Dolly Parton, whose journey from an impoverished childhood in Tennessee’s Smoky Mountains to international stardom produced enduring songs including “Jolene,” “9 to 5” and “I Will Always Love You,” died peacefully in Nashville at age 80 after facing undisclosed health challenges.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom.
Dolly Parton, the singer, songwriter, actress, producer and philanthropist whose unmistakable voice, prolific songwriting and larger-than-life personality made her one of the most enduring figures in American entertainment, has died at age 80.
Parton’s nephew disclosed her death in an Aug. 25 Instagram video. She died peacefully in Nashville, The Hollywood Reporter reported, citing a representative.
The announcement followed months of concern surrounding an undisclosed health problem. Parton had said in September that she was postponing a series of Las Vegas concerts because of “some health challenges.” Days later, it was reported that she would not attend the Governors Awards, where she was scheduled to receive the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in November. She had also canceled planned September dates for a Las Vegas residency in May.
Throughout the final months of her life, Parton sought to reassure fans that she was doing well.
Her death came less than 18 months after the loss of Carl Thomas Dean, her husband of nearly 58 years. Dean, a businessman who largely remained outside the glare of his wife’s celebrity, died March 3, 2025, at age 82.
Parton and Dean had no children.
Her death closes a remarkable career that began in rural poverty and eventually touched nearly every corner of American popular culture. She became a country music superstar, crossed successfully into pop music, anchored major Hollywood films, produced television and movies, built a lasting philanthropic legacy and wrote thousands of songs during a career spanning generations.
Three of her own compositions became particularly inseparable from her name: the pleading “Jolene”, the working-class anthem “9 to 5” and “I Will Always Love You”, her understated 1974 farewell ballad that later became a worldwide phenomenon in the hands of Whitney Houston, the Hollywood Reporter wrote in a tribute.
Parton’s life began far from the wealth and celebrity that would eventually surround her.
Dolly Rebecca Parton was born Jan. 19, 1946, in Pittman Center, Tennessee, in the Smoky Mountains. She was the fourth of 12 children born to Avie Lee Owens and Robert Lee Parton, who worked as a sharecropper, tobacco farmer and, at times, construction worker.
The large family shared a one-room mountain cabin before later moving to farmland in nearby Locust Ridge.
Parton never attempted to distance herself from the circumstances of her childhood, which she openly described as “dirt poor.” Instead, those experiences became material for her music, public persona and later business ventures.
Her mother, who had given birth to her 12th child by age 35, entertained the family by singing ballads and reciting folklore. Some of those musical traditions had reached Appalachia through immigrants who carried songs from communities in the British Isles.
Parton began creating music at an early age. By 7, she had taught herself to play a homemade guitar. A year later, her uncle Bill Owens, her mother’s younger brother, gave her a real instrument.
Owens, a musician and songwriter, became Parton’s lifelong mentor and collaborated with her on numerous early compositions.
Parton soon began performing on local radio and television. After making recordings for small labels, she appeared at the Grand Ole Opry at just 13.
Her permanent move to Nashville came in 1964, one day after she graduated from Sevier County High School.
She quickly secured a publishing deal and continued writing with Owens. Before establishing herself as a recording star, Parton was already composing material for other performers, including Hank Williams Jr. and Kitty Wells. She and Owens also wrote two top 10 songs for Bill Phillips, “The Company You Keep” and “Put It Off Until Tomorrow.”
At 19, Parton signed with Monument Records, although the label initially envisioned a different career for her than the one she wanted.
Executives viewed her youthful soprano voice and upbeat personality as better suited to pop music. Parton wanted country.
Monument eventually allowed her to pursue that direction with Curly Putman’s “Dumb Blonde” and Parton’s own “Something Fishy.” Both appeared on her 1967 debut album, Hello, I’m Dolly.
The recordings attracted the attention of established country star Porter Wagoner.
Wagoner brought Parton onto his syndicated country-western variety program, The Porter Wagoner Show, and helped move her to RCA. He also managed her career, supervised the label agreement and acquired a half-interest in Owe-Par, the publishing company Parton operated with Owens.
Parton and Wagoner became successful duet partners, scoring hits including “The Last Thing on My Mind.”
Her solo career took longer to build momentum, but songs including “Coat of Many Colors” and “Touch Your Woman” began establishing Parton as an artist in her own right.
Then came “Jolene.”
