“The magnificent star Dolly Parton has died and it is so sad. She was such a wonderful woman,” McCartney wrote on Instagram. “I first met her in Nashville at the Grand Ole Opry where she had been playing with the country star Porter Wagoner and was about to start her solo career. She was so bubbly and full of life it is difficult to take in the news that she has passed. Her songwriting, her singing and her philanthropy were unrivaled in the world of country music and it is hard to imagine living in a world without Dolly.”
McCartney further called Parton “a very clever business woman who understood the value of her music and, most importantly, the effect that she had on the people of the world.”
As McCartney notes, the two have their share of history, as Parton elected to record the Beatles’ classic “Let It Be” on her 2024 album Rockstar, enlisting both Macca and Ringo Starr for some help on the track.
“There was no greater honour for me than to have her sing my song Let It Be and, even though I only made a small contribution to it, I am so honoured that she did it,” McCartney said of the experience. “I am so proud to have known her and admire her unique talents.”
Parton’s family confirmed her death online on Tuesday, with her nephew Bryan Seaver breaking the news. “This video announcement is something Dolly asked of me years ago, before I fully absorbed it as a future reality,” he said.
McCartney is one of many paying homage to Parton on Tuesday, with others, including Kacey Musgraves, Jane Fonda and Billy Ray Cyrus, sharing tributes as well.
“Thanks Dolly for the beautiful music you gave me and the whole world,” McCartney wrote, concluding his post. “We will always love you, god bless and rest in peace. You were the best.”
Sam Register, the long-serving head of Warner Bros. Animation, is leaving the studio in a move that even his boss, Channing Dungey, acknowledged was unexpected.
In a memo to staff Tuesday afternoon (read it below), Dungey — chairman and CEO of Warner Bros. Television Group and WBD U.S. Networks — wrote that “I know this comes as a surprise and you have a lot to digest.” The memo says that Dungey and Register “mutually agreed” not to renew Register’s contract as president of WB Animation, Cartoon Network Studios and Hanna-Barbera Studios Europe. Register’s current contract ends next week.
“It’s time for me to move onto the next chapter in my life, and I’m grateful to have Channing’s support as I exit Warner Bros Animation,” Register said. “It’s been an amazing ride and I want to extend my sincere thanks to all the great people I’ve worked with — we’ve built some incredible things together. I wish you all the best moving forward, and I’m excited to explore all the possibilities in my future.”
Register has headed Warner Bros. Animation for the past 18 years, adding Cartoon Network Studios to his portfolio in 2020 and Hanna-Barbera Studios Europe the following year. He began his animation career at Cartoon Network, helping launch the network’s website in the late 1990s and executive produced series including Ben 10, The Looney Tunes Show, Teen Titans and Teen Titans Go!, and Scooby-Doo: Mystery Incorporated, among many others. (A character in the Teen Titans comics is also named after him.)
Variety first reported the news. Dungey’s memo to WB Animation staffers is below.
Dear WBA Team,
It’s with mixed emotions that I announce the studio and our head of animation, Sam Register, have mutually agreed not to renew his contract. Sam, our President of Warner Bros. Animation, Cartoon Network Studios and Hanna-Barbera Studios Europe, is a great talent and we thank him for all the enormous contributions he’s made over his 18 years heading up our animation efforts. We wish him the best in all future endeavors.
Sam asked me to share this with you:
“It’s time for me to move onto the next chapter in my life, and I’m grateful to have Channing’s support as I exit Warner Bros Animation. It’s been an amazing ride and I want to extend my sincere thanks to all the great people I’ve worked with — we’ve built some incredible things together. I wish you all the best moving forward, and I’m excited to explore all the possibilities in my future.”
While we search for Sam’s replacement, Matt Matzkin will continue to lead Business Operations, and the current creative department heads — Jay Bastian (Current Series), Jason DeMarco (Anime & Action Series), Audrey Diehl (Kids & Family), Sarah Fell (Hanna-Barbera Studios, UK), Peter Girardi (Alternative Programming/Adult), and Sammy Perlmutter (Long Form & Specials) — will lead their respective departments.
