THE WASHINGTON POST: What we loved most about Dolly Parton

Is there anyone in modern American history who has a fan base as deep and wide as Dolly Parton’s? Who was equally beloved by Christians, union organisers, drag queens, cowboys, literacy advocates, Tennesseans, Appalachians, music snobs, academics, Jane Fonda and Donald Trump?

She found success in music and film. She created thousands of jobs at her amusement park, Dollywood, in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.

Her Imagination Library has gifted hundreds of millions of books to children. She gave $1 million to COVID research, made a Black Lives Matter video and still remained beloved by people of all political persuasions.

It’s impossible to overstate Parton’s impact; any list would be incomplete. Here are some of the ways Parton made our lives better and our world brighter.

Dolly the musician

For someone as playfully public facing as Parton, she guarded one aspect of her personal life like a classified document: Her six-decade marriage to the late Carl Dean. In fact, the only hint of unrest came on Jolene, in which she writes about the bank clerk with the “flaming locks of auburn hair” who apparently flirted with Dean not long after they got hitched. The song, released in 1973, would be her first to crack the Billboard pop charts and would be covered by countless others, including the White Stripes, Olivia Newton-John and, of course, the “Glee” cast. Tyler Mahan Coe slowed down Chip Young’s infectious thumb-plucking for the theme to his award-winning podcast, “Cocaine & Rhinestones.” But ultimately, no matter how many others tried, Parton’s version remained the best. Geoff Edgers

Yes, Whitney Houston’s 1992 rendition of I Will Always Love You is the most popular one — the Grammy winner and platinum 11 times as of 2025. But Parton’s plaintive, quieter 1974 recording — she wrote the song about parting with her mentor, Porter Wagoner — subtly captures the complexity of knowing when it’s time to leave a relationship. There’s a little bit of longing for what was, but no bitterness. It’s also a testament to her moxie. Elvis Presley wanted to record Parton’s hit, but his manager insisted that she relinquish half the rights to it. She famously turned him down, a decision that was agonising in the short term but made her rich in the end. She later invested the royalties in a historically Black Nashville neighbourhood, in Houston’s honour. Maura Judkis

The act of moving on sounds downright thrilling on Light of a Clear Blue Morning, which Parton wrote after she decoupled from Wagoner. But what’s equally impressive is the song’s winding structure, which, in the 1977 recording, modulates upward with the growing confidence of someone who’s gone through hell and lived to sing about it. Anchored by Parton’s uproarious voice, we open on a sober piano ballad, before a gospel choir and rollicking rhythm section kick things into gear. “I’ve been like a captured eagle/ You know an eagle’s born to fly,” she belts. But just wait until Clyde Brooks is hitting the snare drum on every beat, a feeling so ecstatic that it seems as if all of Parton’s problems have disappeared. No wonder she described it as her “song of freedom”. Ethan Beck

Parton’s debut album, Hello, I’m Dolly, released in 1967 and recorded in Nashville, brings the raw passion of a woman navigating love and heartbreak. In 2020, Parton said the song’s first track, Dumb Blonde, summed her up: “‘Cause this dumb blonde ain’t nobody’s fool.’” I Don’t Want to Throw Rice has Parton losing her man to another woman. Instead of throwing rice at the wedding, Parton fantasises about tying dynamite to the side of the woman’s car. Parton is soulful in her brokenness, but not without humour. In Something Fishy, where Parton deals with a cheating man, she sings, “I guess some largemouth bass left that lipstick on your shirt/ I don’t think you’re a fisherman, honey, I think you’re a flirt.” Omari Daniels

Dolly the actress

Parton’s role as the endlessly caring hairdresser Truvy in Steel Magnolias always struck me as not much of an acting jump. We meet her first as she gossips with her friends and perfects Julia Roberts’s wedding-day updo. They talk love and romance and life in Louisiana before a medical emergency momentarily shatters the joy. As Roberts’s character realises she’s destroyed Truvy’s handiwork, Dolly in that moment is every best friend you’ve ever had. She simply hugs her and quietly promises, “I’ll fix it”.

