Dolly Parton: This Week's Ungirdled Celebrity!

There are not many people who can say they’ve been nominated for the Grammy, the Oscar, the Emmy AND the Tony awards, but Dolly Parton can!  (Didn’t you love her in 9 to 5 and Steel Magnolias?)  She is the most successful woman in country music, with a record 25 number one singles, and a record 42 top 10 country albums.  She is the only artist to have scored a number one country single in each of the past four decades!  Talk about staying power!  She is also an accomplished songwriter, producer, and businesswoman.  Her production company is responsible for the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series and the movies, Father of the Bride I and Father of the Bride II among others.

You may ask how Dolly can be an Ungirdled woman with the wigs, the make-up and the wardrobe.  She’s Ungirdled because she lives life on her own terms, is honest and hard-working, a self-made woman who is smart as a fox and adheres to the golden rule.  Dolly came from humble beginnings and worked hard for all her success, and she has never forgotten where she came from.  She’s put a lot of money where her roots are. She is co-owner of the company that runs the Dollywood theme park, a dinner theatre and a water park in her hometown of Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.  These businesses have helped to greatly revitalize the area.

Dolly is also a very dedicated and active philanthropist, working hard and donating generously to support literacy programs, the American Red Cross, HIV/AIDS charities, cancer research and care centers and many other causes.

Dolly was born January 19, 1946, and has been married to Carl Dean since 1966!

Here are some favorite, Ungirdled quotes from Dolly (some of these are pure gold!):

"If you don't like the road you're walking, start paving another one."

"It's a good thing I was born a girl, otherwise I'd be a drag queen."

"Leave something good in every day."

"I hated school. Even to this day, when I see a school bus it's just depressing to me. The poor little kids."

"Plastic surgeons are always making mountains out of molehills."

“I never let a rhinestone go unturned”

"The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain."

"We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails."

"You'd be surprised how much it costs to look this cheap!"

“I'm not going to limit myself just because some people won't accept the fact that I can do something else.”

"I look just like the girls next door... if you happen to live next door to an amusement park."

“Find out who you are and do it on purpose.”

“Storms make trees take deeper roots.”

I think you'll enjoy this video of Dolly singing "Better Get To Livin'" which also features Ungirdled celebrity Amy Sedaris!  Has a great message!  Give it a minute by clicking here.  I think it'll make your day a little happier. 

Katharine Hepburn: This Week's Ungirdled Celebrity!

I don’t have to tell you who Katharine Hepburn is.  As an Ungirdled woman, you probably love her too.  She is the ultimate Ungirdled woman.  She holds the record for most “Best Actress” Oscars with four wins out of 12 nominations.  She is also the winner of an Emmy, two Tonys, and eight Golden Globes!  I think my all time favorite Hepburn picture is a tie between The Philadelphia Story and Guess Who's Coming To Dinner.  If you haven’t seen either of these, rent them as soon as you can.  I can’t imagine you wouldn’t enjoy them too.  We lost Katharine in 2003 at age 96.  She lives on in so many wonderful films, her fascinating autobiography Me and a biography Kate Remembered by longtime friend A. Scott Berg who she asked to write her story and publish it after her death.  Both are great summer reads.  Katharine lived a truly Ungirdled life.  

Here are some favorite Ungirdled quotes from Katharine:

• I never realized until lately that women were supposed to be the inferior sex.

• Life is to be lived. If you have to support yourself, you had bloody well better find some way that is going to be interesting. And you don't do that by sitting around wondering about yourself.

• Acting is the most minor of gifts and not a very high-class way to earn a living. After all, Shirley Temple could do it at the age of four.

• If you always do what interests you, at least one person is pleased.

• If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun.

• Enemies are so stimulating.

• Loved people are loving people.

• Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get — only what you are expecting to give — which is everything. What you will receive in return varies. But it really has no connection with what you give. You give because you love and cannot help giving.

• If you want to sacrifice the admiration of many men for the criticism of one, go ahead, get married.

• Plain women know more about men than beautiful women do.

• If you’re given a choice between money and sex appeal, take the money. As you get older, the money will become your sex appeal.

• Life can be wildly tragic at times, and I've had my share. But whatever happens to you, you have to keep a slightly comic attitude. In the final analysis, you have got to not forget to laugh.

• Life is hard. After all, it kills you.

• I don't think that work ever really destroyed anybody. I thik that lack of work destroys them a hell of a lot more.

•  Dressing up is a bore. At a certain age, you decorate yourself to attract the opposite sex, and at a certain age, I did that. But I'm past that age.

