by Abb Jones
The Reelness

Dolly Parton, the Grammy award-winning queen of country music, whose 100 million record sales made her one of the best-selling music artists in history, and who, as an actress, starred in such classic films as 9 to 5, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and Steel Magnolias, has died at the age of 80. Parton died peacefully at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville following a brief battle with cancer.

Parton had shared an update on her health just four days ago as she was hospitalized, acknowledging her recent decline following the March 2025 death of her 82-year-old husband Carl Thomas Dean.

Born in poverty in 1946 in Pittman Center, as the fourth of 12 children, Parton began playing her first guitar and singing in her grandfather’s church at the age of six and started writing songs a year later. After her high school graduation, Parton moved to Nashville where she played in clubs and began what is universally known as a prolific songwriting career. She was the first country music singer to write most of her own hit songs.

Parton first made a name for herself in 1967, as the duet singing partner to the flamboyantly dressed, pompadoured country music star Porter Wagoner. She would have several hit singles during that time, among them “Joshua,” “Coat of Many Colors,” “My Tennessee Mountain Home” and “Jolene,” before parting in 1974 to begin her solo career. “I Will Always Love You,” which Parton wrote as a farewell to Wagoner, would earn her millions when Whitney Houston recorded it for the 1992 film The Bodyguard.

Parton’s appearance in the 1980 comedy 9 to 5 as Doralee Rhodes, the buxom secretary to the lecherous businessman Franklin Hart, established Parton as a box office draw, with her titular song earning an Oscar nomination while becoming one of her biggest hits of the decade.

Parton followed that up starring with Burt Reynolds in 1982’s The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, adapted from the stage play. Seven years later she would star as beauty shop owner Truvy Jones in the Southern dramedy Steel Magnolias, which also starred Sally Field, Julia Roberts, Shirley MacLaine, Olympia Dukakis and Daryl Hannah.

Parton was also known for her humanitarian work. Her family has requested that donations be made in her honor to Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, which, inspired by her own father’s inability to read, she established 31 years ago to provide books free of charge to young children.