The one and only Dolly Parton: A tribute
Perhaps only Dolly Parton could dress like a flag – and still be taken seriously by a ship full of sailors. Only Dolly.
Paul Natkin/Getty Images 
Tributes poured in from everywhere this past week for the singer-songwriter, hailed as the queen of country music, who died Tuesday at the age of 80. Jane Fonda called her “the voluptuous embodiment of empathy.” Taylor Swift said she was “true grace and true grit, all in one dazzling person.”
Everyone has a Dolly story – and her story was everyone’s in return.
“I got to be pretty famous pretty quick,” she told “Sunday Morning” in 2022. “And I was very excited about that. Before I got that job, though, I had no car, no phone, no nothing. I’ve known the pain of that, and the joy of that.”
In her nearly 70 years of entertaining, she managed to bridge just about every gap. A poll taken five months before her death revealed 70% percent of Americans had a favorable view of Dolly Parton — that was the highest approval rating for any other luminary on the list by far.
Her warmth and wit, her unshakable honesty, and that Tennessee timbre that flowed like whiskey in songs about heartache, faith and fear, made Dolly Parton a once-in-a-generation talent. She was family, whether you liked country music or not.
“9 to 5” was one of some 3,000 songs she composed over her lifetime, from country, to gospel, to bluegrass. Legend has it she wrote “Jolene” and “I Will Always Love You” back-to-back.
Dolly Parton performs “Jolene”:
Dolly Parton performs “I Will Always Love You”:
It’s all pretty remarkable, especially given that Parton couldn’t read sheet music. But for her, songs came from the heart, not the page, as she once told Dan Rather for “Sunday Morning” in 2004:
“People like me, especially songwriters, people that live – in order to be a writer, you’re extremely sensitive. You have to leave yourself wide open, you know, to every feeling. But by doing that, you leave yourself very vulnerable to everything. Everything I do, I feel to the nth degree. I can’t eat just a little; I have to eat the whole thing. I can’t feel just a little; I have to love all the way … everything I do, I throw myself completely into it.”
Born in a two-room log cabin in the hills of Tennessee, Dolly Rebecca Parton was the fourth of 12 children. She says they were “dirt poor” and lived a country life you’d only understand if you’d lived it yourself. She said, “I’m pretty sharp. I’m not educated and I’m not that intelligent, but I’m smart, I’m country smart. You know how they say somebody’s ‘street smart’? I feel like if I’ve got to tell you, I’m country smart.”
Music, she says, was always around – especially at church, where she started singing at only six.
Dolly Parton performs “Coat of Many Colors”:
“My mom’s people were all musical,” Parton said. “And so, we played and sang at every funeral, every wedding, every shindig going on in town. Everyone in my family was, you know, in that.”
For all her fame, she kept her private life extremely private. She was married only once, to Carl Dean, who ran a road and driveway paving business. He passed away in 2025 at the age of 82, after 59 years of marriage. They never had any children together. As she told “Sunday Morning” in 2019, she did not regret that: “No, absolutely not. It wasn’t meant to be, and I don’t regret it. I never regretted it. I mean, it was a choice. You make your choices. You make your sacrifices.”
Fame was indeed a sacrifice – a dangerous one, she once revealed: “I was so depressed over my weight and a lot of other things, until I just finally thought: get off your fat ass, get on with your life. But out of that, I just had to sit down, take inventory, ask God to help me, lead me out of that, and I thought: you know, this is the best thing. In a few months, I really made a comeback, and I got my weight in order. I got my stuff in order, and I really put the rest of my life together.”
That life was also full of charity. She quietly supported disaster relief efforts, medical research, and youth literacy programs.
Her Imagination Library has delivered one book a month to pre-K kids since 1995 – amounting to millions and millions of free books to children all across the country.
“We didn’t have books in the house,” she explained. “Mama had the Bible. And I loved books at school, and I would read anything I could get my hands on.”
She was as self-aware as they come, genuine to a fault. When told that God had made her pretty, Parton responded: “Yeah, he did. But I helped Him some. God’s willing to help them who help themselves. … I’ve had a lots of work done. I’ll have more done when I need it. I always said, if I see something sagging, dragging and bagging, I’m gonna nip it, tuck it and suck it, whatever needs to be done.”
Her beauty, she said, is a hillbilly version of it, but it translated into an on-screen career that made acting so attractive. She could have fled her Tennessee roots for Hollywood, but she didn’t, so much so, she created a theme park around her upbringing. It wasn’t vanity – it was a testament to how far she’d come, and inspiration for those back in the hollers dreaming of something big.
Dolly Parton performs “Here You Come Again”:
Out of all the songs she recorded, she left one behind, called “My Place in History.” It’s locked in a time capsule that she asked not be opened until her 100th birthday – January 19, 2046.
Her nephew, Bryan Seaver, said she “wanted to rest in a beautiful bed of plush cotton because, after a life wearing heavy rhinestones, she finally deserves to be comfortable and have some rest.” Rest, indeed.
Asked by Tony Dokopuil how she wanted people to remember her 100 years from now, Parton quipped, “I want them to say, God, don’t she look good for her age?“
The best of Dolly Parton on “Sunday Morning”
Watch interviews and never-before-aired footage from the singer-songwriter’s appearances on “CBS Sunday Morning.”
For more info:
Story produced by Jay Kernis. Editor: Chad Cardin.
