How Dolly Parton Became One of the Most Universally Beloved Legends of All Time, According to a PEOPLE Staffer Sue CarswellMon, August 31, 2026 at 8:35 PM UTC 0 Dolly Parton in 1986 (left); Dolly Parton in 2025.Credit: CBS via Getty; Jason Kempin/Getty Dolly Parton died on Aug. 25 at age 80 The entertainment legend enjoyed decades of country and pop music stardom with hits like “Jolene,” “9 to 5,” “Islands in the Stream” and “I Will Always Love You” In addition to her singing and songwriting, she made a mark in Hollywood as an actress, with lead roles in boxoffice successes including 9 to 5 an...
How Dolly Parton Became One of the Most Universally Beloved Legends of All Time, According to a PEOPLE Staffer
Sue CarswellMon, August 31, 2026 at 8:35 PM UTC
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Dolly Parton in 1986 (left); Dolly Parton in 2025.Credit: CBS via Getty; Jason Kempin/Getty -
Dolly Parton died on Aug. 25 at age 80
The entertainment legend enjoyed decades of country and pop music stardom with hits like “Jolene,” “9 to 5,” “Islands in the Stream” and “I Will Always Love You”
In addition to her singing and songwriting, she made a mark in Hollywood as an actress, with lead roles in box-office successes including 9 to 5 and Steel Magnolias
On a late November day in 1992, Dolly Parton was driving her Cadillac home from work in Nashville to Brentwood, listening to the radio, when a song came on that sounded, well, personal.
“I felt like a dog who heard its name,” the superstar told Andy Cohen in 2016. But there was something completely original about that familiar sound, namely, the opening lyrics, which were sung a cappella: “If I should stay...”
Months earlier, Kevin Costner’s secretary had called Parton to request a copy of Parton’s 1974 self-penned country chart-topper “I Will Always Love You” — which had returned to No. 1 in 1982 after Parton re-recorded it for her film The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas — to be considered for the soundtrack of his new film, The Bodyguard.
“That’s the last thing I ever heard,” Parton recalled. It was only in the car that she first heard Whitney Houston sing “that little song of mine so big.” When Houston went full belt, Parton said, ”I almost had a heart attack.” She pulled over into a parking lot and listened in awe. “It was the most overwhelming feeling and the proudest moment of my whole life,” she remembered.
Dolly Parton in November 2023.Credit: Jason Kempin/Getty
Parton, the prolific 11-time Grammy-winning singer-songwriter, bestselling author, entrepreneur, theme park titan, philanthropist, LGBTQ ally, style icon and humanitarian who died on Aug. 25 at age 80, gave the world decades of country music standards, including “Jolene,” “Coat of Many Colors” and, of course, her signature, “I Will Always Love You.”
She was widely regarded as one of the greatest musicians of all time. Billboard positioned her at No. 1 on its 2024 list of the “100 Greatest Country Artists of All Time,” and Rolling Stone ranked her at No. 27 on its “200 Greatest Singers of All Time” in 2023. This year, The New York Times included her among its “30 Greatest Living American Songwriters.”
As Pink summed it up in 2022, “She’s one of the greatest storytellers of her time — of any time.”
In a career that spanned seven decades, Parton recorded 50 studio albums, beginning with 1967’s Hello, I’m Dolly, and sold over 100 million albums worldwide. Houston’s version of “I Will Always Love You,” which Parton wrote and first recorded in 1973, went on to win the 1994 Grammy for record of the year and became the best-selling single by a female artist in U.S. history, charting at No. 1 in 34 countries and selling 25 million copies. As its composer, Parton received royalties for every record sold and whenever it played on the radio, no matter its singer.
Throughout her life, Parton was honored with numerous awards and inductions. She received a humanitarian Oscar in 2025 and won an Emmy in 2021 for Dolly Parton’s Christmas on the Square. She earned Grammys for her 1977 album Here You Come Again, her 1980 crossover country and pop chart-topper “9 to 5” and 1987’s Trio, a vocal collaboration with Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris, among other works.
