Dolly Parton, whose death from cancer was confirmed by her estate, died on 25 August at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, surrounded by loved ones, according to Today. The country singer from the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee leaves behind a seven-decade career defined by songs that told stories with unflinching honesty: Coat of Many Colours, Jolene and I Will Always Love You among the most enduring.
In that career, Parton won 10 Grammy awards, sold more than 100 million records worldwide and wrote in excess of 3,000 songs. She considered herself a songwriter above all else. ‘It’s my way of expressing myself,’ she said. ‘It’s my therapy.’
Dolly Parton death from cancer follows months of health concerns
According to The Independent, Parton’s health concerns first became public in September 2025, when she was forced to postpone her Las Vegas residency. In a video message at the time, she said she could not be ‘dizzy carrying around banjos, guitars and such on 5-inch heels’. The postponement, she said, was to allow her time to heal and be ‘stage-performance ready’.
Her death came months after the loss of her husband, Carl Thomas Dean, who died in March 2025 at the age of 82. The pair had met on Parton’s very first day in Nashville after she graduated from high school in 1964, and remained together for the rest of his life.
Parton was born in 1946, the fourth of 12 children, into a poor farming family living in a one-bedroom cabin in Tennessee. Her father, Robert Lee Parton, paid a missionary a sack of cornmeal for delivering her. Music was already woven into family life: her mother sang folk songs, her aunt played guitar and wrote songs. By her teenage years, Parton was performing on local television.
From the Grand Ole Opry to a global stage
In 1959, aged 13, Parton performed at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville alongside her uncle, Bill Owens. She was introduced by Johnny Cash and received three encores. It was an early signal of what was to come.
She joined country performer Porter Wagoner’s television programme in Nashville, and the pair became one of country music’s most popular duos over the following seven years. The partnership was a complicated one. Writing in her book Star of the Show: My Life on Stage, Parton said Wagoner saw her growing solo success as a ‘threat’. Her farewell to him became one of the most celebrated songs in American music. She wrote I Will Always Love You as a goodbye; Wagoner wept when he first heard it.
In 1992, Whitney Houston transformed the song into a power ballad. Parton said she had to pull over while driving when she first heard the cover: ‘When I heard her go from the a cappella into the music part, I honestly thought I was going to have a heart attack, it was one of the most overwhelming things.’
Jolene, released in 1974, showcased a different kind of vulnerability. The song has since been covered by artists including The White Stripes, Miley Cyrus and Beyoncé. Coat of Many Colours, scrawled on the back of one of Wagoner’s dry cleaning receipts while travelling on a tour bus in 1969, was rated by Rolling Stone magazine as her second best-ever song.
Parton’s 9 to 5, written for the 1980 film of the same name after she noticed her acrylic nails clicking like a typewriter on set, propelled her to a wider audience. Jane Fonda, who produced and starred in the film, said she realised immediately it was not just a theme song but an anthem.
Beyond music, Parton built a business empire that included her own record label, Dolly Records, and co-ownership of The Dollywood Company, which manages entertainment venues, a theme park, a water park and a resort. In 2022, she was awarded the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy, recognition for a philanthropic record that included donating $1m (£716,000) to Vanderbilt University Medical Centre, which helped fund the Moderna vaccine during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Her Imagination Library, launched in 1999 and inspired by her father who could not read or write, has expanded from Tennessee to Australia, the UK, Ireland and Canada, sending millions of free books to children every year. The Dollywood Foundation, her non-profit organisation, has funded scholarships, hospitals and donated to flood and wildfire victims.
Parton said she hoped to be remembered for her songwriting and as somebody who took her work seriously, but not herself. ‘Never ignore your roots, your home, or your hair,’ she once said. She stayed true to all three.
