With her distinctive country voice, rhinestone costumes and bouffant blonde hair, Dolly Parton touched my life before we had even met.
Along with her billions of fans, I grew up listening to the music legend’s hits, belting out her emotional words of wisdom, heartbreak and joy in a cacophonous duet that, to put it mildly, merited a soundproof room.
Never in a million years did I imagine that one day I’d be sitting next to the Queen of Nashville, interviewing her about her phenomenal career, the secret of her long marriage to her elusive husband, Carl Dean, her relationship with her goddaughter, Miley Cyrus, and whether that flame-haired temptress in her song Jolene really did exist.
An invitation from Dolly for HELLO! to join her in Tennessee made that dream come true. A blue box, embellished with a silver butterfly, arrived and when opened, out fluttered a paper butterfly. Already, Dolly was sprinkling her stardust.
But her generosity didn’t end there. I would be winging my way to her in style, first class all the way.
To describe myself as excited – and nervous - as I waited for her at her studio in Nashville would be an understatement. But as Dolly glided into the room on her five-inch heels, flashing her dazzling smile, my nerves melted away.
© Sally Morgan“I just think people need to be better to each other,” she told me. “It doesn’t take that much time to be kind."
Showcasing her hourglass figure in a blue and gold outfit embellished with butterflies – her trademark symbol after she chased them as a child in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee – it was difficult to fathom that the 5ft-tall superstar was 78 years old. In the words of her song Here You Come Again, she was certainly “looking better than a body has a right to”.
However, it wasn’t her looks but the warmth she emanated, an aura of kindness, that made an impact I will never forget.
“My dream was to make as many people happy as I could in this life,” she declared in her broad Southern drawl.
She wasn’t just referring to her music, having won 11 Grammy awards, including a lifetime achievement honour, and sold more than 100 million records worldwide. She was talking about her literacy and education programmes and her natural disaster relief and healthcare initiatives, to which she donated millions of dollars from her private fortune (estimated at £330m).
“If you’ve been blessed and you’re in a position to help and you see that there’s a need, you should do it. It makes me feel good to be able to give back. I don’t understand why so many people who make so much money don’t spread that wealth around. I’ve been blessed enough to be in a position to help.”
© Disney General Entertainment ConThe star, who died last week at the age of 80 after a brief battle with cancer, was true to her word.
Unfazed by stardom, down-to-earth Dolly, who once quipped, “Never ignore your roots, your home or your hair”, used her wealth and fame as a platform to help others. She achieved multiple platinum, multi-platinum and gold awards across her albums and singles, but it is for her heart of gold that she will equally be remembered.
“I just think people need to be better to each other,” she told me. “It doesn’t take that much time to be kind. If you’re kind to people, they usually feel bad about not being kind to somebody else. That’s how you spread anything, whether it’s for good or for bad. So why not spread kindness? People are spreading way too much of the other stuff these days.”
The star helped to save lives during the Covid pandemic by donating $1m to Nashville’s Vanderbilt University to fund research into the virus, which led to the creation of the Moderna vaccine.The star helped save lives from Covid-19 by donating $1m to Nashville’s Vanderbilt University to fund research into the virus, which led to the creation of the Moderna vaccine.
© Getty ImagesIt was her father, Robert Lee, who inspired her 1995 children’s literacy initiative, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library – which has given away more than 300 million books globally.
“My daddy couldn’t read or write,” said Dolly, who grew up with 11 siblings in a two-room wooden cabin. “That bothered him and it troubled me that he was troubled by it.
“My daddy lived long enough to see it doing really well. He loved it when the kids would call me the ‘Book Lady’. He was prouder of me for this than being a country music star.”
Last week, the Queen, a royal advocate for literacy, paid tribute to the Queen of Country on Instagram through her charity, The Queen’s Reading Room.
Describing Dolly as an “icon”, the charity thanked Dolly, saying: “By putting so many books into the hands of so many children, she gave the most precious of gifts.”
If anyone is deserving of an outpouring of love and praise for bringing happiness and joy, it’s her. In her honour, the Star-Spangled Banner across the United States was lowered to half mast, the Empire State Building lit up pink and the Band of the Coldstream Guards played her hit song 9 to 5 during the Changing of the Guard ceremony at Buckingham Palace.