Needless to say, this will be a time when we’ll need everyone to step up, stay focused and keep delivering the excellence for which our animation studios are so justifiably revered. I have every confidence our superb team will emerge from this transition stronger than ever.
I know this comes as a surprise and you have a lot to digest. Please reach out to your supervisor with any concerns, and remember my door is always open.
Parton died Tuesday in Nashville at 80, her family announced. She had been admitted to Vanderbilt University Medical Center on Friday morning with kidney and autoimmune issues, per TMZ.
“oh dolly,” Carpenter started an Instagram post with a broken heart emoji. “the only thing i could say after we first met was ‘she really is an angel walking the earth’ and ‘we look like we could be sisters!’”
“i will cherish our laughter and conversations and i will keep your wisdom, your playful outlook on life, and perfect sense of humor in my pocket for the rainy days. there will never be another you and how lucky are we all to have experienced your singular magic as well as your once in a lifetime voice, songs, and heart. your light will be something the world will search forever to find again,” she wrote. “i will always love you.”
Parton and Carpenter joined forces for the deluxe version of the latter singer’s Short n’ Sweet album, where the two-time Oscar nominee was featured on “Please Please Please.” They also starred in a music video for the track together, which has amassed over 15 million views on YouTube.
The “Manchild” singer celebrated the release of the music video with an Instagram post at the time. She wrote, “Dolly and me singing in a pickup truck!!!!!! I am so honored to have one of my biggest idols on a song that means so much to me. Short n’ Sweet deluxe is out now!”
Last September, the “Jolene” singer announced she was postponing a set of Las Vegas concerts to deal with “some health challenges.” In May, she canceled her Las Vegas residency but continued to put on a brave front, telling her fans that she was OK.
Dolly Parton, country music star, actress, philanthropist and theme-park entrepreneur, died Tuesday at age 80. She died peacefully in Nashville, and her nephew Bryan Seaver recorded a video at her request that was shared on social media.
“This video announcement is something Dolly asked of me years ago, before I fully absorbed it as a future reality,” he said. “As her head of security for more than two decades, a role my father Larry held before me, I have imagined the heaviness of this moment but haven’t truly felt it until now.”
It’s impossible to overstate how monumental a loss Parton’s death is both in the music world and in broader American pop culture. One of the most influential songwriters of all time in any genre, Parton became one of country’s earliest household names as she helped bring country to the mainstream. With razor-sharp wit and a knack for weaving drama into catchy melodies, her songs have proven timeless as she’s pulled off hits for herself and and endless list of other acts.
Parton started out as a country music singer before crossing over into pop in the 1970s, landing her biggest hits during that decade and into the 1980s.
As the world mourns Parton, The Hollywood Reporter takes a look at her 10 most essential hit songs.
“Coat of Many Colors” (1971)
The lead song from Parton’s 1971 album of the same name is as country a song can be. Parton sings the autobiographical story of the coat her mother made for her from a box of rags as she grew up poor, met with ridicule from her classmates. Parton brushes it off saying that “I know we had no money, but I was rich as I could be, in my coat of many colors my mama made for me.”
“Jolene” (1973)
About as ubiquitous as it gets, Rolling Stone called Parton’s signature song one of the greatest songs of all time and the greatest country song ever made. “Jolene” has Parton begging to the track’s eponymous red-headed vixen not to take the love of her life, bargaining and reasoning that while Jolene “could have your choice of men, I could never love again.” It’s desperate, honest and relatable, spawning hundreds of covers from the likes of the White Stripes and Beyoncé among many more.
“I Will Always Love You” (1974)
Parton wrote this song as she was moving on from her business partnership with Porter Wagoner. “How am I gonna make him understand how much I appreciate everything, but that I have to go?” Parton once explained. “So I went home and I thought, ‘Well, what do you do best? You write songs.’ So I sat down and I wrote this song.”