•  Never complain. Never explain.

Click here for a short clip that shows Kate at her Ungirdled best in Guess Who's Coming To Dinner!  Links to two books I thoroughly enjoyed:

 

Lily Tomlin - Ungirdled Celebrity Of The Week!

Ungirlded Women have fond memories of watching Lily’s characters Ernestine, Edith Ann and others on the sketch comedy show Laugh-In.  Since then, Lily has delighted us in many film roles, including those in 9 to 5, Nashville, All of Me, I Heart Huckabees and many others.  She has appeared in numerous TV specials and series including roles in Murphy Brown, The West Wing and Desperate Housewives.  She is the winner of a Tony, an Emmy and a Grammy and has been nominated for an Academy Award.  She is also an accomplished writer and producer.

Born in Detroit on September 1, 1939, Lily was obviously Ungirdled even as a young girl.  I’ll never forget reading that when she and her younger brother Richard were growing up, they decided the living-room sofa would look better as a sectional. Being practical as well as Ungirdled and crafty, Lily and Richard reportedly took a saw to the family couch and divided it into three pieces.

Some favorite quotes from Lily:

• Don't be afraid of missing opportunities. Behind every failure is an opportunity somebody wishes they had missed.

• For fast-acting relief try slowing down.

• I always wondered why somebody doesn't do something about that. Then I realized I was somebody.

• I like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about besides homework.

• I worry that the person who thought up Muzak may be thinking up something else.

• If truth is beauty, how come no one has their hair done in the library?

• If you read a lot of books you are considered well read. But if you watch a lot of TV, you're not considered well viewed.

•  Ninety eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hardworking, honest Americans. It's the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then, we elected them.

•  Reality is the leading cause of stress among those in touch with it.

•  The road to success is always under construction.

•  The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat.

•  Why is it that when we talk to God we're said to be praying, but when God talks to us we're schizophrenic?

Click here for quick, lovely walk down memory lane with Lily

Whoopi Goldberg: Ungirdled Celebrity Of The Week!

Ungirdled hair, Ungirdled words, Ungirdled heart, Ungirdled talent.  There are so many reasons to love Whoopi Goldberg: her many wonderful roles in movies (over 100) and on Broadway, her comedy routines, her charitable work, and her enviable patience with the yet-to-be-Ungirdled Elisabeth Hasselback on The View. 

Whoopi is one of only ten people who can claim the honor of winning an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony Award, as well as a Daytime Emmy Award!  She was the first woman to host the Academy Awards solo!  She also has her own production company.

For decades, Whoopi has tirelessly worked for a host of charitable and community causes including AIDS, children’s issues, healthcare, homelessness and substance abuse.  She has said, “I fear waking up one morning and finding out that my life was for nothing. We’re here for a reason. I believe a bit of the reason is to throw little torches out to lead people through the dark.”

More Ungirdled Quotes From Whoopi:

“Normal is in the eye of the beholder.”

“Normal is nothing more than a cycle on a washing machine”

“. . . what I am is a humanist before anything -- before I'm a Jew, before I'm black, before I'm a woman. And my beliefs are for the human race -- they don't exclude anyone.”

“An actress can only play a woman. I'm an actor, I can play anything.”

“That's the thing about Mother Nature, she really doesn't care what economic bracket you're in.”

"I am an artist; art has no color and no sex."

"I don't have pet peeves, I have whole kennels of irritation."

Things you might not know about Whoopi:

•  She was born “Caryn Elaine Johnson" on November 13, 1955. She got the name “Whoopi Cushion” as a child due to a problem with flatulence.  She later shortened the name to “Whoopi,” and made Whoopi Goldberg her legal name, honoring the Jewish side of her family (and, obviously, her ability to pass wind!  You gotta love the Ungirdledness of that!) 

•  She’s been diagnosed as having both dyslexia and ADHD.

•  Before making it big in the entertainment industry, Whoopi worked as a bricklayer, a make-up artist at a mortuary and a bank teller.

Click here for a small taste of Whoopi's Ungirdled style during a recent interview on The View in which she (rightfully, it seems) calls Glenn Beck “a lying sack of dog mess.”  You can't get a whole lot more Ungirdled than that.  

This week’s Ungirdled Celebrity: Amy Sedaris!

