Dolly Parton Was a Trailblazer in Business, Too

“Well, can you believe — 40 years here?” Dolly Parton said last year after she emerged from a giant pink cake to celebrate the anniversary of Dollywood, her popular theme park.“Hooray for Dollywood, right?”Dollywood, in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., has served as a beacon for all-things-Dolly for decades, the centerpiece of a business empire that preceded most of its celebrity peers.

Yet beyond the roller coasters, bumper cars and country music museum, Ms.Parton’s legacy — she died on Tuesday, at 80 — includes setting the foundations for what a modern celebrity brand could become.Over her six-decade singing and entertainment career, Ms.

Parton built a range of enterprises that spanned retail, hospitality, food, publishing and consumer goods, long before the age of influencers and the products they now sell.A musical about her life is set to begin previews on Broadway in December.Celebrity brands have proliferated, whether they’re underwear sold by a reality television star, tequila backed by an Academy Award-winning actor or sneakers from a basketball legend.

It has become common to see a celebrity’s name on a new funding announcement for a start-up.Decades earlier, Ms.

Parton began formulating a plan that would transform her from a country singer to a cultural mainstay whose businesses are worth hundreds of millions of dollars.Ms.Parton got her start as a businesswoman in the 1960s when she teamed up with two of her uncles, Bill and Louis Owens, on Owepar, a publishing company that controlled and managed their music and copyrights.In 1982, Ms.

Parton told Barbara Walters in an interview that she had a vision that looked past music and entertainment, and said she wanted to keep close control of her intellectual property.Average people wanted a piece of her, and she could provide that through new businesses.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verif...