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The Age
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
She fell in love with Dolly Parton at 5. Now she's the next best thing
Tricia Paoluccio was five years old and playing at her father's office in Modesto, California, when she first heard the song that would change her life. Dolly Parton's Here You Come Again came on the radio, and she excitedly demanded that someone type out the lyrics – these were the days before Google – so they wouldn't be lost to time. She memorised the song and it became a constant companion. Now the singer and actor is about to reprise her role as Parton in the show she has toured all over the United States and the UK. Here You Come Again, which opens in Melbourne next week, sees Paoluccio undergo a remarkable transformation to become the singer she has been imitating since childhood. Ironically, the distinctive voice she had perfected as a kid – 'that crack and that scratch and that vibrato' – had to be unlearned when Paoluccio moved to New York to become a professional actor. Her Broadway credits since then include Fiddler on the Roof and A View from the Bridge, while on screen she has had recurring roles on Homeland and Law and Order SVU. 'I actually had to take singing lessons to figure out my real voice, which is a little bit lower and huskier than Dolly's,' she says. And yet today, as she slips into effortless renditions of the country singer mid-sentence, the effect is nothing short of uncanny; reviews consistently note that Paoluccio is able to capture every one of Parton's vocal idiosyncrasies, right down to the syrupy, hiccupy laugh. It wasn't just Parton's ability to write a catchy melody that won Paoluccio's heart. 'I think it was her storytelling. I loved the stories of her songs, so my imagination went with the song. When I heard Two Doors Down, that's what I envisioned being an adult would be like. I'd live in an apartment building and there'd be a party down the hall. With Here You Come Again, I thought, 'Wait, she's going back to someone who plays games with her head?' Her writing really captured my imagination.' The Dolly Parton that Here You Come Again celebrates is the glamorous version that dominated the airwaves in the 1970s and '80s. Parton's fame dipped in the '90s, when a more minimalist aesthetic became fashionable, but Paoluccio loves that the singer always took that in her stride. 'She didn't let it get to her, didn't go into a state of depression and drinking and drugs and numbing yourself. She stayed creative, productive. She channelled her energy into becoming very philanthropic.' It was during this period that Parton's Dollywood Foundation embarked on a series of ambitious altruistic endeavours. She promised middle schoolers $US500 if they graduated from high school, reportedly reducing drop-out rates from 36 per cent to 6 per cent. Her Imagination Library provided free books to kids in order to encourage reading (its Australian arm has distributed more than 1 million here). 'She hasn't just had a lucky life. She grew up very, very poor, very challenged. She knows hardship, and that's why she has such great empathy and great heart for people. She's never forgotten her roots. I think that's a huge part of her appeal,' says Paoluccio. It's also the spirit that the musical aims to conjure: the story follows a 40-something Parton fan forced to move back in with his parents. In his dejected isolation, he is visited by his idol, who helps him navigate the mess of his life and find a way out the other end. The show had its genesis in a somewhat similar situation: as New York was going into lockdown, Paoluccio and her husband, Gabriel Barre, sequestered themselves in a little log cabin in the foothills of California ('no Wi-Fi, no TV, no washer-dryer'). Barre, a director and actor himself, was offered a small government grant to come up with a two-person show, and naturally thought of his wife's favourite singer. 'So we had this time and the space to do it. We didn't have permission to do it, but it didn't matter because all we were getting the money for was to write it.' Eventually, they staged a Zoom reading for their producers, and invited their lawyer to sit in. It turned out the lawyer loved it. It also turned out that he knew Dolly Parton's lawyer. 'He reached out, just because he believed in it. And then he called us up and said, 'Dolly watched the Zoom, read the script, loves it, loves Tricia, is giving us the worldwide rights to all of her music,' says Paoluccio. (Parton's take on her own legend, DOLLY: A True Original Musical, premieres in Nashville this month.) While Paoluccio had been singing Dolly Parton her whole life, she'd never attempted her speaking voice. 