Dolly Parton

There are very few icons in American culture. Dolly Parton is one of them. 

Did you know: 

Dolly’s the only artist to have Top 20 hits in every decade from the 1960s to the 2010s.

She wrote “Jolene” and “I Will Always Love You,” her two all-time classics, ON THE SAME DAY. 

Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library has, to date, donated more than 140 million books to children around the world.

Her husband Carl, to whom she’s been married for 54 years, has only seen his wife perform ONCE.

She just admitted that yes, she does have tattoos, thank you very much. 

Miley Cyrus is her goddaughter.

Those are just some of the highlights from this 74-year-old icon’s six-decade career, which began on a farm in eastern Tennessee and today sustains the place she’s always called home. 

Singing in her grandfather’s Pentecostal church at six. Local radio and television appearances at 10. Grand Old Opry debut at 13. First country single at 19. Weekly spot on national television at 21. 

What Dolly’s early-life fast track doesn’t reflect is that she grew up “dirt poor” (her words) on the banks of the Little Pigeon River in eastern Tennessee, the fourth of a dozen children living in a one-room cabin with their father, a sharecropper and tobacco farmer, and mother, whose 12th baby was born before she turned 35. 

Dolly spent her childhood singing, writing songs and appearing on local television and radio. The day after she graduated from high school in 1964, she hopped a bus to Nashville where she and her uncle, Bill Owens, wrote songs for other singers to record (two of which were Top 10 hits). In 1966 Dolly released her first single, which cracked the country Top 20.

The Porter Wagoner Show called in 1967, and Dolly signed on. She and Wagoner had a six-year streak of top 10 singles as a duet, but Dolly wanted a solo career and left the show in 1974. That was the year of “Jolene,” her first No. 1 single, and “I Will Always Love You,” her second. 

That’s when Elvis came knocking. Turns out he too wanted to record “I Will Always Love You,” but only if Dolly agreed to sign over half of the publishing rights. She knew what the song was worth and politely declined, retaining her copyright on a song that would eventually be recorded and performed publicly more than 10 million times. She calls it the best business decision she’s made.

From the 1970s through the early 2000s, Dolly’s music dominated the country charts. She gathered awards from, among others, the Grammys, the Academy of Country Music and the Country Music Association, which named her Entertainer of the Year in 1978 (one of only six women to receive the award). Her songs were also nominated for two Academy Awards and a Tony.

She began acting in the 1980s, making guest appearances on television (she snagged an Emmy for a spot with Cher) and starring in feature films including 9 to 5, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, and that all-time sob-fest, Steel Magnolias. 

Her production company, Sandollar Productions, co-produced (among other productions) Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the two Father of the Bride movies, and the documentary Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt, which won an Academy Award. This year Sandollar earned an Emmy nomination for Dolly Parton’s Heartstrings, a Netflix series about Dolly’s music career that Dolly executive-produced.

Dolly hit the road in the late 2000s, touring and selling out smaller venues and then arenas in the United States, Canada and Europe (where she hadn’t performed in 30 years). In 2014 she appeared for the first time at England’s Glastonbury Festival, performing for more than 180,000 people. Two years later, she sold out her biggest North American tour ever, 64 cities in all.

Business Dolly was working just as hard. 

She formed the Dollywood Company and in 1986 bought an existing theme park in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., near where she grew up. Today, Dollywood employs more than 4,000 full-time and seasonal workers, making it the largest employer in the county. The park attracts more than 3 million visitors a year, and Dolly’s there every year on opening day to greet season pass holders. 

In addition to Dollywood, the company operates eight dinner theatres in Tennessee, Missouri and South Carolina; Splash Country, a nearby water park; a separate resort and spa; and Dollywood’s Smoky Mountain Cabins.

Then there’s Dolly Parton, philanthropist. 

Her father, who was illiterate, was the inspiration behind her biggest philanthropic program, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. Launched in 1995, the literacy program gifts children one book a month from birth until they begin school, regardless of family income. 

Dolly herself is the Book Lady, and in April appeared on YouTube in pajamas, propped against frilly pillows on a giant bed, for “Good Night With Dolly,” a 10-week series of bedtime stories from the Imagination Library that she read to help kids during the pandemic.

She also donated $1 million to Vanderbilt University for COVID-19 research, paid furloughed employees at Dollywood to help them weather the lockdown, and made a hand-washing video to show us all how to do it right. 

And there’s more Dolly to come. A Holly Dolly Christmas, her first holiday album in 30 years, is being released Oct. 2, while her sixth book, Dolly Parton Storyteller: My Life in Lyrics will be published Nov. 17. 

Thanks to an exclusive deal with Peleton, you can ride with Dolly in a series of workouts that celebrate her life and music, and Williams Sonoma will introduce a Dolly-backed line of bakeware and specialty foods this fall.

Eleven million albums sold. One billion songs streamed on-demand. 3.5 million Instagram followers. One podcast, Dolly Parton’s America, that celebrates her multicultural, cross-generational appeal.  

That’s iconic.