Top row, left to right: Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton.
Bottom: Dabney Coleman. Contents of coffee cup unknown.
December 19, 1980: The film 9 to 5 premieres, directed by Colin Higgins. The title refers to the traditional American workday, from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM.
Dolly Parton, until this point known as a singer and writer of country music, wrote and sang the theme song, which became a Number 1 hit 2 months later. She also starred, making it her 1st film. She played Doralee Rhodes, the secretary to Franklin M. Hart Jr. (Dabney Coleman), a Vice President at Consolidated Companies. (The Pacific Financial Center, at 800 West 6th Street in Los Angeles, stood in for the company's building and offices, but the title song's establishing shots were of downtown San Francisco.)
Doralee and Frank are both married, but that doesn't stop him from sexually harassing her. When she gets up the courage to tell him to forget it, he spreads a rumor that the two of them actually are having an affair, turning the rest of the office against her.
Jane Fonda, whose feminism gave her the idea for the film, was one of the its producers, and brought Dolly onto the project. She originally wanted it to be a drama, but with Dolly and Lily, she realized it had to be a comedy. She played Judy Bernly, who starts working for Consolidated. It's her first job since getting married, but she's just left her husband, who, like Frank wants to do, is cheating on her with his own secretary. She doesn't believe the rumor about Doralee and Frank, and sticks with her.
Lily Tomlin, also brought to the film by Jane, played Violet Newstead, a widow with 4 children. She's worked for Consolidated for 12 years, had trained Frank, is the secretarial staff's supervisor, and knows everything about the company, including the truth that Doralee wants nothing to do with Frank. But in spite of their past, Frank now treats her like a secretary, and not only gives a promotion she wanted to a man, but steals an idea from her. As the song Dolly sang goes, "They just use your mind, and they never give you credit. It's enough to drive you crazy if you let it." She trains Judy, and stays friends with Doralee.
Frank not only treats the female employees badly, he embezzles from the company. Who can stop him? Not the Chairman of the Board, Russell Tinsworthy, played by Sterling Hayden: He doesn't know what's going on, because, for most of the movie, he is away, working on a jungle clearance project in Brazil. If he's that insensitive to the environment, he certainly wouldn't be sensitive to the needs of the company's women.
One day, a distracted Violet accidentally puts rat poison in Hart's coffee, mistaking the box for the nearly identical box of sweetener. Before he can drink it, his desk chair malfunctions and he blacks out after hitting his head on a credenza. The women think Violet has killed him, but he shows up for work the next morning.
But his personal assistant, Roz (played by Elizabeth Wilson), overhears the women talking, and tells Frank. He gives Doralee an ultimatum: Sleep with him, or he'll rat them out. Doralee comes up with a 3rd option: She hogties and gags him to keep him quiet. Then they discover his embezzlement, but discover that the proof of it won't arrive for 4 to 6 weeks. So they kidnap him keep him in his bedroom.
In the interim, they implement several programs that are popular with the workers, including an in-office daycare center, equal pay for everyone, flexible hours, and a job-sharing program allowing employees to work part-time.
But before the invoices can arrive, Frank's oblivious wife, Missy (Marian Mercer), who had been on a cruise, finds him and frees him, giving him the time to buy back the inventory he sold. Before he can report the women to the police, Chairman Tinsworthy returns, discovers a 20 percent increase in company productivity, and assumes Frank did it. Tinsworthy invites Frank to join him on a multiyear project in Brazil, which he accepts.
With Frank gone, the women finally get the credit they deserve. Violet is promoted to Frank's job, Judy marries the Xerox representative, and Doralee leaves to become a country singer. In Brazil, Hart finally gets properly punished for all he's done when he's abducted by a tribe of Amazons. They don't want him for what he hopes they will.
A month after the premiere, Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as President. He and his wife Nancy watched it in the White House on Valentine's Day, February 14, 1981. In his diary, he wrote, "Funny -- but one scene made me mad. A truly funny scene if the 3 gals had played getting drunk but no they had to get stoned on pot. It was an endorsement of Pot smoking for any young person who sees the picture." So, for Reagan, wrecking America's manufacturing base, racism, homophobia, and selling weapons to Iran, good; smoking marijuana, bad. Got it.