'So when this was actually going to happen, I worked with a very celebrated dialect coach named Eric Singer, and like a little scientist, we broke down her speaking voice and got this.' Later, they brought in additional band members and wrote them back-up singing parts as well as giving them dialogue for a range of characters off-stage, but the core of the story still focuses on Parton and her fan. Paoluccio's physical transformation is as surprising as her vocal gymnastics – sans hair, make-up and costume, you wouldn't recognise her as the same person who commands the stage. 'When I leave the stage door, people are like, 'Wait, are you Dolly?' I do not look like her in real life, but when I have the eyelashes and the wigs and the boobs and the wave, I look like her in that era.' Loading Judging by the number of online images purporting to be Parton without make-up, there's a good chance that the star herself bears little resemblance to her public persona. 'Dolly with or without make-up is the most beautiful woman in the world to me,' says Paoluccio. 'There is a famous quote from [American religious leader] Mary Baker Eddy that I love: 'The recipe for beauty is to have less illusion and more soul'. For me, Dolly is the queen of illusion but it is her soul that makes her so beautiful.' The show is co-written by Bruce Vilanch, an Emmy-award winner who has collaborated with the likes of Bette Midler, Whoopi Goldberg and David Letterman. 'He had written for Dolly, so he knew her very well,' says Paoluccio. 'And because we wanted a lot of pop cultural references, we wanted a comedy writer like him to help us with that.' After its post-pandemic premiere, Here You Come Again travelled everywhere in the US from Texas to Delaware and Connecticut before heading across the pond for a 31-city tour of the UK. 'We were shocked at how beloved Dolly is in the UK. I was told that the audiences were going to be very reserved and very formal and wouldn't stand up at the end. But I think that Dolly does something to the audience members where they felt like they had to let their hair down. They were so into it.' The show they saw wasn't exactly the same as the one that played US stages. Wherever it's been, Paoluccio and Barre have commissioned local writers to give it a makeover that speaks more directly to its audience. 'When we wrote it, we knew that this could be a show that toured the world. Anywhere that people love Dolly Parton, we could do the show. And we were willing and wanting to very much tell the story for the people who are buying those tickets.' The show might change as it travels, but its makers are adamant that one thing will stay the same. 'Dolly is Dolly,' says Paoluccio. 'And it's the greatest honour of my life. I'll never have a role that I love doing more than this.'
Sydney Morning Herald
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
She fell in love with Dolly Parton at 5. Now she's the next best thing
Tricia Paoluccio was five years old and playing at her father's office in Modesto, California, when she first heard the song that would change her life. Dolly Parton's Here You Come Again came on the radio, and she excitedly demanded that someone type out the lyrics – these were the days before Google – so they wouldn't be lost to time. She memorised the song and it became a constant companion. Now the singer and actor is about to reprise her role as Parton in the show she has toured all over the United States and the UK. Here You Come Again, which opens in Melbourne next week, sees Paoluccio undergo a remarkable transformation to become the singer she has been imitating since childhood. Ironically, the distinctive voice she had perfected as a kid – 'that crack and that scratch and that vibrato' – had to be unlearned when Paoluccio moved to New York to become a professional actor. Her Broadway credits since then include Fiddler on the Roof and A View from the Bridge, while on screen she has had recurring roles on Homeland and Law and Order SVU. 'I actually had to take singing lessons to figure out my real voice, which is a little bit lower and huskier than Dolly's,' she says. And yet today, as she slips into effortless renditions of the country singer mid-sentence, the effect is nothing short of uncanny; reviews consistently note that Paoluccio is able to capture every one of Parton's vocal idiosyncrasies, right down to the syrupy, hiccupy laugh. It wasn't just Parton's ability to write a catchy melody that won Paoluccio's heart. 'I think it was her storytelling. I loved the stories of her songs, so my imagination went with the song. When I heard Two Doors Down, that's what I envisioned being an adult would be like. I'd live in an apartment building and there'd be a party down the hall. With Here You Come Again, I thought, 'Wait, she's going back to someone who plays games with her head?' Her writing really captured my imagination.' The Dolly Parton that Here You Come Again celebrates is the glamorous version that dominated the airwaves in the 1970s and '80s. Parton's fame dipped in the '90s, when a more minimalist aesthetic became fashionable, but Paoluccio loves that the singer always took that in her stride. 