By When answering the Vanity Fair Proust Questionnaire in 2012, the late Dolly Parton said her motto was “Dream more, learn more, care more, and be more.” Parton’s life was lived to the fullest and cannot easily be summed up in words. She was a rhinestone that shined as bright as the stars, pulling others up along with her as she reached for her dreams.
Dolly Parton was a uniquely American icon whose artistic output touched music, film, television, fashion, and even theme parks over a seven-decade career. She was a compassionate philanthropist. She once said she wanted to put her money where her heart was. And so she did, dedicating the profits from her music and other business ventures to uplift childhood literacy, advocate for AIDS research, support disaster relief, create jobs and pathways for others to achieve their dreams through the creation of Dollywood near her hometown in Tennessee, and pursue other philanthropic avenues.
Born in a one-room cabin on the banks of the Little Pigeon River near Pittman Center, Tennessee, on January 19, 1946, Parton was the fourth of 12 children born to her mother Avie Lee Caroline and Robert Lee Parton Sr. As a child, she learned Great Smoky Mountain folklore and old country ballads from the Welsh immigrants who settled southern Appalachia. Growing up in the mountains later inspired her song “My Tennessee Mountain Home.”
Parton began performing as a child, singing on the local radio and eventually appearing at the Grand Ole Opry. Although she was pitched as a “bubblegum pop singer” when she first signed with Monument Records in 1965, her big break came when country music entertainer Porter Wagoner invited her to join his syndicated television program The Porter Wagoner Show and later helped her get signed by RCA Victor. In 1973, Parton’s single “Jolene” became her first big hit as a solo artist. In response to her break from her professional relationship with Wagoner, she wrote “I Will Always Love You,” which went number one on the country chart and later proved even bigger after Whitney Houston recorded it for “The Bodyguard” in 1992.
From there, Parton reached a whole new level of success. Her style, her wit, and her soft, yet incisive, feminist leanings allowed her to stand out, carving a singular path in American entertainment. After appearing on dozens of television shows and specials in the 1970s, Parton made her film debut in the feminist workplace comedy “9 to 5” opposite Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin. The tale of three underpaid secretaries dealing with office misogyny was inspired by Fonda’s relationship with the founders of 9to5, National Association of Working Women, a workers’ rights organization founded in 1973.
In his review of the film, Roger Ebert likened Parton’s debut as something for the history books akin to the debuts of Marilyn Monroe and James Dean, writing, “she contains so much energy, so much life and unstudied natural exuberance that watching her do anything in this movie is a pleasure.” Parton earned an Academy Award nomination for her theme song and a Golden Globe nomination for her performance. A succession of theatrical and television movies followed throughout the 1980s and 1990s, including “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” (1982), “Rhinestone” (1984), “A Smoky Mountain Christmas” (1986), “Steel Magnolias” (1989), and “Straight Talk” (1992).
Depending on your age, your entry point for Parton may vary. It could be her music, her television appearances in the 1970s, any one of her movies, or even her recurring role as Aunt Dolly on the Miley Cyrus-led Disney Channel teen sitcom “Hannah Montana.”
For me, it was “Straight Talk,” the 1992 Chicago-set workplace romantic comedy in which Parton plays a small-town dance instructor from Arkansas who leaves her stick-in-the-mud boyfriend, moves to Chicago with dreams in her eyes, and accidentally becomes a beloved national radio call-in therapist. The film is preposterous, but as a kid who loved preposterous rom-coms, and especially loved watching them with my mother, it was one we returned to time and again. In the film, as in real life, Parton recalls Mae West, with a sexuality that was playful and witty, overtly feminine and seductive without being predatory. She made being sexy seem fun, and being sexual not something to be ashamed of. She even wrote a little bop that praises the female gaze.
She poked fun at her own love of over-the-top fashion and makeup, with songs like “Backwoods Barbie.” She likened her style to that of drag, even sharing once that if she’d been born male, she would surely have become a drag queen. Early on in her career, she addressed backlash to her looks by quipping, “I’m not offended by all of the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb…and I also know that I’m not blonde.”
In 1986, Parton bought a stake in an amusement park near where she grew up, which was subsequently renamed Dollywood. With approximately 4,000 people on its payroll, it is the largest employer in the area. Along with bringing steady employment to the area, Dollywood has a program called GROW U, which offers employees 100% free tuition to over a hundred different educational programs, with workers becoming eligible from day one of employment.