© DollyParton.comWhen I met Dolly, she was soon to celebrate her 59th wedding anniversary with her husband, Carl Dean, whom she met outside a Nashville laundromat when she was 18 and he was 21. Sadly, he died, aged 82, two months before they could mark the day.
The secret to their marriage, Dolly said, was mutual respect. Although Carl shunned the limelight, they enjoyed a simple life with an activity that surprised me: pootling around in an RV.
“He’s never liked going out to dinner and all that stuff. But my husband and I have always enjoyed each other. I love to do stuff with him. We have a little RV and like to travel around, especially in Tennessee – we love to get out for the weekend or day trips. We’ve been all over the country in it.”
However, she admitted there was one transgression earlier in their marriage that brought out her feisty side – and inspired arguably her greatest hit: Jolene. It resonated with millions of women and endeared Dolly to them even more.
“A beautiful girl worked at the bank where my husband spent a little more time than I thought he should,” she recalled. “He was in the asphalt paving business, and I went down one day to put some money in and he was sitting on the desk. I said: ‘Hey, what are you doing with this beautiful girl?’ He told me he was trying to get a deal on a roller for his asphalt business.
“I replied: ‘Don’t you think you should be talking to some of these hairy-legged boys about a roller for your asphalt? You’d better get on to the house or it’s going to be your ass and your fault.’”
© Getty ImagesWith a mischievous smile, Dolly added: “I changed the girl’s name to protect the guilty.”
After taking Glastonbury Festival by storm in 2014, where rapturous festival-goers swarmed around the Pyramid Stage – an event she described as “one of the biggest highlights of my career” – Dolly playfully added a new chapter to the Jolene story.
“Every time I look at him [Carl] sleeping over there in his La-Z-Boy, snoring, that hair turning grey at the temples, I wonder if Jolene is still around. I'll call her up and say, 'You come and get him now!'”
After being diagnosed with endometriosis in her thirties and undergoing a partial hysterectomy, Dolly could never have children, but, as she once told the talk-show host Oprah Winfrey: “I believe that God didn’t mean for me to have kids so that everybody’s kids could be mine, so I could do things like the Imagination Library.”
Her ever-growing family of siblings, nephews and nieces were also at the heart of her world, as was her goddaughter, the pop star Miley Cyrus, with whom she collaborated on a new version of Miley’s hit song Wrecking Ball for Dolly’s 2023 album, Rockstar.
“I’m close to Miley,” Dolly told me of the singer. “We’re a tight-knit family and like to have fun. I have a big house – and several big tables – and in my house, we can entertain anywhere.”
© Getty ImagesOne of her regrets was missing out on afternoon tea with the Princess of Wales, who invited Dolly during her whistlestop trip to the UK in 2023 to promote her album Rockstar. To the singer’s dismay, she had to decline the invitation due to her hectic schedule.
“I was honoured and flattered that she even asked me,” she said later.
She added that she would “love” to invite Kate and William and their three children to her Dollywood theme park, and take them on the rides.
Since her death, there has been an outpouring of celebrity tributes for the star. Sir Rod Stewart told hello!: "I had the great pleasure of recording a duet with our wonderful Dolly, Baby it’s Cold Outside, and it certainly does feel colder now our Dolly has gone, but the light and laughter she brought will keep us warm for ever."
Taylor Swift, who began her career in Nashville, said: “A world without Dolly doesn’t feel possible, real or right,” while Sir Paul McCartney declared: “Her songwriting, her singing and her philanthropy were unrivalled.”
Celine Dion described her as “pure light, with a kind heart and a generous spirit” and Jane Fonda, who starred alongside Dolly in the film 9 to 5, said she was “devastated” by the news. While her goddaughter Miley was grieving privately, Miley’s father, Billy Ray Cyrus, said: “I have so many moments and memories with Dolly, it’s hard to know where to start.”
Announcing Dolly’s death by video on Instagram and sharing her final wish to be buried alongside her husband, her nephew Bryan Seaver added that she had requested an old country gospel song, If We Never Meet Again, be played at her funeral. He also said: “Dolly called me and said she wants to rest in a beautiful bed of plush cotton because, after a life of wearing heavy rhinestones, she finally deserves to be comfortable and have some rest.”
With or without rhinestones, a celebration of her life, which brought so much positivity and joy, is certainly in order. I, for one, am playing all my favourite Dolly hits on a loop.