'She didn't let it get to her, didn't go into a state of depression and drinking and drugs and numbing yourself. She stayed creative, productive. She channelled her energy into becoming very philanthropic.' It was during this period that Parton's Dollywood Foundation embarked on a series of ambitious altruistic endeavours. She promised middle schoolers $US500 if they graduated from high school, reportedly reducing drop-out rates from 36 per cent to 6 per cent. Her Imagination Library provided free books to kids in order to encourage reading (its Australian arm has distributed more than 1 million here). 'She hasn't just had a lucky life. She grew up very, very poor, very challenged. She knows hardship, and that's why she has such great empathy and great heart for people. She's never forgotten her roots. I think that's a huge part of her appeal,' says Paoluccio. It's also the spirit that the musical aims to conjure: the story follows a 40-something Parton fan forced to move back in with his parents. In his dejected isolation, he is visited by his idol, who helps him navigate the mess of his life and find a way out the other end. The show had its genesis in a somewhat similar situation: as New York was going into lockdown, Paoluccio and her husband, Gabriel Barre, sequestered themselves in a little log cabin in the foothills of California ('no Wi-Fi, no TV, no washer-dryer'). Barre, a director and actor himself, was offered a small government grant to come up with a two-person show, and naturally thought of his wife's favourite singer. 'So we had this time and the space to do it. We didn't have permission to do it, but it didn't matter because all we were getting the money for was to write it.' Eventually, they staged a Zoom reading for their producers, and invited their lawyer to sit in. It turned out the lawyer loved it. It also turned out that he knew Dolly Parton's lawyer. 'He reached out, just because he believed in it. And then he called us up and said, 'Dolly watched the Zoom, read the script, loves it, loves Tricia, is giving us the worldwide rights to all of her music,' says Paoluccio. (Parton's take on her own legend, DOLLY: A True Original Musical, premieres in Nashville this month.) While Paoluccio had been singing Dolly Parton her whole life, she'd never attempted her speaking voice. 'So when this was actually going to happen, I worked with a very celebrated dialect coach named Eric Singer, and like a little scientist, we broke down her speaking voice and got this.' Later, they brought in additional band members and wrote them back-up singing parts as well as giving them dialogue for a range of characters off-stage, but the core of the story still focuses on Parton and her fan. Paoluccio's physical transformation is as surprising as her vocal gymnastics – sans hair, make-up and costume, you wouldn't recognise her as the same person who commands the stage. 'When I leave the stage door, people are like, 'Wait, are you Dolly?' I do not look like her in real life, but when I have the eyelashes and the wigs and the boobs and the wave, I look like her in that era.' Loading Judging by the number of online images purporting to be Parton without make-up, there's a good chance that the star herself bears little resemblance to her public persona. 'Dolly with or without make-up is the most beautiful woman in the world to me,' says Paoluccio. 'There is a famous quote from [American religious leader] Mary Baker Eddy that I love: 'The recipe for beauty is to have less illusion and more soul'. For me, Dolly is the queen of illusion but it is her soul that makes her so beautiful.' The show is co-written by Bruce Vilanch, an Emmy-award winner who has collaborated with the likes of Bette Midler, Whoopi Goldberg and David Letterman. 'He had written for Dolly, so he knew her very well,' says Paoluccio. 'And because we wanted a lot of pop cultural references, we wanted a comedy writer like him to help us with that.' After its post-pandemic premiere, Here You Come Again travelled everywhere in the US from Texas to Delaware and Connecticut before heading across the pond for a 31-city tour of the UK. 'We were shocked at how beloved Dolly is in the UK. I was told that the audiences were going to be very reserved and very formal and wouldn't stand up at the end. But I think that Dolly does something to the audience members where they felt like they had to let their hair down. They were so into it.' The show they saw wasn't exactly the same as the one that played US stages. Wherever it's been, Paoluccio and Barre have commissioned local writers to give it a makeover that speaks more directly to its audience. 'When we wrote it, we knew that this could be a show that toured the world. Anywhere that people love Dolly Parton, we could do the show. And we were willing and wanting to very much tell the story for the people who are buying those tickets.' The show might change as it travels, but its makers are adamant that one thing will stay the same. 'Dolly is Dolly,' says Paoluccio. 'And it's the greatest honour of my life. I'll never have a role that I love doing more than this.'
