Park Overall is as sweet as the Southern delicacy, a glass of sweet tea.

Dorothy Zbornak, a character in The Golden Girls sitcom, isn’t as prime and proper as one might think.    That’s the recent assessment of actress/activist Park Overall, a former Liberty, Tennessee resident.

Case in point:  Overall is an American actress, political activist and a former U. S. Senatorial candidate from Tennessee.  In a self-description, she reveals that she is an “Environmental activist.  I am a retired actress.”  For several years, she acted on The Golden Girls television program and had a first-hand account of the occurrences set forth in one 30-minute segment.


  With her unmistakable Southern-drawl, Overall was a resident of Liberty, Tennessee during her childhood years.  Today, she didn’t venture far from her home base, residing in Afton, Tennessee (East Tennessee).   Other than a childhood spent in Liberty, Tennessee, Overall names Greeneville, Tennessee as her adolescent home location.  Her adult years are/have been spent in her permanently-based hometown of Afton, Tennessee, which is an unincorporated community in Green County.  It is a three-hour drive from Smithville and is nestled northeast of Knoxville and Pigeon Forge.

She is very famous in the world of entertainment and with her southern accent, has stared in many televised and theatrical movies.  Of utmost notoriety, Overall is best-known for playing nurser Laverne Todd for seven years on the infamous sitcom, Empty Nest.  Also, she has participated in the films Biloxi Blues, Mississippi Burning, Talk Radio and In the Family.  On the Golden Girls, she played Laverne Todd in the “Sick and Tired” segment of the program.  In addition, Overall said that she also had played in a total of three Golden Girl’s episodes” during this time.  The totality of her acting/performance awards are immense.

However, during a recent interview for this newspaper, Overall answered the question “No” when asked if she enjoyed playing on her most-know television sitcom, Empty Nest?  The quick answer was non-discreetly simply that it “aired for too long” (seven years), and she, eventually, “grew tired of it.”  The crux remains that she enjoyed acting on the program, but it was in syndication and was broadcast for too long.

Her parents were Thomas Wesley “Jack” Jr. and Frances Overall (most locals have heard of/known them), who made Liberty their home for many years, many years ago.  As a child, she remembers the Nokes General Store (pronounced No Kees) in Liberty “And they had anything you’d want or need,” she remembered, “and especially jaw breakers candy.”  Former local real-estate developer, Danny Conger, remembers the Overall house being a large white brick structure in downtown Liberty, not too far from the business district.  

In an unearthed Golden Girl’s memory, “I remember when Bea Arthur (Dorothy) would run around everywhere without wearing shoes,” Overall laughed, “While on set, she used to grab my arm to tell me something and it really hurt. Then, there was Kristy McNichol (Barbara), who chewed gum all the time.”


As for Blanche (Rue McClanahan), she describes her as “self-involved” and she did have a sexual fetish for the male sex. “Gosh,” said Overall.  “She was married five times in real life.”


Overall’s all-time favorite actor was Richard Mulligan, who played pediatrician, Dr. Harry Weston, on both The Golden Girls and on Empty Nest.  The two actors were very close and were best friends.  Mulligan died in 2000 of colon cancer.  He was only 67-years-old, Overall’s age today.  In remembering Dr. Weston, his large dog was named Dreyfuss and Blanche had, and showed, intimate affection for the doctor, who had zero feelings and tolerance for her.  I can see him pushing her into another room in her Miami house with Dreyfuss on guard.

In the filming interim, Overall participated in her favorite sport, roller skating, to “kill time” between her almost-daily laborious shooting schedule.  Her favorite Golden Girl was Estelle Getty (Sophia).  “I loved her,” she fondly remembered.  “She was a memorable person – on and off the set,” Of the four women, Sophia was the first to enter heaven, followed by Blanche, Dorothy and Rose, in that order.

Educationally and biographically, Park Overall received her Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Tusculum University in Tusculum (Greenville) Tennessee and did post-graduate studies in English at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville.  Her undergraduate studies at Tusculum centered around English, especially Shakespeare.  Her father, Jack, served as a federal magistrate judge, while her mother, Frances, was a professor of English.  As a teenager, Overall worked on the political campaigns of Tom Wiseman and Jim Sasser, among others.  

