More than two decades before Shania Twain riled up Nashville with her belly-baring outfits, a cleavage-happy bottle blonde named Dolly Parton was rewriting the rules for country singers, using her Tennessee mountain roots to inspire ballads of love and endurance while wowing the cowpokes with her skin-tight outfits and sky-high stilettos.

But the climb to country queendom wasn't easy: Parton faced far more than boob jokes as she rose from variety-show eye candy to music legend. Before the new millennium would dawn, Parton would have to conquer extreme poverty, depression, legal attacks, tabloid smears and plenty of other very public trials.

Dolly Parton has proven herself to be much more than just a country bumpkin gone good: A bona fide movie star, fashion icon and business powerhouse, this barely five-feet-two-inch hurricane is an all-out survivor.