Parton drew the inspiration for what she described as a “vulnerable story” from an episode involving Dean and a local bank teller who paid particular attention to her husband.
“She got this terrible crush on my husband,” Parton told NPR in 2008. “And he just loved going to the bank because she paid him so much attention.
“It was kinda like a running joke between us — I was saying, ‘Hell, you’re spending a lot of time at the bank. I don’t believe we’ve got that kind of money!’”
Parton said she was able to laugh about the encounter because she believed nothing serious was happening. The finished recording was considerably more anguished.
It “sounds like it was dreadful,” she acknowledged.
“Jolene” ultimately became one of the most admired and frequently interpreted songs of Parton’s career, covered by performers including The White Stripes, Miley Cyrus and Kelly Clarkson.
Its durability was apparent decades later when Parton performed it before approximately 180,000 people at England’s Glastonbury Festival in 2014. The performance sent the song back onto the U.K. pop charts, while younger members of the enormous crowd appeared to know its lyrics.
Parton estimated that she wrote roughly 3,000 songs during her lifetime, but “Jolene” also played an important role in another pivotal moment in her career.
She wrote it on the same day she composed “I Will Always Love You.”
By then, Parton had decided to leave Wagoner. Although she had become frustrated with the level of control he maintained over her career and later characterized their professional personalities as “oil and water,” she wanted their separation to be amicable.
“I Will Always Love You” became her musical goodbye.
Parton eventually performed the song for Wagoner during her final appearance on his television program in 1974. Their professional connection did not immediately end, however. Wagoner continued producing her recording sessions for more than a year, and the pair made one final duet album, Say Forever You’ll Be Mine.
Parton later explained her determination to establish an independent identity.
“I just wasn’t going to take somebody else’s idea of who I was and live under their roof,” she told Martha Stewart during a 2024 podcast. “I had my own identity, and I had to fight to keep it — and I’m still doing that.”
“I Will Always Love You” topped Billboard’s Country chart in 1974 and later reached an audience far beyond country music after Houston recorded it for the 1992 Kevin Costner film The Bodyguard.
Houston’s recording spent a then-record 14 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, and the song remains the best-selling single by a female recording artist. Parton earned more than $10 million in pure profit from it.
The song nearly did not appear in The Bodyguard.
Another Parton composition was originally intended for the movie, but as production was nearing completion, Costner telephoned Parton and asked permission to use “I Will Always Love You” instead.
Parton agreed but had no knowledge of what Houston, Costner and producer David Foster had done with the song until she unexpectedly encountered the finished recording while driving home from her Music Row office in Nashville.
“I thought, ‘That sounds familiar,” Parton told The Hollywood Reporter after hearing the opening.
She recognized Houston’s voice and the opening words, “If I should stay …”
“It was one of those things where you think, ‘What is that?’ And then all of sudden [Houston] started singing, ‘I will always love you.’ I just about wrecked the car.”
Parton repeatedly praised Houston rather than viewing the enormous success of the cover as competition.
“Look at what a grand song she made out of that simple, heartfelt song,” Parton said. “She took it worldwide and made it a household word. I will always be thankful to her for that.”
Parton herself performed “I Will Always Love You” on film a decade before Houston’s rendition. She sang it in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, the 1982 musical comedy in which she played Madame Mona opposite Burt Reynolds.
By then, Parton had established that her abilities extended well beyond the recording studio.
Her first feature film became the biggest of her movie career.
In the 1980 workplace comedy 9 to 5, Parton played Doralee Rhodes alongside Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, with Dabney Coleman portraying their abusive boss.
Fonda and Tomlin wanted three women from distinctly different backgrounds to lead a comedy addressing workplace exploitation, sexual harassment and wage theft. While searching for the third actress, Fonda heard Parton on the radio after attending Tomlin’s Appearing Nightly.
Fonda later recalled that she had “drove in to town” to see Tomlin perform and that afterward, “and Dolly was singing.”
“As I was driving home, by myself, I turned on the radio,” Fonda said during a March 2025 episode of Netflix’s Tudum podcast. “I suddenly had an image of Dolly at a typewriter.”
“She can’t see her fingers, obviously,” Fonda joked, referring to the famously form-fitting, elaborately decorated costumes that became part of Parton’s signature image.
“She and Lily were friends,” Fonda continued. “It took me a year to persuade them, but it worked out fine. We had such a good time. Dolly had never done a movie before. She came the first day having memorized the entire script.”
