God knows there were rhinestones and tattered lace, and we’d have to guess a fair amount of latex as well. When we come to consider two icons that died this week–and on the same day–Dolly Parton and Tim Curry (an odd pairing to be sure), we can as much consider their immense and unique talents as their sartorial influence and panache.
And what all that meant to so many people.
With both passing at the age of 80, the tributes to their long lives and careers are pouring and posting in, as we had to expect. Unlike Mr. Curry, Dolly was still pretty much working her craft, being seen in social situations (her last actual public appearance was two months ago at a ribbon-cutting for her truck stop, where she wore a blue and pink fringed dress and was a bubbly as ever) and playing a Vegas residency (which she recently had to cancel due to health reasons, we all now realize were more severe than anybody knew).
Curry, having suffered a stroke in 2012, leaving him wheelchair bound, was last seen in public attending the Rocky Horror Picture Show 50th Anniversary Spectacular Tour in NYC with other Rocky cast members.
As much remembered for her amazing array of self-penned songs, concerts, self-effacing T.V. appearances, Dolly Parton was also a passionate philanthropist; her Imagination Library only one of her good works. And if we want to have as much fun with Dolly as she seemed to have had about herself, we have to acknowledge the clothes, the wigs, the make-up and surely the rhinestones. Having famously remarked on more than one occasion: “You’d be surprised how much it costs to look this cheap!” the lady came across as anything but cheap, because of who she was. Attending the 58th Academy Of Country Music Awards in her silver fringed jumpsuit with shoulder pads; donning leather for her induction and performance at the 37th Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony; the many times we saw her in those rhinestone jumpsuits, all of Dolly’s personal couture moments accentuated what she once called her ‘backwards Barbie’ look, wearing “too much makeup, too much hair, but don’t be fooled by thinking that the goods aren’t all there.”
We could rifle through the many fantastic costumes Tim Curry wore across so many roles he played during his acting career, not to mention the fantastic prosthetics and make up he wore as the devil in Legend or the terrifying Pennywise in IT. But it is arguably his Dr. Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, from where Curry’s fashion legacy is most recognized. Reflecting on the legacy of this iconic role, which Curry played first for the stage version of Rocky, then reaching a much broader fan base in the Rocky movie, he said at the 50th that Rocky “…gives people permission to behave in a sexual way that they secretly want to, that’s a good thing.” His good Dr.’s transvestite style meant so much to a surely more closeted population back in the 70s when the movie was enjoying its first and infamous midnight movie run, as well as what Frank means to the LGBT+ community today.
Interestingly, Curry wore Dr. Frank’s infamous cheap Victorian corset backwards for his infamous, and dangerously sexy, look.
In celebrating both Tim Curry and Dolly Parton, we recognize the profound influence and pleasures they brought to so many, in so many ways.