The film was nominated for only one Academy Award, Best Original Song for Dolly, and she lost it to Michael Gore (Lesley's Gore's brother) and Dean Pitchford, for the theme from Fame, as sung by Irene Cara, which also hit Number 1. Dolly was also nominated for the Grammy Award for Song of the Year (which goes to the writers, while Record of the Year goes to the performers), but lost that to Donna Weiss and Jackie DeShannon for "Bette Davis Eyes.' That hit Number 1 as well. But "9 to 5" the song did Dolly did win the Grammys for Best Country Song and Best Country Vocal Performance.
ABC made a TV show out of the film in the 1982-83 season, with Dolly's sister, Rachel Dennison, as Doralee; Valerie Curtin, a cousin of Saturday Night Live performer Jane, as Judy; Rita Moreno as Violet; and Jeffrey Tambor as Frank. It lasted just 1 season, but got picked up in syndication for the 1986-87 and 1987-88 seasons, with Peter Bonerz replacing Tambor as Frank. Dolly wrote songs for a stage musical that ran on Broadway from April 30 to September 6, 2009.
The original film was produced by 20th Century Fox. In the 1980s, director Higgins developed a sequel with Universal Pictures, but while Dolly was interested, Jane was not, and that killed it. In 2005, all 3 female leads said in a joint interview that they were interested in a sequel, saying that a sequel, which would be titled 24/7, would focus on outsourcing and aging workers. But it didn't happen. In 2018, Dolly and Jane both said a sequel was in the works; but, the next year, Dolly said it wasn't going to happen.
Sterling Hayden died in 1986, Marian Mercer in 2011, and Elizabeth Wilson in 2015. As of December 19, 2022, all the other major performers are still alive.
UPDATE: Dabney Coleman died in 2024. That year, Jennifer Aniston mentioned wanting to produce a "reimagining" of the film, wanting the lead roles to be played by Ariana Grande, Sydney Sweeney and Zendaya. Dolly Parton died on August 25, 2026. At that point, Aniston's idea had not moved forward.
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December 19, 1980 was a Friday. Actors Jake Gyllenhaal and Marla Sokoloff were born.
Baseball was out of season. There was 1 college football game that night: Number 14 Brigham Young University, as Champions of the Western Athletic Conference, received an automatic bid to the Holiday Bowl, where they beat Number 19 Southern Methodist University, 46-45 at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego. The game is known to BYU fans as the Miracle Bowl, as Jim McMahon, later to quarterback the Chicago Bears to their only Super Bowl win to date, threw a last-play 41-yard touchdown pass to Clay Brown.
There were 9 games played in the NBA:
* The New York Knicks beat the Washington Bullets, 102-96 at the Capital Centre in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland.
* The New Jersey Nets lost to the Philadelphia 76ers, 122-107 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia.
* The Boston Celtics beat the Houston Rockets, 133-119 at the Boston Garden.
* The Detroit Pistons beat the Indiana Pacers, 109-106 at the Silverdome in the Detroit suburb of Pontiac,
Michigan.
* The Chicago Bulls beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 129-106 at the Chicago Stadium.
* The San Antonio Spurs beat the Golden State Warriors, 126-111 at the HemisFair Arena in San Antonio. George Gervin scored 33 points.
* The Phoenix Suns beat the Utah Jazz, 108-90 at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix.
* The Portland Trail Blazers beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 110-106 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood,
California. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar scored 34 points in defeat for the Lakers.
* And the Seattle SuperSonics beat the Atlanta Hawks, 95-92 at the Seattle Center Coliseum.
There was 1 game played in the NHL: The Vancouver Canucks beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 10-4 at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver.
Stan Smyl had 3 goals and an assist. Brent Ashton had 2 goals and an assist. Ivan Boldriev had a goal and 3 assists. Thomas Gradin and Bobby Schmautz each had 3 assists. For the Penguins, Randy Carlyle had 2 goals, and Ross Lonsberry had 3 assists.
