Dolly Parton, music and cultural icon, dies at 80

Dolly Parton, performing live onstage at the UK Country Music Festival

(Image credit: Andrew Putler / Redferns / Getty Images)

What happened

Dolly Parton, the country music superstar who wrote and recorded iconic songs like “I Will Always Love You” and “Jolene,” died Tuesday in Nashville, Tennessee, after “bravely facing a brief battle with cancer,” her publicist said. She was 80. Over her six-decade career, Parton wrote more than 3,000 songs, sold more than 100 million records, and won 11 Grammys, along with numerous other accolades. She also gifted more than 300 million books to children worldwide through her Imagination Library program.

From “hardscrabble beginnings to glittering stardom,” Parton’s life was the “stuff of make-believe,” said The New York Times. Her songs “vividly captured details of her impoverished Appalachian upbringing” and “shared her views on love, faith, loss and regret,” said Rolling Stone. Parton’s “curvy physique, massive blond wigs and skin-tight outfits” served her “self-deprecating wit,” The Associated Press said, and she was the “rare celebrity whose appeal transcended generations, geography and politics.”