While promoting her new show “Wolf Pack” on a recent episode of “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” the titular host asked “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” star Sarah Michelle Gellar about Dolly Parton’s involvement in the series. The actress responded:
“Yes, little known fact, the legend Dolly Parton was a producer. And, you know, we never saw her. We’d get Christmas gifts in the beginning that would have our name, and I’d think ‘She doesn’t know who I am.’ And then one day, somebody asked her about it, and she complimented the show and my performance. And I was like, ‘Oh, I can die now! Dolly Parton knows who I am and thinks I’m good.’ So, yeah, but I’m still here.”
Gellar added that Parton’s partner was Sandy Gallin and that they produced “Buffy.”
The 1992 film was produced by Sandollar Productions, a company founded in 1986 by Parton and Gallin. Under the name Sandollar Television, it was also one of several companies to produce the TV series, which ran from 1997-2003, and its spinoff “Angel,” which aired from 1999-2004. Gail Berman, who would later move over to Fox, was an executive at Sandollar at the time. She was the one who suggested bringing “Buffy” from the large screen to the small one. Berman and Gallin were credited as producers, but Parton’s name was absent.