The song was a commercial success for Parton, reaching No. 1 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart in 1974 and again in 1982 with a re-recording for The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas soundtrack.
Whitney Houston covered the tune for her 1992 film The Bodyguard, bringing it back to the top of the charts (Parton presented the Grammy for record of the year to Houston along with David Foster, who produced Houston’s version, in 1994.)
Today, “I Will Always Love You” stands as the best-selling single by a female recording artist, earning more than $10 million in pure profit for Parton.
“The Bargain Store” (1975)
The title track to Parton’s 1975 album has the singer likening herself to a secondhand store following a heartbreak, where “all the merchandise is used but with a little mending, it could be good as new.”
A line like “the bargain store is open, come inside, you can easily afford the price,” can certainly read like the sort of blush-inducing double entendre befitting a modern Sabrina Carpenter song.
Parton herself has actually refuted the song was intended to be dirty, writing in her book Songteller that I “was just saying you’ll be surprised at how good this broken heart is.” However, she wrote, “every man I know thinks it’s dirty.”
“Here You Come Again” (1977)
This song, from the album of the same name, marked Parton’s first major pop crossover hit. It also was her first gold single and earned a nomination for best female pop vocal performance at the Grammy Awards.
While she was looking to break into the pop music scene, Parton wanted the song, which tells the story about someone shaken up after seeing an ex, to keep country music elements, including a steel guitar.
“She said a monkey could sing this song and have a hit with it,” Parton’s manager, Sandy Gallin, said in 2016. “And she was very nervous that it would turn off the country market, which she was very loyal to. There was no way she wanted to ever let anything insinuate that she may be turning her back on the country audience.”
“Two Doors Down” (1977)
Another crossover hit, “Two Doors Down” focuses on a woman who, on the heels of a recent breakup, attends a party at an apartment two doors down from her and meets a new man.
Intended as the second single from the album Here You Come Again, singer Zella Lehr released a cover before Parton’s version was released that became a top 10 country hit.
Parton then released a more pop-tinged version of the song that topped the country charts and became a top 20 pop hit.
“Light of a Clear Blue Morning” (1977)
While it’s not quite a hit on the level of “Jolene” or “I Will Always Love You,” lyrically, “Light of a Clear Blue Morning” may take the crown for the most beautiful song Parton has ever written. The lead-off track from her 1977 album New Harvest… First Gathering, Parton first wrote the song after falling out with musical partner Porter Wagoner, offering a hopeful opening as she made it through the “long dark night” and eager for the new day.
“I can see the light of a clear blue morning,” Dolly belts in the song’s chorus, like a ray of light blasting away the rest of the shadows.
She compares herself to a formerly captured eagle now free, and like an eagle, “I’m eager for the sky.”
Parton’s song for the 1980 film she co-starred in carries legacies both as a timeless feminist anthem detailing the struggles women face breaking into the workplace, and as one of the greatest movie theme songs of all time. The drums and percussive piano opening immediately capture the bustle of working in the city, and she delivers her signature wit almost as fast to get out of bed and “pour myself a cup of ambition.”
“Want to move ahead but the boss won’t seem to let me, I swear sometimes that man is out to get me,” Parton sings as she finishes the chorus, a sentiment that will ring true for as long as we remain in the workplace.
“Islands in the Stream” (1983)
This duet with Kenny Rogers — written by Barry Gibb, Robin Gibb and Maurice Gibb, aka the Bee Gees — marked the first collaboration between the two country legends.
Released as the first single from Rogers’ album Eyes That See in the Dark, the song was a crossover success, hitting No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and earning a Grammy nom for best pop performance by a duo or group with vocals.
Rogers and Parton released two more duets, “Real Love,” in 1985, and “You Can’t Make Old Friends,” in 2013, in addition to a Christmas album, Once Upon a Christmas, in 1984.
“Why’d You Come in Here Lookin’ Like That” (1989)
“Why’d You Come in Here Lookin’ Like That” was the first single from Parton’s album White Limozeen. The song, about a woman reacting to seeing an ex all dressed up and wooing women around town, reached No. 1 song on the on the Billboard Hot Country Songs and earned a Grammy nom for best female country vocal performance. She also performed the song when she hosted Saturday Night Live in 1989.