In 1987, Parton was named one of Ms. Magazine’s Women of the Year. In the issue, Gloria Steinem wrote that Parton was honored for “creating popular songs about real women, for turning feminine style into humor and power, for bringing jobs and understanding to the mountain people of Tennessee.” The next year, she founded the Dollywood Foundation, whose aim at the time was to improve educational opportunities for children in her home county of Sevier County, Tennessee.
Around that same time, Parton formed Sandollar Productions, a banner through which she produced films like “Father of the Bride” and the cult television show “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (1997–2003), but also Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman’s Oscar-winning documentary “Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt,” which told the story of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt. A staunch LGBTQ ally, for the last few decades Parton raised money for many AIDS-related charities and healthcare facilities. In 1993, she was one of several country music stars, including Tammy Wynette, Kris Kristofferson, and Willie Nelson, who participated in an AIDS Awareness campaign known as “Break the Silence.” Aimed at showing that AIDS was not just a city problem, the series of public service announcements advocated for sex education and safer practices.
By the mid-1990s, Parton launched a literacy program called Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. Founded to honor her father, who never learned to read or write, the program mails one free book a month to every enrolled child from birth until kindergarten. Now in its 31st year, the program has sent out over 300 million free books to kids across the U.S., Canada, the UK, Australia and Ireland. Her proudest achievement, Parton once said, “If I’m remembered 100 years from now, I hope it will not be for the looks but for the books.” You can learn more about the history and legacy of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library in Nick Geidner’s 2021 documentary “The Library That Dolly Built: Celebrating the People Who Made Dolly’s Dream Come True.”
In a 1984 conversation between Parton and Andy Warhol in his Interview Magazine, the iconoclastic artist says to her, “You could be a great preacher,” to which Parton replies, “What do you mean? I am a great preacher.” For Parton, her ministry was the way she lived her life, with equal amounts of passion and compassion. When she received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences last year, she sent a short video message to accept the award. Rather than spend ten minutes rambling as recipients are often wont to do (which, don’t get me wrong, is always welcomed from those legends), Parton got straight to the point with a simple, effective autobiographical anecdote. She said, “I grew up in a house with twelve kids. Now, that alone teaches you how important sharing is. Don’t get me wrong, we didn’t have that much to share, but my mom and daddy showed me by example that the more you give, the more blessings come your way.”
This open-hearted approach to life gave Parton an almost supernatural glow, one that shone so bright she became beloved by strangers around the world. Stories of Parton from those who knew her either center on her humility, her humor, or her otherworldly aura. In his memoir Life Itself, Roger Ebert recalled that she had a “strange ethereal grace,” something he and his At The Movies co-host Gene Siskel would often discuss in wonder. Longtime friend and co-star Jane Fonda described Parton as “simultaneously a naughty, playful southern gal from the hollows of Tennessee and a deep, soulful thinker who could see through people right down to their true selves. She was many things…lyricist, songstress, player of many instruments, writer, prankster, visionary, loyal friend, who’d never go to bed before she and her friends had laughed so hard they’d have to cross their legs.”
During her 2023 appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show, the host noted that Parton is always true to herself and her beliefs, but that she also always includes everyone else. To that notion, Parton replied, “I know that nobody would be the way they are if they could be different…I want to be loved and accepted, so the least I can do is to try to love and accept other people. And I love the differences in people, just like the spice, the variety of life. I mean, if everybody was the same, it would be a boring life.”
With the passing of Dolly Parton, it seems that one of America’s brightest lights has gone dim. She transcended cultural barriers and united us all under her warm smile, sly wit, and irrepressible charm. She showed what was possible when you live your life with your arms open, pulling people up with you. She embraced the communal values of Christianity: to love others as you want to be loved, and to not judge others lest you want to be judged. She believed in the social contract, that we are all in this together. She was the best of us.
I’ll end this tribute with the letter she sends to Imagination Library graduates when they receive their final book from the program:
“There is no limit to what you can do or how far you can go. Just remember the lessons my family taught me — dream big dreams; learn everything you can learn; and care for all those who care for you. You do all of these things and you can be anyone you want to be.”