The expansive list of her movie and television acting venues are as follows:
1987 The Line Lucky Kershaw TV movie
1987 Tainted
Marion
1988 Biloxi Blues
Rowena

1988 Vibes
Jane
          1988-1995 Empty Nest
Laverne Todd



170 episodes
Viewers for Quality Television Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Quality Comedy Series (1989-1991)
Nominated-Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Series, Miniseries or Television Film (1991-1993)
1988 Mississippi Burning
Connie
1988 Talk Radio
Debbie/Agnes/Teresa
1989 Lost Angels
Richard Doolan's girlfriend
1989 The Golden Girls
Laverne Todd Episode: "Sick and Tired: Part 2"
1990 Kindergarten Cop
Samantha's mother
1991 The Luck of the Draw
Melody O'Rourke TV movie
1991-1992 Nurses
Laverne Todd 3 episodes
1992 Overkill: The Aileen Wuornos Story Tyria Moore
1993 The Vanishing Lynn
1993 House of Cards
Lillian Huber
1993 Undercover Blues
Bonnie Newman
1993 Precious Victims Paula Sims TV movie
1995 The Critic
Alice Tompkins 10 episodes
1997 Sparkler
Melba May
1998 Fifteen and Pregnant
Evie Spangler TV movie
1999 The Price of a Broken Heart Dot Hutkeeper TV movie
1999 Katie Joplin
Katie Joplin 7 episodes
2000 Taming Andrew
Gail
1999-2000 Ladies Man
Claire Stiles 9 episodes
2001 Slammed Chastity
2001-2002 Reba
Lori Ann 7 episodes
2004 Cut and run Pauline Short film
2006 To Kill a Mockumentary Professor Shellington
2008 Beer for My Horses
Barbara


Overall, has actively supported a number of environmental causes, primarily those affecting her native East Tennessee.

In 1995, she gave an interview on ABC's news show Primetime attacking the paper company Champion International, which had for years been accused by environmentalists of polluting the Pigeon River. Abnormally high levels of dioxins in the river had been traced to the company's plant in Canton, North Carolina, and were believed by environmentalists to be the cause of the relatively high rate of cancer deaths in the area around Hartford, Tennessee.

In recent years, Overall has been a vocal critic of Nuclear Fuel Services, which operates a uranium processing complex in Erwin, Tennessee. She has charged that the complex has poor safety standards, pointing to a study released in 2010 that found soil samples along the Nolichucky River contaminated with enriched uranium traced to the complex. Overall has filed numerous petitions with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which insists the complex's radiation output levels are safe.
In 2002, Overall helped thwart an attempt by Louisiana Energy Services to build a uranium enrichment facility in the Erwin vicinity. The complex, known as the National Enrichment Facility, has since been constructed in New Mexico. In subsequent years, she sought to prevent NFS's implementation of the Blended Low-Enriched Uranium (BLEU) project in Erwin, which will provide fuel for reactors at Tennessee Valley Authority nuclear power plants.

In 2014, Overall campaigned against a proposed 12-mile (19 km) pipeline that would allow the new U.S. Nitrogen plant in Mosheim to use water from the Nolichucky River. Environmental activists argue that removing water from and discharging the water back into the river will harm the ecosystem downstream from the pipeline, though U.S. the pipeline is safe. Overall accused the plant and regulatory agencies that approved the pipeline of lying about how much of the river's water the plant would use.

The now 67-year-old was born on March 15, 1957 in Nashville, Tennessee, “Where most everyone is born,” she said laughingly.

Now retired but extremely busy, the staunch Democrat initially moved to New York to pursue her acting career.  In retrospect, Overall was nominated twice for her role as Laverne Todd in the Empty Nest series, along with the Golden Globe Award for the Best Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Television film.  Additionally, she has earned numerous awards and acting accolades from her peers throughout the years, as mentioned above.

In reminiscing about The Golden Girls sitcom, Overall remembered watching Bea Arthur (Dorothy) walk everywhere barefoot in the studio.  Dorothy also liked using four-letter descriptive words, which remain unprintable here.


Within seconds of our interview for this newspaper, I knew that I had made a lifelong friend!  Our laughter and communications, verbal and written, seemed to infiltrate earth’s gravitational pull.

Today, she lives with her kitties at home close to the Johnson City area, located in East Tennessee.  She remains busy, especially with her public principals and founding beliefs. Without a doubt, she never fails to pursue her thoughts and beliefs, no matter how satisfying, difficult or painful.

She is not overly spoiled to success or overly cautious to failure.  She is the real thing - a true Southern belle – with a true Southern accent – and a true universal popularity, who just happens to have a Southern accent and drinks Sweet Tea.