Parton later said she considered appearing opposite two established stars a relatively safe introduction to filmmaking.
“Lily and Jane were very hot at the time and I thought, ‘What can I lose?’” Parton recalled during an appearance on Ellen DeGeneres’ show in 2006. “If it’s a big hit, I’ll take credit for it. If it’s a flop, I’ll blame them. I was in good company. They helped me — a lot.”
Parton remained friends with Fonda and Tomlin for the rest of her life.
She also wrote the movie’s title song while production was underway, creating one of her career-defining recordings between scenes.
Without a guitar on the set, Parton discovered that tapping and “strumming” her long acrylic fingernails against one another could reproduce the rhythmic sound of a typewriter.
“I didn’t have my guitar with me because I didn’t want to get too scattered,” she said on the Today show in 2020 while describing her effort to remain focused on the role. “So I did it on my nails.”
“I would just kind of play my little fingers, go back to the hotel at night, write down the words, or get my guitar and start singing it. That’s kind of how it worked. I played my nails on the record just for fun.”
The credits from the original recording session captured the unusual contribution: “Dolly Parton: Lead vocals and typewriter.”
“9 to 5” earned Parton the first of her two Academy Award nominations.
Her acting career continued with films including The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and Steel Magnolias.
In the 1989 ensemble drama Steel Magnolias, Parton portrayed warm-hearted hairstylist Truvy Jones alongside Shirley MacLaine, Olympia Dukakis, Sally Field and a rising Julia Roberts.
Music nevertheless remained the foundation of her career.
Parton formed another acclaimed partnership with Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt for the 1987 album Trio. The three singers had spent years performing one another’s music before making the multiplatinum record.
Trio earned an album of the year Grammy nomination in a field that included Prince, Michael Jackson, U2 and Houston. Parton, Harris and Ronstadt won the Grammy for best country performance by a duo or group.
It was one of Parton’s 10 competitive Grammy Awards from 55 career nominations.
The three reunited for Trio II in 1999.
Parton also maintained a lengthy recording and touring partnership with Kenny Rogers beginning in 1976. Their most famous collaboration was the Bee Gees-written “Islands in the Stream”, which became a No. 1 hit in 1983.
The Recording Academy honored Parton with its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011.
Her work increasingly expanded behind the camera as well.
With longtime manager Sandy Gallin, Parton formed Sandollar Productions, which was involved in projects including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, its television spinoff Angel and the remade Father of the Bride films.
Her producing credits also included a Whoopi Goldberg comedy special, the 1989 documentary Common Threads: Stories From the Quilt and numerous holiday projects, including Dolly Parton’s A Smoky Mountain Christmas.
In 2019, she partnered with Netflix for Dolly Parton’s Heartstrings, an anthology program that adapted individual Parton songs into standalone television stories.
Episodes included “Jolene,” starring Kimberly Williams-Paisley; “Sugar Hill,” featuring Timothy Busfield; and “These Old Bones,” with Ginnifer Goodwin.
Parton returned to Netflix the following year for the Debbie Allen-directed Christmas on the Square, which she co-wrote and starred in. The movie became a major success during the pandemic. Parton wrote 14 new songs for the production and won an Emmy for the project.
Her ambitions outside entertainment were equally enduring.
The Dollywood complex, which includes a waterpark, hotels and historical attractions, was named Tripadvisor’s “No. 1 U.S. theme park” in 2022, 2024 and 2025. Dollywood also recently topped the Traveler’s Choice “Best of the Best Awards.”
Parton incorporated elements of the childhood she had once described as “dirt poor” into both Dollywood and songs including “In the Good Old Days (When Times Are Bad)” and “Coat of Many Colors.”
Her upbringing also inspired one of her most consequential philanthropic projects.
Parton established the Imagination Library book-gifting program in 1995 to honor her father, who had never learned to read or write. The organization went on to distribute millions of free books to young readers.
Parton’s broad popularity eventually transcended her country music origins.
Over the decades, she moved from country star to movie actress, producer, entrepreneur and cultural figure embraced by audiences far removed from the country charts.
Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill wrote in an analysis of Parton’s latter-day cultural standing that “Parton offers a reprieve from the news cycle.”
Cottom described Parton as one of the relatively few famous people capable of moving beyond the field in which they initially became successful without alienating the audience that first embraced them.