For those of you who don’t know Amy, where do I start?  She has co-starred in a number of movies including Elf, Maid in Manhattan, and Shrek).  She has appeared in a ton of TV series including Sex And The City, My Name Is Earl, Rescue Me and The Closer.  She is a favorite guest on Letterman, Conan, and many other talk shows.  She is the little sister of David Sedaris, and she is the author of one of my favorite books: I Like You:  Hospitality Under The Influence.  If you don’t have a copy, I highly recommend you change that, and lucky you, it recently came out in paperback!  (Although I think the hardcover edition is worth every penny as it is so visually stunning, I consider it a coffee table book.)

If you are an Ungirdled woman in her 40s or 50s, you will delight in the photos.  Everything was shot in Amy’s apartment and, she is an accomplished collector of all things retro.  Flipping through this beautiful book is like taking a trip back through your childhood.  The copy and features are HILARIOUS (Amy demonstrating how to properly put on pantyhose made me cry I was laughing so hard) and there are lots of really useful tips and recipes included.  It’s a terrific girlfriend gift.  It's also just been announced Amy will follow up this book with one devoted to crafts!  

 

Here are just a few of the things (and there are MANY) that make Amy Ungirdled (discover more on her website):

•  She taught Martha Stewart how to make a grilled cheese sandwich in prison by using an iron... in 2001. She also gave Martha a squirrel-shaped wooden bong which she carved herself, and told her it was packed.

•  She makes seasonal hats for her taxidermied squirrel, Winks, such as a pilgrim's buckle hat for Thanksgiving, and Indian headdress for an Indian summer.  (I loved learning this as I do the same for a very large wooden flamingo at our house!)

•  She collects fake food (plaster meat and vegetables), but won't buy it online because she considers that "cheating."  (She’s absolutely right.  It is.)

•  At an Obie awards reception, when Ethan Hawke told Amy that she had the prettiest dress at the party, she told him, "It looks better on the floor. You could talk me out of it."

Here, for your viewing enjoyment, is a link to just one of the many clips of Amy on David Letterman on YouTube.  Watching her is like having two cocktails without the calories!  I like that in a person.  You can see tons of clips of Amy on lots of other shows there, too.  You can even see her making Chelsea Handler a bit uncomfortable (how Ungirdled do you need to be to do that?!) in a clip where, while being interviewed by Chelsea, Amy produces a felt replica (beautifully crafted by Amy’s designer pal Todd Oldman) of a female hoo-ha that she uses to demonstrate how to properly clean said area for Chelsea’s audience.  I told you she is full of handy tips!

Just One Of Many Clips From Amy On Letterman 

Ungirdled Celebrity Of The Week:

Paula Deen is the Ungirdled Celebrity of the week!  (You’ll see why she was chosen for this particular week tomorrow.)

Most of you know Paula is an accomplished restaurateur, cookbook author and Emmy-winning star of several Food Network shows.  She even co-starred in the movie Elizabethtown with Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst!  She has recently announced she will have her own syndicated talk show beginning in September 2009.  You can read and learn more about Paula at her website.  If you read her autobiography, It Ain't All About the Cookin', you’ll learn, in Ungirdled (and I mean UNGIRDLED) detail all about her Ungirdled ways.  The really cool thing about Paula (and there are many cool things) is that she is a self-made woman who achieved all her success later in life.  She survived some turbulent times (again, read her book for more – wikipedia also has an informative entry on her) and she came out a fighter, earning every bit of her many achievements.  Here’s what makes Paula Ungirdled:

 •  She ain’t afraid of no stinkin’ calories.  Or fat.  Or cholesterol.  Or added sugar.  When asked if she’s worried about the generous amount of fat and calories in her dishes (“a stick of butter, always a stick of butter,” is an ingredient in most of her recipes), she is known to happily reply, “I’m your cook, not your doctor!”

•  She always seems determined to have the most fun of anyone in the room and makes it a party wherever she is.  She seems to genuinely like everyone she meets.

•  When asked what the worst part of being a celebrity is, she answered, “When you don't look your best and someone recognizes you and all you can do is say ‘Oh, crap’ and go on.”

•  Like me, she knows Harry Connick Jr. is all that AND a box of hot Krispy Kremes.  (OK, that doesn’t qualify her as Ungirdled so much as it does really,  really, really smart.)

•  She does what she wants to do, without worrying what people will say.  See the accompanying video clip for proof: (I choose this clip from many of her on YouTube because it is especially appropriate for this week on Ungirdled Passion.)

Click Here For Paula - Living With Ungirdled Passion!

Oh, YES SHE DID!

If you didn't catch her on The View earlier this year, check this out (about six minutes):

Paula Ungridled on The View!

Don't you wish she was your neighbor!