Nick Offerman is one of the great character actors of our time.
The 56-year-old is best known for playing Ron Swanson, the director of the Pawnee Parks and Recreation Department (and a man who hates government and loves bacon), on the beloved comedy series Parks and Recreation, which ran on NBC for seven seasons spanning 2009 through 2015, and for which he won the Television Critics Association’s Award for Individual Achievement in Comedy in 2011.
Since that show came to an end, he has been busy with a wide variety of other projects, from co-hosting, with his Parks and Rec costar Amy Poehler, the NBC craft competition show Making It (2018-2021), for which he received three Emmy noms for best host for a reality competition program, to giving a heartbreaking dramatic turn on the first season of the HBO drama series The Last of Us (2023), for which he won the best guest actor in a drama series Emmy.
But never has he had a year quite like the past one, during which he played key supporting roles on two major TV projects, garnering Emmy nominations for both. He is up for best supporting actor in a comedy series for Apple TV’s Margo’s Got Money Troubles, on which he plays a former wrestler trying to reintegrate into the life of his daughter; and best supporting actor in a limited or anthology series or movie for Netflix’s Death by Lightning, on which he plays a corrupt drunk who winds up as vice president of the United States.
Over the course of a conversation at the L.A. offices of The Hollywood Reporter, Offerman reflected on the people who shaped the person and artist he is today, from his mentor, Shozo Sato, to his wife of 26 years, actress Megan Mullally; how he landed on the radar of the creators of Parks and Rec back when they were still focused on their earlier show, the American version of The Office, and what the subsequent monthslong casting process for Parks and Rec was like for him; why, post-Parks and Rec, he yearned to play parts very different from Ron Swanson, and how he found them in The Last of Us, Death by Lightning and Margo’s Got Money Troubles; plus more.
Camron Jones has joined nothin but a gangsta party.
The actor, best known for his work on Amazon Prime’s young adult drama Panic, is set to portray influential rapper Tupac Shakur in Snoop, Universal Pictures’ biopic of entertainment mogul and music icon Snoop Dogg.
Craig Brewer is directing the feature, which is being produced by Imagine Entertainment’s Brian Grazer, the veteran producer behind the semi-autobiographical Eminem drama 8 Mile, and the company’s Allan Mandelbaum. Snoop Dogg and Death Row Pictures president Sara Ramaker are also producing.
Jonathan Daviss, one of the stars of Netflix series Outer Banks, is portraying Snoop Dogg, who emerged from Long Beach, Calif., in the 1990s to become one of the biggest names in rap. The feature has been casting up in recent weeks and now has Myles Bullock Be as Dr. Dre and Lauren London as Snoop Dogg’s mother on the roll call.
Shakur was famously the troubled West Coast rapper who had success in the recording world as well as Hollywood, appearing in movies such as John Singleton’s Poetic Justice and crime movie Gridlock’d, but who also served time in prison. He was ultimately killed in a drive-by in 1996.
Snoop Dogg and Shakur were both signed to Death Row Records and collaborated on hits such as “2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted.” The two had a major falling out when Shakur pressed Snoop Dogg to take sides in the West Coast-East Coast rivalry.
Brewer, who recently directed Song Sung Blue for Universal’s specialty studio Focus Features, wrote the latest draft of the script, which was initially written by Joe Robert Cole. The feature will incorporate music from Snoop Dogg’s vast catalog.
Jones, who has notched credits on shows grown-ish, The Purge and Shameless, will appear in the upcoming third season of Starz’ P-Valley. He is repped by Clear Talent Group and Venture Entertainment Partners.
Kyle Buchanan — a high-profile Los Angeles-based Hollywood writer for The New York Times — exited the newspaper on Friday after having served as a pop culture reporter and awards season columnist since 2018. Days later, it has been confirmed that he has partnered with Acast to launch The Kyle Buchanan Show, a video podcast set to debut in October.
