Dolly Parton, country music legend, actor and philanthropist, dies at 80

The songwriter of I Will Always Love You, Jolene and 9 to 5 transcended generations, geography and politics

Dolly Parton, the country music icon whose soaring vibrato vocals, poignant songwriting and sparkling costumes defined her rise from a log cabin in the Tennessee mountains to the height of stardom and acclaim, has died, her nephew Brian Seaver said in a video shared on her Instagram page. She was 80 years old.

Known for her curvy physique, massive blonde wigs and skin-tight outfits that served her self-deprecating wit, she was among the most beloved personalities in music and beyond – the rare celebrity whose appeal transcended generations, geography and politics.

She wrote hundreds of songs, including classics “Jolene”, “Coat of Many Colors” and “I Will Always Love You”, that totalled more than 100 million worldwide sales and more than 1 billion online streams. Parton, who plucked bejewelled banjos, guitar and dulcimers with her long fingernails during performances, was a generous philanthropist and successful businesswoman whose projects included a theme park in the Smoky Mountain foothills near her birthplace.

Her career was forever influenced by her upbringing as one of 12 children born into what she called a “dirt poor” Tennessee family. She started her education charity, Imagination Library, to send free books to children in Tennessee because her father, who left school to work on the farm, struggled to learn to read.

Parton’s first musical performances were in church, where her grandfather was a preacher. By age 10, she was learning guitar and singing on local television programmes. At 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”.

With a suitcase of songs, she followed her uncle, Bill Owens, also a songwriter, to Nashville after finishing school in 1964. Fred Foster, who produced Roy Orbison, Willie Nelson and more, saw her potential and got her songs cut by other artists, as well as recording and releasing Parton singing her own material. By the mid-1970s, Parton was a Nashville queen.