very public half — that ninth house– being the showcase to her hard work, business savvy and innate talent (second and sixth houses).  And it does not hurt that her Part of Fortune 22 Sagittarius 27 is conjunct the Arabian part of Material Benefit.

Dolly’s  Mysterious Marriage

Rumours to the contrary, she has been married to the mysterious and quite good looking dark-haired Carl Thomas Dean since 30 May 1966 and like in her public life, Carl appears in her chart in the empty seventh house showing how little we know about him. 

Since Scorpio dominates her opportunities and relationship with others in the 7th house (its lord Mars in the third opposite her ever acquisitive Venus in the ninth), we think she is quite happy with that arrangement.  This makes her always the star of the show & Carl is just someone for people to talk about  or with Jolene someone to inspire a hit..

The couple has no children, though Dolly has said she has helped raise her younger siblings, — the Moon in its native fourth but in Leo showing her need to nurture but not necessarily with warmth.  For while the Leo Moon wants to be generous and share their wealth, they put too many strings on its purchase (mars in the third house),  and the recipients often find the price too high or her largesse is given more from duty than generosity of spirit.

The same is true for her philanthropic endeavours, here shown by Pluto on the fourth cusp.  Here again, her generous spirit is questioned — inconjunct to tax-aware Mercury in the ninth..  Unfortunately is part of Dolly’s problem — all her riches and generosity and happy marriage are always questioned with the worst of reasons (Pluto sextile Neptune)  given.

That said, her fans are legion,:   they  buy every tune, watch her movies (9-5 with her nailing the theme song got her an  Oscar nomination), and visit Dollywood by the million.  You can knock Dolly, but she takes every blow with grace & aplomb,  and gets  more fans despite it.

This chart was vetted and  reviewed on 2 August 2022.  It was originally published on 7 December 2019.