Dolly Parton performing as she’s inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on Nov. 5, 2022.Credit: Kevin Mazur/Getty
One of the most humble country queens, Parton was reluctant to accept her nomination into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2022 and tried to cancel her votes. She didn’t understand that the Hall already had members included from other music genres. Once she was rightly informed, Parton appeared on stage at the induction ceremony with an electric guitar, wearing a skintight black ensemble, and sang her new song “Rockin’ It,” which she wrote for the special occasion and which would be included on her 2023 rock album Rockstar. Other inductions included the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1999 and the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2001.
Standing all of 5’ tall, she was a stunning woman with enticing emerald eyes, dimples and a pronounced beauty mark. Parton had platinum blonde wigs aplenty and always came prepared with a clever retort for any barbs thrown her way about her looks or level of intelligence.
“I’m not offended at all, because I know I’m not a dumb blonde,” she told PEOPLE in 1992. “I also know I’m not blonde.”
Parton had a collection of striking Crayola-colored suits and neon dresses with shimmering baubles, beads, rhinestones and diamonds merged with leather and fringe. “I don’t want to be vanilla,” she told PEOPLE in 1984 of her taste in fashion. “I want to be Rocky Road.”
She loved to buckle her waist really tight and made cowgirl style campy, classy, sexy and fun. “The way I dress, for the most part, is how most people would dress for a costume party,” she told Rolling Stone in 2003. “The way I look was really a country girl’s idea of what glamour was.… People would say, ‘Oh, she’s just trash,’ and I’d think, ‘That’s what I want to be when I grow up.’ ”
It’s not every superstar singer who can transition onto the big screen, but Parton made a seamless film debut as a secretary in 1980’s 9 to 5, alongside Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin. The feminist blockbuster earned over $100 million worldwide. Parton also wrote the No. 1 theme song while on set, finding that she could make her long talon-like nails sound like a typewriter.
Dolly Parton and Julia Roberts in ‘Steel Magnolias’Credit: Sony
She also received praise for her performances in 1982’s The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, costarring Burt Reynolds, and 1989’s ensemble classic Steel Magnolias.
Parton was an astute and fierce businesswoman whose personal fortune had been estimated anywhere from $450 million to $650 million dollars. In April 2020, the month after COVID took hold of the world, she announced on X that she had donated $1 million to Vanderbilt University Medical Center to help develop a COVID vaccine, funding its critical early stages, and encouraged others with expendable wealth to do the same.
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Her goddaughter Miley Cyrus hailed her in Time magazine in 2021: “There’s a theory that you shouldn’t meet your heroes, but I wish everyone had the chance to meet Dolly Parton, because she’s even better than your sparkliest dreams.”
Born Dolly Rebecca Parton on Jan. 19, 1946, into crushing poverty in a one-room cabin in the midst of the Great Smoky Mountains’ hamlet of Pittman Center, Tenn., she was the fourth of 12 children of Avie Lee (née Owens), a stay-at-home mom, and Robert Lee, a tobacco farmer. The Partons, who moved to a two-room cabin in Sevier County’s Locust Ridge when Dolly was young, were a close Pentecostal church-going and song-singing family. (Several of her younger siblings, including Stella and Randy, would go on to enjoy success in country music.) They had neither electricity nor indoor plumbing, but slept snuggly, up to four siblings per mattress.
At 7, Parton started writing what would one day expand into a catalog of over 3,000 compositions. Her first recorded song was “Puppy Love,” which she released when she was 13. She also performed on local radio and TV stations in the Knoxville area. By 1959, Parton had made her first appearance on the Grand Ole Opry.
“I’m like a horse with blinders,” she told PEOPLE in 2015 of her ambition. “If I’ve got a dream, I’m going to follow it and find all the ways to make it happen. You gotta put legs, arms and wings on your dreams. You can’t just hope it and think it’s gonna happen. You gotta work it.”