Economic Times
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Economic Times
Mariska Hargitay breaks silence on paternity secret in Cannes premiere of ‘My Mom Jayne'
Reuters Mariska Hargitay unveils My Mom Jayne at the Cannes Film Festival, revealing her true biological father Nelson Sardelli while honoring Mickey Hargitay, the man who raised her At 61, Mariska Hargitay finds the truth was never her enemy When Mariska Hargitay walked the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival on May 17, few expected the Law and Order SVU actress to deliver one of the most personal revelations of her life on screen. Yet her new documentary My Mom Jayne , which is also her feature film directorial debut, tells the story she had kept hidden for over three film not only honors her late mother, Hollywood icon Jayne Mansfield, but also unearths a family secret that redefined her sense of identity. In front of an audience that gave a five-minute standing ovation, she shared what she first learned at 25, that the man who raised her, Mickey Hargitay, may not have been her biological father. Also read: Robert De Niro slams Donald Trump's foreign movie tariffs at Cannes, says 'art is a threat to the autocrats' Instead, that man was Nelson Sardelli, a former Las Vegas entertainer and, as Mariska reveals, her biological parent. The quiet weight of a hidden lineage Hargitay's emotional journey to the truth began with a confrontation. After learning of Sardelli's connection to her at age 25, she asked Mickey Hargitay about it. Despite his insistence that he was her father, they never discussed it again. Yet the knowledge quietly unraveled something inside her interview with Vanity Fair , Hargitay recalled watching Sardelli perform in Atlantic City five years later, then meeting him backstage. Overcome with emotion, Sardelli told her, 'I've been waiting 30 years for this moment.' Still, Hargitay, known for her fierce on-screen role as Olivia Benson, brought that same energy to the real-life moment: 'I was like, 'I don't want anything, I don't need anything from you.… I have a dad.' 'This tension between truth and loyalty defined her inner conflict. 'There was something about loyalty. I wanted to be loyal to Mickey,' she said, grappling with 'knowing I'm living a lie my entire life.' Also read: Cannes film festival 2025 update: Do not miss these top 10 must-watch movies this year A family rewritten, a bond restored The My Mom Jayne documentary doesn't just explore Mariska's own journey, but also features her half sisters who are also daughters of Sardelli and had been kept a secret from the world. 'These two women that I love so much — I made them secrets! It's so heartbreaking to me,' she said. The three women recently held a private screening in Las Vegas, where emotions ran high. 'They just wept and wept and wept,' Hargitay told Vanity Fair , underscoring how decades of silence gave way to a long-overdue connection. Despite the paternity revelation, Hargitay remains firm in her bond with Mickey. 'I grew up where I was supposed to, and I do know that everyone made the best choice for me,' she said. 'I'm Mickey Hargitay's daughter — that is not a lie.' Cannes honors a daughter's love letter to her past The Cannes screening was more than a film premiere, it was a public reckoning with a deeply personal history. Hargitay's husband, Peter Hermann, and their three children joined her for the emotional debut. Through it all, My Mom Jayne remains a tribute to the man she calls 'the one I was closest to on this planet.' Also read: He's killing us: Cannes dealmakers hate Trump's big Hollywood idea 'I wanted to unburden all of us,' she explained of her decision to tell her story now. In doing so, she created not only a piece of cinema, but a moment of healing.
