This month we honor a very beloved Kickass Woman, Dolly Rebecca Parton Dean. Dolly Parton was beloved by people across America for her music, her personality, and her philanthropy. The greatness of Dolly Parton is one of the few things that almost everyone, regardless of political affiliation, seems to agree upon.
Dolly’s origin story has been told and retold so often as to make it a modern American legend. She was born 1946 in a one-room cabin in Tennessee, one of twelve children. Her father sharecropped until he was able to buy and work his own small farm. He also worked in construction. Dolly has credited her father for her skill with business and her mother for her skills in music and entertaining.
Performing her song “Jolene” with her goddaughter, Miley Cyrus.
Dolly started performing as a young child and performed at the Grand Ole Opry for the first time at the age of 13. She became a successful songwriter for others and had her own first country music hit with “Dumb Blonde” in 1966. Decades came and went and her career had ups and downs, but she was consistently writing, performing, recording, and acting from then until her death on August 25, 2026 at the age of eighty.
She wrote over 3000 songs. Her musical legacy of original songs includes “Coat of Many Colors,” “9 to 5,” “Yellow Roses,” “I Will Always Love You,” and “Jolene.”
Above: video of the first performance of Coat of Many Colors, performed on the Porter Wagoner Show in 1970
Dolly is remembered for her musical legacy, but she was even more beloved for her status as a protector of marginalized people. She was especially beloved by the LGBTQIA+ community, who she vocally and visibly supported LGBT people as early as the 1980s. Her production company (which produced Buffy the Vampire Slayer!) co-produced Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt in 1989, and she contributed the song “Travelin’ Through” to the 2005 movie Transamerica. She supported gay marriage legalization and transgender rights.
“Travelin’ Through” at the 78th Academy Awards in 2006
She also kept her childhood poverty in mind and supported those in her region and across the nation who struggled with poverty. One example lies in her creation of Dollywood, a theme park in her home town of Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.
She purchased and created Dollywood because:
“I always thought that if I made it big or got successful at what I had started out to do, that I wanted to come back to my part of the country and do something great, something that would bring a lot of jobs into this area.”
Currently Dollywood employs 4000 people. As of 2022, employees of Dollywood who choose to attend college have their tuition, fees, and books paid for by Dollywood.
Probably the project that is most near and dear to the hearts of the Smart Bitch community is her founding of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. Dolly founded this program in 1995 and dedicated it to her father, who never learned to read or write. Under this program, the Dollywood Foundation partners with local organizations to provide one free age-appropriate book a month to children from birth until their fifth birthday at no cost to families. The program was launched in Parton’s home county (Sevier County) and is now active across the U.S. as well as Canada, Australia, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. As of 2026, 120 million children received books through this program.
The Muppet Show 1987, performing Everyday People written by Sly Stone
Since our feelings about Dolly Parton tend to be personal, I hope you’ll indulge me in a personal story. One day, when I was maybe around ten years old, my auntie came over to help my mom with something or other and they put on a Dolly Parton record. I had just learned a new word so I felt very sophisticated and clever when I said, “Ugh, I hate Dolly Parton, she’s such a bimbo!”
Well, my friends, my auntie’s head whipped around and she fixed me with a look I’ve never seen before or since and said, and I quote her exactly because it’s forever engraved in my brain, “Oh no, she is not! She is a very shrewd business woman!”
Video for Backwoods Barbie, 2009
The ensuing conversation permanently altered my brain chemistry and challenged my young ideas about femininity for the better.
Dolly taught a lot of us about how one can choose and create a public persona and use it to both advance a public life and protect a private one.
She was candid about her fashion and her plastic surgeries, and when discussing them she somehow managed to convey a consistent message of loving yourself for exactly who you are.
Video for “After the Gold Rush” from 1999, written by Neil Young, performed by lifelong friends and collaborators Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton, and Linda Ronstadt. These women were the country music holy trinity of my youth. As I grew older I learned from their commitments to collaborating with and lifting up other artists as well as themselves. I also loved their refusal to be pigeon-holed into any one musical category, and their advocacy of new music and very very old music alike.
I could never enumerate all of the ways that Dolly Parton made life better. Picking videos for this post feels impossible given not only her own songwriting achievements but also her covers and collaborations. In terms of philanthropy – well, it’s difficult to properly do justice to the life of someone who gave us things as varied as the Covid vaccine and Buffy the Vampire Slayer! Here’s a few articles that highlight her advocacy and philanthropy:
Supporting LGBTQIA+ Causes: “10 times Dolly Parton cemented her status as an LGBTQ+ icon” by Christopher Wiggins and Neal Broverman, The Advocate
Saving Bald Eagles: “Dolly Parton helped save endangered bald eagles” by Sophie Ellis, Discover Wildlife
Support Black Lives Matter: “‘Of Course Black Lives Matter,’ Dolly Parton Tells Billboard” by Camila Domonoske, NPR
Protecting animals: “Dolly Parton Had a Big Heart for Lonely and Neglected Dogs,” PETA
Supporting Healthcare: “Dolly Parton’s health care legacy: Two decades of giving,” by Austin Littrell. Fact checked by: Keith A. Reynolds, AC Baltz, Medical Economics
Innovative giving after the Smokey Mountain wildfires: “Dolly Parton Provides Fire Victims ‘Shoulder To Lean On'” by Andrew Flanagan, NPR
Encouraging Tennessee kids to stay in school: “How Dolly Parton Helped Lower Dropout Rates by Nearly 30% In Her Area: “Our Patron Saint’” by Rosie Colosi, Today.com
What could possibly close us out but the video for “9 to 5” from 1980?
What are your
