If there’s one word overused in the English language, it’s “icon.” It seems that everything and everybody is an icon, diluting the reference by its casual use. But there is one person that deserves that moniker, and that’s Dolly Parton — the icon we lost last month.

And unlike anybody else, she WAS an icon. She was always referred to as “Dolly” not as Parton — even though journalistic rules require reference by the last name. Folks simply couldn’t think of her as Parton. She was “Dolly” to everyone.

In 2000 I flew to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, to interview Dolly when she opened Dollywood. And after having interviewed around 2,000 celebrities, I found Dolly to be exactly what people thought she was: honest, candid, down-to-earth — a woman who never forgot her roots.

She was the epitome of the American dream, an individual who came from nothing and built an empire.

She told me that God was a partner in everything she did. She was 10 years old when she discovered Him. "I was kinda scared of God, but I knew that He was there and knew He was important. But I didn't see Him in the same way that everybody else did,” she said.

“I prayed a lot alone in this old, abandoned church and used to write songs there. And one day it was like a prayer of mine broke through. And it was when I found God for my personal self, what God meant to me personally. And I took that and gained strength from that and was never afraid of God after that and used him as my partner, my manager, producer.”

She said that after her career was blooming, she suffered a serious blowout.

“I'd been praying and was really angry at God ‘cause I felt he'd been my friend all this time, but I was very angry ‘cause I felt God had left me. But in truth, I had just allowed so many things to just distort me. I was angry and striking out at God. And when I was at the end of my rope, so to speak, I just woke up one morning and the answer was there. ‘You git up and git on with it and put it back together, and go on, or just get out,’” she recalled.

When she was 36, she told me she suffered an emotional crisis. “When I got fat, when I had some personal heartaches and personal things I was going through. It was a breakdown, it was certainly a teardown. I had to tear down in order to build back, so I wouldn't call it a breakdown as much as a teardown,” she said.

“I’d been the strongest, happiest person. It was time for me to make a turn because I’d been working all my life, Since I was 10, I’d been in show business. I think I’d gone so fast I finally hit a wall one day and God was saying, ‘You've got to start over. You need to make some changes.’ So I did. And so that was that.”

She was 13 when she landed her first break at The Grand ‘Ol Opry singing the George Jones’ song, “If You Want to Be My Baby.” She said, “I was scared the first time I walked in front of an audience, but my desire to do things has always been greater than my fear. And so I was, like, paralyzed, before you walk out. But as soon as they say your name it puts you in motion and as soon as you start walking, even to this day, I stand backstage and pace and do my prayers. I don't get stage fright, but you couldn’t be human and not get worked up.

“You don't know if your microphone's going to work, if your dress is going to pop, if you're going to remember your words or whatever. But there's a charm and a thrill and excitement in that too. It's like living on the edge sort of, but I like that.”

She said though she was frightened, “I knew momma and daddy and everybody was going to be back home listening on the radio. So I was thinking more about that. I thought, ‘They're not going to shoot me. They'll either like me or not.’ I always had an outgoing personality in that way where I would just leap before I looked a lot of times.’

Dolly said that it wasn’t money or fame that kept her going. “My life is good,” she said. “I've made enough money so I don't have to worry about that so much. And I really enjoy the journey, enjoy my life. I have to stay busy. It's not that I have to work for the money. But I never did work for the money. I just love the work, and I love the art, and the money always came.”

I ribbed her, claiming that her husband, Carl Dean, was fiction because he was never seen in public. Dean’s death preceded Dolly’s by a year and a half. At that point they had been married 34 years.

At that tease she replied, “Carl is out of the paving company. Now he does what he wants to. He buys and sells real estate. He likes to horse-trade — that's a country term for doing bargains.”

They were married 58 years. “It’s easy for us because I stay gone,” she told me.“We start getting on each other's nerves, I just say, ‘I’ve got business,’ and I just get the hell out of town. It's like, ‘If you won't get out of my face, I'll get out of yours.’

“So I really do think that the fact that we're not in the same business, and the fact that we're both independent and have a lot of respect and trust and love for one another — but one of the big keys for us being happy is that we don't feel like we have to be stuck in each other's face all the time.

“I couldn’t stand to live with anybody night and day, so I don't. He understands that and I understand it. He's the same way. If I’m home too long and he wants to get to his stuff, he'll just say, 'Ain't you got somewhere you need to go?' And I’ve always got something to do. So we have a good understanding.”

That pretty much summed up their marriage: she was shining on stage in rhinestones and glitter and he was outside in overhauls oiling the tractor.

NBC celebrates Hargitay

On Sept. 10 NBC will air three of Mariska Hargitay’s Emmy-generated performances on “Law & Order: SVU.” Hargitay has been luminating that character for 27 years.

The episodes will air from 8 to 10 p.m. with the 9 p.m. episode, “911,” the one that earned her the Emmy.

“The thing about the show That I’m so proud of and supportive of is that our show sheds light on an area that people tend to shy away from,” she says.

“Our show illuminates and brings to the forefront things that people are so ashamed of and scared to talk about. And one of the things, for me personally – it’s horrifying.

“How can people tune in to these shows every week? But I’ll tell you something: I walk down the street in New York City and people have grabbed me on the street or on the subway and cried and said, ‘Thank you so much for your show. I was molested by my piano teacher. I can talk about it now. . . ‘I think it’s so great to illuminate the darkness, whether it’s your personal life or on TV and that is good.”

The show will begin its 28th season on Oct. 8 at 9 p.m. and will stream the next day on Peacock.

Richard Gere delivers Dalai Lama movie

Actor Richard Gere has been a friend and ally of the Dalai Lama for more than 40 years. Now he’s executive producing the film, “Wisdom of Happiness” arriving on demand Sept. 15. The movie donates 90 minutes to the philosophy of the Dalai Lama regarding what they call “practical wisdom for finding peace, compassion, and hope in the midst of chaos.”

Hey, who wouldn’t want to find that? Gere’s latest endeavor is “Asymmetry” filming in New York and costarring Diana Silvers.

As for his own métier he says, “Actors, as a sort, are not particularly stable people. Stable people don’t go into this profession, which is basically to be somebody else. It's an element, most likely, of self-loathing in the impulse to act.

“Obviously that has to change of you're going to be healthy and have a life. But the original impulse is that: to long to be somebody else. You have to dislike yourself. There are people who are perfectly fine in their own skin and have no need to be anybody else. This is a broad statement about actors and isn't always true.”

‘MobLand’ fires again

“MobLand” returns shooting on Sept. 18 when the crime bosses, played by Helen Mirren and Pierce Brosnan, rally the family as rivals threaten their stranglehold on the area. The first season of “MobLand” can be viewed free on Pluto TV, Paramount+’s Free Content Hub and Paramount+ channels on Amazon, Apple and Roku, and Paramount+’s YouTube.

One of the actresses added to the new season is the sexy Lara Pulver whom you may remember for her role as the dominatrix in “Sherlock, Season 2.”

The British actress made a courageous decision when she packed up her old kit bag and headed for L.A.“It felt very much like I was putting everything in my work basket,” she says.“I was coming here primarily for work, and then had to find my life around it -- make new friends and I had to do mundane things like sort out car insurance.”

Adjusting required more than driving on the opposite side of the road, she says. “We speak the same language, but we sort of don’t. Culturally we are very different. And I think people will do that when they are 16, they will go to drama school in London or in another country or something like that. But to do it when I was 27-28, was big.”

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