My mom and sister and I watched this movie dozens of times, laughing until we cried, and quoting the same lines over and over. Since my sister died, the legendary cemetery scene has caused a lot more tears than laughter. But whenever I think of Parton, I see Truvy. In every scene, showing up for her friends, sometimes quietly, but however she could. I think of my sister and my mom. And what a gift it is to have strong women in your life. Annah Aschbrenner

As an actor, Parton didn’t exactly disappear into her roles. Like Mae West or Carol Channing, Parton was unmistakably herself wherever she appeared. Her looks figured prominently in her roles: She told Daryl Hannah “There is no such thing as natural beauty” in 1989’s Steel Magnolias; James Woods exclaimed “Holy moly!” when she removed her bra in the 1992 comedy Straight Talk; she was the only character to wear a custom-tailored, curve-hugging choir robe in the 2012 Queen Latifah musical Joyful Noise. But on-screen Dolly served more than body. Her comic timing in “9 to 5” rivalled that of her co-stars Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin. In Steel Magnolias she held her own alongside Hollywood greats Sally Field and Shirley MacLaine, infusing her character with tenderness and compassion that jumped off the screen. And she anchored Straight Talk, which holds up as a perfectly crafted ’90s rom-com with a perfectly crafted ’90s country-pop theme song. Shane O’Neill

Younger audiences may have been introduced to Dolly through her guest-star role on the Disney teen sitcom Hannah Montana, in which she portrayed the sassy and nurturing aunt of her real-life goddaughter, Miley Cyrus. Aunt Dolly was effectively a heightened version of the real woman. Many of Aunt Dolly’s one-liners could have just as easily come from Dolly herself: “When your pants are as tight as mine are, you’ve got to have somewhere to put your phone.” Liam Scott

Back in 1992, when I was an entertainment writer for the Houston Post, I had a one-on-one interview with Parton while she was promoting her film Straight Talk. It was a rags-to-riches tale that Parton could identify with, she told me: “It was the strangest kind of movie to do because when we were doing it, it kind of took me back to 1964 when I first moved to Nashville on my own.” For years, the only thing I recalled about this interview was that Parton loved my hair, which was long and blond and usually tied into a ponytail. She was just being Dolly, using her Great Smoky Mountains charm to break down walls. Tim Carman

Dolly the philanthropist

My oldest child was born in the early months of the pandemic, which meant a lot of big things, but also a small thing: My dream of bringing her to baby story time at the library would not materialise. Enter Parton. Her Imagination Library organisation partners with local groups to send free books to kids every month between birth and age 5; it had given away more than 300 million as of 2025. The first we received was The Little Engine That Could with a welcome letter, and we delighted in new arrivals every month. I was not emotionally prepared for the final volume last year, Look Out Kindergarten, Here I Come! The farewell note inside started with “My, how time flies” and ended with an only-from-Dolly sign-off: “I Will Always Love You.” Hannah Sampson

Dolly the fashion icon

Were her ever-present long sleeves really for covering up two arms’ worth of sleeve tattoos? We may never know. But there’s so much else to appreciate about Parton’s styling choices. Her unpretentious love of rhinestones, her acrylic nails that sometimes doubled as an instrument, her self-effacing remarks about how it took “a lot of money to look this cheap”. Women in the public eye spend so much time and money keeping up appearances, and even more trying to conceal that they did. Parton, in her funny and radical way, sidestepped a generation’s worth of neuroses and fraught gender politics when CBS’s Tony Dokoupil asked whether her breasts were real. With a laugh, Parton responded, “They’re real expensive.” Ashley Fetters Maloy

Dolly the dreamer

You can find thrill rides, funnel cake and arcade games at any amusement park, but you could find Dolly only at Dollywood. And Parton was really there. She appeared, giddy and overdressed for a day at the park, for grand openings and special events at the Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, attraction. Even when she wasn’t there in person, she was present in spirit, because Dollywood was personal. The theme park was Parton’s life — her childhood in the Great Smoky Mountains, her musical career, her appreciation of nature, her unabashed devotion to sparkles, her connection to her family, her staff and her fans. Dollywood, more than ever before, is a place to be still with Parton, even if you’re screaming down Big Bear Mountain at nearly 50 mph. Andrea Sachs