“It has become verboten to dislike her, much less critique her. By tacit consensus, Dolly Parton is the one good thing in our empire’s twilight,” Cottom wrote.
Parton cultivated that affection in part through humor that was almost as identifiable as her singing voice.
“Everything that comes out of Dolly’s mouth seems to be a lesson,” Foster said.
Her best-known jokes frequently centered on her own carefully constructed appearance.
“It costs a lot of money to look this cheap” became one of her signature lines.
Parton said her heavily styled hair, dramatic makeup and clothing were originally inspired by a woman in her childhood community whom others regarded very differently.
She said she had “modeled on the town tramp” because, as a child, she regarded the woman as extraordinarily beautiful.
“My mom called her trash — I thought that’s what I want to be! I grew up to look just like her,” Parton said.
She had a similarly durable response to jokes about her hair and famously blond image.
“I’m not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb — and I’m not blonde either.”
Another favorite involved her enormous collection of wigs.
“People always ask me how long it takes to do my hair. I don’t know, I’m never there.”
After working with Sylvester Stallone on Rhinestone, Parton lost approximately 40 pounds by following his nutrition and exercise recommendations, including eliminating white bread and processed foods. Her appearance shifted from buxom to a curvy, petite frame that she maintained for the remainder of her life.
She remained equally candid about cosmetic procedures.
“If I see somethin’ draggin’, saggin or baggin’, I’ll just go fix it,” she often said.
Even as her businesses, performing commitments, productions and charitable work multiplied, Parton continued to maintain close personal involvement in her projects.
“I’ve got so many irons in the fire sometimes I’m burning my own butt,” she said on Adam Grant’s WorkLife podcast in 2022. “I always wanted to be a star. I wanted my dreams to come true, and they did. So I have to keep them alive. Every day something new comes up, and I have to get in there and be with it. I can’t just leave it as long as I’m living. I can’t leave that in the hands of other people. I have to be on top of all of it to make sure that it’s being done right. The way that I want it done.”
Among the few professional opportunities Parton said she regretted missing were collaborations involving the very song that became one of her most lucrative and important compositions.
She never had the opportunity to perform “I Will Always Love You” as a duet with Houston, who died in 2012.
“I would’ve loved that,” Parton told Andy Cohen in 2021.
“But I don’t think I could’ve come up to snuff with her though,” she said. “She’d have outsung me on that one for sure.”
Years before Houston recorded the song, Parton also turned down an opportunity for Elvis Presley to record it.
Presley wanted to record “I Will Always Love You” not long after Parton released it in 1974, an opportunity that initially thrilled her.
The deal collapsed when Presley’s manager, Col. Tom Parker, requested 50% ownership of the song’s publishing rights, an arrangement customary for material Presley recorded.
Parton refused.
“I said, ‘This is the most important copyright in my whole publishing company, and I can’t do that,” she told BBC Radio in 2023 while recalling her conversation with Parker.
She remembered other people telling her she was making an enormous mistake.
“Other people were saying, ‘You’re nuts. It’s Elvis Presley. I mean, hell, I’d give him all of it,’” Parton said in 2006. “I said, ‘I can’t do that.’ Something in my heart says, ‘Don’t do that.’”
Parton said in numerous interviews that she cried throughout the night after rejecting the deal.
The decision ultimately preserved her ownership of a composition that became extraordinarily valuable after Houston recorded it.
“I always wondered what it would sound like. He would have killed it. But anyway, so he didn’t,” Parton said. “Then when [Houston’s version] came out, I made enough money to buy Graceland.”
Parton’s survivors include her siblings Willadeene, Coy, Robert Jr., Stella, Cassie, Freida and Rachel.
At Parton’s request, her immediate family will hold a small, private service.
Friends and admirers around the world are being encouraged to commemorate her by tagging @DollyParton on social media or leaving a message through her official website.
Those wishing to make a charitable contribution in her memory may donate to Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library.
Parton spent her career carefully balancing an exaggerated stage image with intense control over her songs, businesses and professional decisions. One of her later observations summarized an approach that had helped take a girl from a one-room Smoky Mountains cabin into the highest ranks of the entertainment industry.
“I look like a woman, but I think like a man,” she said in 2021. “In this world of business that has helped me a lot. Because by the time they think I don’t know what’s goin’ on, I then got the money and am gone.”
Read the full story at the Hollywood Reporter.
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