Dolly Parton circa 1955.Credit: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty
She was 18 when she arrived in Nashville, a tumbleweed on fire, the day after graduating from Sevier County High School in 1964. Her striking presence was noted in less than a day by Carl Dean, an asphalt-paving contractor who lassoed the newcomer whom he spotted at the Wishy Washy Laundromat.
On their first date, Dean took Parton home to meet his parents and told them, “Fix this girl a plate. This is the girl I’m gonna marry.” Dean and Parton eventually wed in a small ceremony in Ringgold, Ga., in May 1966.
Intent on writing and singing her own songs, even though she often said her voice sounded like “a cross between Tiny Tim and a nanny goat,” Parton initially found work as a receptionist. Then she started recording demos of her songs, including “Put It Off Until Tomorrow,” which she cowrote with her uncle Bill Owens and which country singer Bill Phillips released in January 1966 with Parton singing back-up harmony.
Music City was aflutter over the uncredited sweet-sounding soprano doing the background vocals. Once the voice was revealed to be Parton’s, she soon had her own record deal. Her single “Dumb Blonde” was released in 1967, followed by “Something Fishy.” Both songs appeared on her debut 1967 LP Hello, I’m Dolly.
Porter Wagoner, a hitmaker known as “Mr. Grand Ole Opry,” had a popular syndicated country TV show, and when his “girl singer” left in 1966, Wagoner invited Parton to be her replacement and sing duets with him on The Porter Wagoner Show. Starting in January 1967 and for six years, the duo were consistently in the Top 10 of Billboard’s country charts.
Dolly Parton and Miss Piggy in 1988.Credit: Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty
As time passed, Parton grew frustrated because she craved success as a solo artist. In 1973, she wrote “Jolene,” a song whose lyrics were inspired by a bank teller who had a wild crush on Parton’s husband. She finished “Jolene” on the same day that she wrote “I Will Always Love You” as a goodbye to Wagoner. “Porter and I fought like cats and dogs because we were both headstrong and ambitious,” Parton told PEOPLE. The next morning, she went to the studio and played the song for him and said, “This is how I feel.” She recalled, “Tears were rolling down [Porter’s] face.”
Over the decades, Parton weathered frustrating times, grappled with depression and wrote dark thoughts in her notebook, including, “Why should I commit suicide? I’m waking up dead every day,” according to an interview she did with Rolling Stone in 2003, referring to the period when she was filming Rhinestone in 1984 with Sylvester Stallone. Even though the film tanked at the box office, working with Stallone helped her heal.
“That was one of my greatest projects,” she said. “Because Stallone was so full of life, and so crazy and so funny, and he made me laugh a lot, which was really healthy for me. That movie got me back on track.”
Aside from talking about her occasional blues, Parton was tight-lipped about her private life with Dean, who kept himself out of the spotlight and who the public rarely, if ever, saw. She was much more open about her cosmetic enhancements. “If I see something saggin’, baggin’ or draggin’, I’ll get it nipped, tucked or sucked,” was one Dollyism.
She opened the Dollywood theme park in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., in 1986, and it later included spa resorts, a water park and a replica of the cabin Parton grew up in, which was quite a contrast to the Tara-like mansion she lived in with Dean in Brentwood until his death in 2025 at age 82. More than four decades earlier, in 1984, PEOPLE asked Parton if she might have any questions for God, should they meet one day.
She replied, “The first thing, if there is a heaven or hell outside of this, I’m gonna ask God, if there is one... ‘I just want to know what you had in mind when you invented Dolly Parton. Do you think that was easy? How could you let a person run around like that? Why did you let me make such a fool of myself all of those years? But I did enjoy it.’ ”
So did we.
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Published: August 31, 2026 at 11:45PM on Source: RED MAG
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How Dolly Parton Became One of the Most Universally Beloved Legends of All Time, According to a PEOPLE Staffer Sue CarswellMon...
