Dolly Parton was one of those rare celebrities who are truly worthy of admiration.
My first memory of Dolly Parton is of her short-lived late 1980s variety show Dolly. At the end of each episode, Dolly would sing one of her most famous hits: “I Will Always Love You.” As she sang each week, I could feel her warmth, kindness, and happiness radiating through the television screen. Even though I was a young kid, I knew that Dolly was someone whose presence made things better.
With Dolly Parton’s death today at age 80, it’s hard not to feel as though a special light has been extinguished. But that spirit that came through the televisions, radios, and stereos to me and to so many others around the world will undoubtedly live on.
Dolly grew up poor in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, in a one-room house with eleven siblings. Despite her humble circumstances, music was always a part of her family life, and Dolly developed a love for singing and playing music early on. At the age of seven, she made herself a homemade guitar, trading it in for a real one a year later. She recorded her first song, “Puppy Love,” at age 13, and she never looked back.
Her sweet Southern twang and incisive songwriting made her into a country music legend. There’s the aforementioned “I Will Always Love You,” of course, which Whitney Houston made into a massive pop hit in 1992. But there are so many others: “Jolene,” “Coat of Many Colors,” “Here You Come Again,” “Love Is Like a Butterfly,” “Why’d You Come in Here Lookin’ Like That.” All told, she wrote more than 3,000 songs, with 25 of her singles reaching No. 1 on the Billboard country charts. She was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1999, the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2001, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2022.
That list is certainly a reminder of how Dolly was a mold-buster. In addition to her genre-crossing success in music, she became a movie star, with memorable starring roles in 9 to 5, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, and Steel Magnolias, among others. And she was wickedly funny. Known for her garish appearance, with heavy makeup and big wigs, she had a self-deprecating take on her look. Once, when asked how long it took her to do her hair, she answered, “I don’t know, I’m never there when they do it!”
But Dolly Parton was, most of all, a woman to look up to — in both her personal and professional life. She was married to her husband, Carl Dean, for nearly 59 years, until his death in 2025. While she didn’t have any children, her nurturing of the children in her extended family earned her the moniker “Aunt Granny.”
Opened in 1986, her Dollywood theme park in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., not only brings joy to millions of visitors, but it’s also the largest employer in Sevier County, an area that had been economically depressed before Dollywood helped make it a tourist destination. Her Imagination Library program — which she founded in honor of her father, who never learned to read or write — gave the gift of reading to countless children. To date, the program has donated more than 300 million books. In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, she donated $1 million to the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, which funded much of the early research that led to the development of the Moderna vaccine. As a philanthropist, Dolly Parton was, in short, a lifesaver — and she improved the lives of so many people.
Dolly Parton was one of those rare celebrities who are truly worthy of admiration — she put her money where her mouth was, never excluded or turned her back on anyone, and set an example that more of us ought to follow. We will always love her. R.I.P.