Backed by Acast as the exclusive advertising, brand partnerships and distribution partner, The Kyle Buchanan Show will drop new episodes twice per week. The schedule starts on Tuesdays with “The Panel” featuring two to three rotating industry guests going long on the buzziest Hollywood stories of the moment, followed by Friday’s debut of “The Profile” featuring one-on-one chats with stars. The show will be available on Apple Podcasts, in both audio and video, and major podcast platforms.
“In a new media landscape overloaded with quick hits, nothing beats a real conversation,” Buchanan said in a statement. On X, where his career news became a trending topic today, he promised “access, insight and A-list guests” to come. “In fact, I think audiences and talent are hungrier than ever for talk that goes deep. The Kyle Buchanan Show will offer a genuine inside look at Hollywood, with a perspective that industry figures and fans can trust.”
During his tenure at NYT, Buchanan profiled such subjects as Nicole Kidman, Michael B. Jordan, Jennifer Lawrence, Brad Pitt, Daniel Day-Lewis, Channing Tatum, Colman Domingo, Emily Blunt, Ethan Hawke, Amy Madigan, Zoe Saldaña, Kieran Culkin, Austin Butler and many more. The bulk of the year, Buchanan focused on awards season in his role as The Projectionist awards columnist.
He also expanded his profile as the author of the dishy best-seller, Blood, Sweat & Chrome: The Wild and True Story of Mad Max: Fury Road, an oral history-style investigation he pulled together from more than 130 interviews. Entertainment Weekly praised the tome as “no less jaw-dropping than the movie itself.”
He has described himself as just about “as Southern Californian as it gets” as he’s lived in the area all his life and stayed for school to study and graduate from USC. He’s written extensivley about awards and has won some in his real life: In 2021, Buchanan was named journalist of the year by the National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards. Prior to the Times, Buchanan served as a senior editor at New York Magazine’s Vulture.
Acast’s stable of podcasts include Giggly Squad, The Comment Section With Drew Afualo and The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers. News of Buchanan’s departure and new gig was first reported by Variety.
Sony Pictures‘ superhero blockbuster has now soared to become the No. 2 highest-grossing film ever domestically with $858.4 million, surpassing the $858.3 million for 2019’s Avengers: Endgame. The title to beat on the all-time North American chart remains 2015’s Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens, standing strong at $936.6 million. This follows the news last week that Brand New Day had become the fastest movie to hit $800 million domestically, doing so in 19 days.
Over the weekend, the Tom Holland-led film that hails from Marvel Studios had surpassed 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home to briefly occupy the No. 3 spot on the all-time domestic box office chart. This also placed Brand New Day as Sony’s highest-grossing domestic film after it set the record over the previous weekend for the top global release in the studio’s history.
As of Sunday, Brand New Day claimed the No. 6 spot on the all-time worldwide box office rankings with $2.22 billion, moving past The Force Awakens with $2.07 billion. Any day now, the latest Spidey movie is expected to overtake Titanic, which currently holds No. 5 with $2.26 billion globally, while Chinese animated fantasy feature Ne Zha 2 looms nearby at No. 4 with $2.27 billion.
Zendaya, Sadie Sink and Jon Bernthal also star in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, with filmmaker Destin Daniel Cretton’s movie approaching its fifth weekend of release after launching in theaters July 31. Its record-breaking run has included surpassing Endgame for the biggest domestic opening weekend ever with $360 million. It went on to earn the highest-grossing first week in domestic box office history and become the second-fastest film (after Endgame) to reach $1 billion globally.
Among the new offerings hitting theaters this weekend are Ridley Scott’s The Dog Stars, starring Jacob Elordi; the resurrected Coyote vs. Acme; and the horror-comedy flick Buddy.