Hindustan Times
26-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
Seema Sajdeh says she is scared to date again after divorce from Sohail Khan: 'I might get killed'
Fashion designer and reality TV star Seema Sajdeh has opened up on her dating life after divorce from actor Sohail Khan. Seema and Sohail were married from 1998-2022 and have a son together. In a recent interaction, Seema talked about how the idea of going out on dates after her divorce was scary for her. (Also read: Seema Sajdeh says 'something inside me died' after judge granted divorce from Sohail Khan: 'You feel so small at court') In a conversation with Janice Sequeria, Seema opened up about being single again and said that going on dates was the worst part of it all. She explained, 'Honestly, for me, it was the worst part. Everyone just told me, 'Arey, just go have good time, meet him, talk to him'. I watched too much of Law and Order SVU. And because I watched it too much, I started to think I might get killed. I am like, 'What if he turns out to be a serial killer?' Seema, best known for her appearance on the Netflix reality show Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives, added that she was 'old school' when it came to dating and did not even know what terms like 'situationship' meant. Recalling a faux pas she made on a dating app, Seema said, 'I went to a dating app only once because this was one night of drinking too much and a couple of friends… we got together. I registered on that app as per their suggestion and then when I woke up in the morning, I realised I had selected the gender for my partner as female. I thought they were asking me for my gender.' Before marrying Sohail Khan in 1998, Seema was engaged to businessman Vikram Ahuja. However, she ended that engagement. She and Sohail had an Arya Samaj wedding followed by a nikkah. They welcomed their first son, Nirvan, in 2000 and their second son, Yohan, in 2011. The couple eventually separated in 2022 after 24 years of marriage. Seema has since moved on and is now in a relationship with someone else.
Time of India
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Did you know Seema Sajdeh created a dating profile while being drunk and mistakenly selected partner's gender as female after Sohail Khan divorce?
After her divorce from Sohail Khan, Seema Sajdeh struggled with dating, once mistakenly selecting the wrong partner gender on a dating app while drunk. She later reunited with her ex-fiancé Vikram Ahuja, navigating their renewed relationship carefully due to their age and blended families, considering everyone's feelings involved. Seema Sajdeh 's divorce from Sohail Khan became a major topic during the third season of 'Fabulous Lives Vs Bollywood Wives'. Following their split, Seema has reunited with her ex-fiancé, Vikram Ahuja, whom she had left to marry Sohail. Their renewed relationship was unveiled in the show's finale. Prior to reconnecting with Vikram, Seema admitted she was hesitant to start dating again and even mistakenly signed up on a dating app for the wrong gender after a night of drinking. Struggles with Dating After Divorce In a conversation with Janice Sequeria, Seema expressed that dating after her divorce was the most difficult part for her. Despite encouragement from others to go out, have fun, and meet new people, she felt anxious. Having watched too much of Law and Order SVU, she became fearful, imagining worst-case scenarios like meeting someone dangerous, even worrying that her date could turn out to be a serial killer. A Humorous Dating App Mishap by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Top Packaging Trends In 2024 - Take A Look Now Packaging Machines | Search Ads Search Now Undo Seema admitted that she considers herself old school and wasn't even familiar with the term 'situationship.' She recounted a humorous experience when, after a night of heavy drinking with friends, she decided to try a dating app for the first time. Following their suggestion, she registered on the app but later realized that she had mistakenly selected the gender of her potential partner as female, thinking the app was asking for her own gender. Navigating Love with Vikram Ahuja However, Seema talked about her relationship with Vikram Ahuja during an interview with India Today that navigating their renewed romance has been challenging, especially because they are no longer young. She explained that both she and Vikram have children from previous relationships, which means there are many people involved. Moving on at an older age is different from when one is younger, as it requires considering the feelings and sentiments of everyone connected to the relationship.
