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The inimitable, irreplaceable Dolly Parton passed away on Tuesday after a brief battle with cancer. She was 80. The country legend and cultural icon was perhaps our last universally beloved celebrity, bridging the widening political and social divide in America.
In addition to creating classic tunes like “Jolene” and “I Will Always Love You,” selling over 100 million records, taking home 11 Grammy Awards and starring in celebrated films such as “9 to 5,” “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” and “Steel Magnolias,” Parton worked tirelessly away from the cameras to make the world a better place.
Here are some extraordinary things Parton did that you probably didn’t know.
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She Inspired Millions to Read
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In 1995, Parton founded The Imagination Library, a charity that gifted books to children under the age of 5 for free, in honor of her late father. The Imagination Library was the result of a partnership between her Dollywood Foundation and local organizations, and began distributing books to kids in her local Sevier County, Tennessee, before expanding worldwide. Last year, the Imagination Library announced that it had gifted over 300 million books since its inception, including 40,356,668 in 2025 alone, or a book every 0.78 seconds). Parton created The Imagination Library in honor of her father, who couldn’t read.
“Before he passed away, my Daddy told me the Imagination Library was probably the most important thing I had ever done. I can’t tell you how much that meant to me because I created the Imagination Library as a tribute to my Dadd,” Parton wrote. “He was the smartest man I have ever known but I know in my heart his inability to read probably kept him from fulfilling all of his dreams. Inspiring kids to love to read became my mission.”
The Imagination Library received a $2 million pledge from Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce as part of their $26 million in charity donations as part of their wedding. Following Parton’s passing, the Imagination Library stated that it would continue gifting books to kids, despite Republican legislatures in states like Indiana and Missouri cutting its funding.
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She Helped Produce the COVID Vaccine
Image Credit: Vanderbilt University Medical Center
In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic — we’re talking April of 2020 — Parton donated $1 million to the Vanderbilt University Medical Center for research into Covid-19 that eventually helped in the development of the Moderna Covid vaccine. Parton did so at the behest of Dr. Naji Abumrad, who’d treated Parton at the hospital years earlier following a car accident. She was subsequently administered the Moderna vaccine on camera while singing “Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine!” to the tune of “Jolene,” to spread awareness to her legion of fans. Parton also donated $1 million to the pediatric cancer wing of Vanderbilt University Medical Center in honor of her friend’s niece, Hannah Dennison, who was successfully treated for leukemia there. Parton was hospitalized on Aug. 21 at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center inside of the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where she eventually passed away.
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LGBTQ+ Allyship
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While other country music singers remained silent — or outright discriminated against — the LGBTQ+ community, Parton was always an outspoken supporter and ally.
“I got a huge gay following and some really macho-looking women,” Parton told Andy Warhol in a 1984 Interiew magazine story. “To me, people are people… Many of my friends are gay, male and female. I don’t judge people. I don’t care what people do in their bedrooms and people shouldn’t care what I do in mine.”
In 1989, at the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis in America, Parton helped finance the 1989 Oscar-winning documentary “Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt,” about the people lost to AIDS whose names made up the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt; in January of 1994, lent her participation to Break the Silence, a national campaign spreading AIDS awareness; and later that year, donated her song “You Gotta Be My Baby” to “Red Hot + Country,” a charity album whose proceeds went to HIV/AIDS awareness and research. In 2009, Parton spoke out in support of gay marriage, telling Joy Behar, “Sure, why can’t they get married? They should suffer like the rest of us do.”
She hosts “Gay Day” at her theme park in Tennessee, Dollywood, and in 2023, amid a tidal wave of anti-trans legislation in the South, including her home state of Tennessee, she lent trans people her support, telling The Hollywood Reporter, “I just want everybody to be treated good,” adding, “They cannot help that any more than I can help being Dolly Parton.” Following her passing, Our Lady J, the trans screenwriter of “Transparent” and “Pose,” posted on Instagram that Parton had donated autographed items to help pay for her top surgery.
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She Produced “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”
Image Credit: ©20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett Collection
Through her film and TV production company Sandollar Productions, which she formed with her former manager Sandy Gallin, Parton not only produced the aforementioned Oscar-winning doc “Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt,” but also produced the “Father of the Bride” films” as well as the “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” film and subsequent television series.
“A lot of my work was done just conversing back and forth with the business people there,” Parton explained of her involvement on TV’s “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” adding, “I have to give more people more credit on ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ than me. A lot of people did so much sweat on that… That little show did great.”
In 2023, “Buffy” star Sarah Michelle Gellar confirmed Parton’s involvement in the series, telling Jimmy Fallon, “Yes, little-known fact: The legend Dolly Parton was a producer.”
“We never saw her [but] we’d get Christmas gifts in the beginning that would have our name, and I would think, ‘She doesn’t even know who I am,’” Gellar continued. “And then one day, someone asked her about it, and she complimented the show and my performance. I was like, ‘Oh, I can die now. Dolly Parton knows who I am and thinks I’m good.’”
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She Entered Her Own Drag Look-Alike Contest… And Lost.
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Yes, Parton once entered a Dolly Parton draq queen look-alike contest and still lost. Nobody even knew they were competing against the real Dolly Parton.
“They had a bunch of Chers and Dollys that year, so I just over-exaggerated — made my beauty mark bigger, the eyes bigger, the hair bigger, everything,” she told Nightline in 2012. “All these beautiful drag queens had worked for weeks and months getting their clothes. So, I just got in the line and I just walked across, and they just thought I was some little short gay guy… but I got the least applause.”
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