Dolly Parton to Appear in Final Season of ‘Grace and Frankie,’ Netflix Confirms
Article Highlights:
- Dolly Parton has been trying guest star on Grace and Frankie for years
- Which episode the Queen of Country will appear in
- Reminiscing on the film that brought Parton, Jane Fonda, and Lily Tomlin together: 9 to 5
There’s been talk of Dolly Parton starring in Grace and Frankie well before the final season of the show. Fans have made it known that they would love to see the the 9 to 5 co-stars reunite on the small screen. And now, Netflix has confirmed that it’s going to happen. The Queen of Country will appear as a guest star before the end of the seventh season.
Dolly Parton has been trying to appear on ‘Grace and Frankie’ for years
Even before Netflix confirmed the “Eagle When She Flies” singer’s upcoming appearance on the show, Lily Tomlin hinted at her 9 to 5 co-star’s guest star.
“We’ve got a great role for her this time,” Tomlin said of Parton in an interview with Today. “I think she will do it. I’m just hoping she will. And we hope she can do it and we think she can do it by remote.”
In an interview with Lorraine back in Feb., Parton spoke about trying to work out her Grace and Frankie guest star.
“I’ve been trying to do Grace and Frankie for years,” she said. “We worked so well together on 9 to 5, it’s a crazy wonderful show.”
At the time, the biggest hindrance seemed to be COVID-19.
“We’ve been trying to write me in somehow,” she said. “So when it’s safe for us to actually do a production when they’re back, I’ll probably get around to doing that.”
Finally, on Nov. 5, Netflix confirmed that Parton would be involved in one of the episodes in season seven.
When will the ‘Jolene’ singer be on ‘Grace and Frankie’?
After filming was disrupted by the pandemic, Grace and Frankie only released the first group of its season seven episodes in August. According to Deadline, the remainder of the episodes are set to drop in early 2022. So far, the “Light of a Clear Blue Morning” singer has yet to appear in season seven.
Netflix didn’t announce the exact date or episode that Parton will be on the show. We also don’t know what her role is. But her IMDb page states she’ll be in the fifth episode of the season.
Dolly Parton, Lily Tomlin, and Jane Fonda first worked together on ‘9 to 5’
Fans of the three actors are particularly excited to see them reunite because they worked so well together in the 1980 film 9 to 5, which was actually Parton’s big screen debut. In her 2020 book, Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics, the singer wrote about the experience.
“Lily and Jane were very helpful,” wrote Parton. “[…] Jane said, ‘Don’t worry about acting. Just be yourself. The director will tell you what to do, and you’ll learn.’ […] They all knew it was my first time in the movies, so they were all helpful. People are generous.”
Fonda told Playgirl in 1981 that Parton’s “spirit and goodness made everybody else come up a bit, and that the film was a little better because of [her].”
Tomlin spoke highly of her then-newbie co-star as well.
“She was wonderful; she’s so quick, so natural, dazzling, down-to-earth, bigger than life,” Tomlin told Rolling Stone in 1980. “She’s just the quintessential . . . whatever it is. She ended up giving me lines. You could have replaced Jane or me in a more satisfactory way, but once you got the idea for Dolly to be in her role, it would have been more of a disappointment to not have her.”
We can’t wait to see Parton, Fonda, and Tomlin reunite on the final season of Grace and Frankie — a perfect sendoff for the well-loved show.
