Country music legend, Dolly Parton, has died at the age of 80. A prolific songwriter and renowned philanthropist, she's being remembered not just for her music but her charitable endeavours, including her Imagination Library. In a career spanning decades she had 10 Grammy wins from 55 nominations, the third-most nominated woman in Grammy history.She died peacefully in Nashville, at the age of 80, after a short battle with cancer.
Listen to Australian and world news and follow trending topics with SBS News Podcasts.
TRANSCRIPT
An iconic Dolly Parton song, known by fans across the generations.
The sad honour of announcing the superstar's death to the world, falling to her nephew and long-time head of security, Brian Seaver.
"My family and I have shared a lifetime of beautiful memories with Dolly, but so have you. She has always been on your television, your record player, your CD, and on your phone playlist, becoming an extended part of your family, whether you liked it or not. Our family and the team she has entrusted with her legacy will work diligently to ensure her spirit will live with us forever."
A shrine full of tributes quick to form in Los Angeles, at her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Fan: "If America had royalty you know right she would be one of them it’s like losing our princess Diana."
Fan: "She came from nothing and was able to overcome so many trials and I think that she was able to show that with her presence and continue to give such love to everyone in the world and just remain super humble and very inspiring."
Fan: "We lost an angel today and it’s affecting me still I think it’s a sort of a matter of processing how I feel because this was we knew something was coming but we didn’t know when and the fact that it happened when it did today caught all of us offguard or a lot of us off guard, it caught me off guard."
At America's home of country music - Nashville, Tennessee - fans signed a condolence book at the Nashville Country Museum.
A visit to the Dolly Parton exhibition at the city's Country Music Hall of Fame, particularly poignant today for fan Amanda Robinson.
"Right when we walked into her exhibit we heard people on their phones walking out and they said that she just passed away. I personally didn’t even know she was sick so, a shock. Yeah, it’s not what you expect to happen. (Question: What were your emotions as you were going through the exhibit?) I was teary-eyed, trying to hold it together, just because you didn’t want to look like a wuss, I also didn’t want my husband to make fun of me. Yeah, we lost a legend."
Paul Thomas was also in the exhibition when he heard the news.
"We’ve all been fans of Dolly for years. Always known her as a great musician-singer, actress and after going to her exhibition here, I found out a lot more about what a generous, generous person she was, what a friend of the state of Tennessee, how much she’s actually done here, especially the reading program for kids. Just blown away by that."
That program - Dolly Parton's Imagination Library - gifting more than 300 million books to children since it started 31 years ago.
It runs in five countries, including Australia.
Parton says she started the program because her father, who quit school to work on the farm, struggled to learn to read.
The Australian branch of the Imagination Library is run by not-for-profit United Way Australia, reaching a milestone here in December last year, delivering its 2-millionth book.
It works with Local Program Partners across the country including in Australia's country music capital, Tamworth.
Lisa Rennie is the Program Ambassador for the Tamworth Regional Council, where the program's been running since 2019, with about 3,500 children taking part.
"As we know, electronic devices are replacing a lot of things, but nothing replaces that physical book in someone's hands, it being read to them or the child reading it to their loved one. And the pictures come alive. I think that's one important thing that has to continue because the devices flicking through a page is nothing like having the smell of the book, the colors of the pictures, all those things."
Dolly Parton grew up in the mountains of Tennessee, to what she called a "dirt poor" family of 12 children.
Her first musical performances were in church, where her grandfather was a preacher.
By age 10, she was learning guitar and singing on local television shows and at just 13 she appeared on the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, where Johnny Cash introduced her as “a little girl here from up in East Tennessee.”
She moved to Nashville in 1964 after graduating high school and by the mid-1970s was a household name.
A striking figure with her curvy physique, big blonde wigs and skin-tight outfits, in 2013 she explained how the iconic look came to be.
"I started out as a young girl here in this town, and I wore a lot of makeup, I wore a lot of hair. And my look, sincerely, came from a very honest place. It was a country girl's idea of glamour, just like my song, 'Backwoods Barbie.' I wanted to be pretty more than anything in the world 'cause we didn't have anything, I couldn't be pretty and I wanted to be pretty. And I am not a natural beauty. So I created a look that I was comfortable with, that I thought was good for me, for who I was and what I wanted to look like in the business."
Known for her kindness and encouraging demeanour, Parton has inspired generations of women to have more self confidence, something she touched on when receiving a lifetime achievement award from the Country Music Association in 2016.
"It makes me feel good. I feel like I have done something to further this business. Course you never know what you're going to become or what you're going to achieve when you start out. But the fact that all these young women and these young stars say that I have inspired them, makes me feel real good. Makes me feel like I might have done something right along the way. And I love what I do and I hope to be doing it from now on. I hope they don't think because they gave me a lifetime achievement award they thought I was done."
Her peers in the entertainment industry, paying tribute to her today.
Among them, her 9 to 5 co-star, Jane Fonda saying she "never knew anyone like her."
"Let’s be grateful for all that she has left us to ease our sadness now," she says.
Country music star Kasey Musgraves says "The world feels a lot less sparkly all of a sudden."
Elton John describing her as a "giant of an artist - unique and irreplaceable, with the kindest heart.:
Across a career spanning six decades, husband Carl Dean was a constant support in the shadows, until his own death in March last year.
“I am a person of faith and I truly believe that I'm going to see him again someday, and I see him every day in my memories and in my heart and in all the things that we used to do and all the things that we've built together. But you just kind of have to learn to kind of make new plans and kind of – but that's the hardest part is like breaking routines and patterns and habits. But I really feel his presence and I just feel, you know, I have my moments to where I kinda get that wrecking ball in the stomach, as they say."
The couple now reunited.
"Dolly has lived in the light and is in the arms of Jesus, surely met by Carl, her parents and countless others who have watched her and longed for her to meet them in the heavens."
Nephew Brian Seaver says Dolly Parton will never be forgotten.
"Dolly was a farmer, just like her daddy. He farmed the soil, she farmed songs and happiness. Dolly called me and said she wants 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 in peace, Aunt Dolly, Aunt Granny, Gigi. May God bless Dolly Parton and may God bless you all. She will always love you."