Brand New Day has helped 2026’s box office standing overall. As of Sunday, the 2026 domestic box office has crossed the $7 billion mark, according to Rentrak, putting the year 20.4 percent above 2025’s returns. Additionally, this summer’s titles combine for an estimated $4.444 billion domestically as of Sunday to come in 25.5 percent above last year’s tally to that point, with the all-time summer mark remaining 2013’s $4.75 billion.
When asked about the film succeeding amid apparent superhero fatigue for other recent titles, given that this summer’s Supergirl was among those to have underperformed, Sony Pictures chief Tom Rothman told The Hollywood Reporter that he didn’t see this as a concern.
“The press talks a lot about that, but right now, on anything, the theatrical audience demands greatness,” Rothman said. “If it’s only OK, they can stay home and see ‘only OK’ all day long on television. If we’re going to ask them make a trip out of it, it’s got to be great. The answer is as simple as that.”
Hayden Panettiere‘s rep is encouraging anyone with helpful information into the sudden death of her former client, who died on Aug. 16 at age 36, to reach out to law enforcement instead of speaking out in the media.
“Many people who were not close to Hayden are using her death as an opportunity to fuel gossip and speculation about a situation they knew very little about,” says a statement from her rep to The Hollywood Reporter. “It is deeply disrespectful to her memory and to those who knew and loved her and are actively grieving this tremendous loss.”
Amid an active investigation by both local and federal authorities into the circumstances around Panettiere’s death, her rep says there is “much more to this story” and to let the police do their job.
“If you have legitimate information that could be helpful, please contact law enforcement rather than turning to social media to speculate publicly about something you do not fully understand,” the statement continues. “There is much more to this story than what is currently being discussed publicly, and those closest to Hayden are actively cooperating with the ongoing investigation to help ensure that the truth comes to light and that justice is properly served.”
The statement comes as neighbors at Panettiere’s West Hollywood residence have been speaking out in the media. “Nosey neighbors need to let law enforcement do their job,” a source adds to THR.
Following a 911 call reporting a cardiac arrest on Aug. 16, the beloved Heroes and Nashville star, 36, was found unresponsive in a Greenville, South Carolina, Airbnb where she and her on-off boyfriend, Brian Hickerson, had just arrived, at around 1:50 p.m. local time.
The preliminary results of the autopsy indicated there were no signs of trauma found on Panettiere’s body and that the cause and manner of her death would remain pending further investigation; a representative of the Greenville County Coroner’s office — who is investigating the death along with the Greenville City Police Department and DEA — told THR it would be eight weeks before the full report is released to the public.
After a police report said Hickerson and his brother, Zach, were at the South Carolina townhouse when the actress was pronounced dead by authorities, Brian was visited by police.
Zach Hickerson has since said Brian Hickerson administered Narcan to Panettiere after the brothers found her unconscious. A Narcan bottle was reported to have been at the scene and, according to the audio of the 911 call, first responders were reportedly overheard discussing an “overdose” around the time of Panettiere’s death.
“There are a lot of assumptions, speculations and accusations currently swirling,” said Zach Hickerson in a statement to TMZ on Friday. “The truth will come out as the authorities complete and release additional details from the investigation. And that is important because the people who loved and adored Hayden deserve the truth.”
Brian Hickerson dated Panettiere on and off since 2018; he was arrested several times in the subsequent years for domestic abuse and, at one point, pleaded no contest to two felony charges related to an assault against Panettiere.
Neither brother has been named as a suspect or person of interest. Brian Hickerson released a statement via his attorney on Aug. 20, saying, “Hayden’s death remains under investigation, and it is important to allow that investigation to proceed. As has been publicly reported, police confirmed there were no signs of foul play,” Sloan Ellis from the Ellis Hinton law firm told TMZ on Thursday.
The actress continues to be mourned worldwide by her Hollywood colleagues, friends and fans alike. “The career that felt hard-earned and hard-won from Remember the Titans through Nashville never got that next chapter, those next many chapters,” wrote THR‘s chief TV critic Daniel Fienberg after her passing.
Her estranged mother, Lesley Vogel, who has spoken out against Brian, saying her daughter’s boyfriend had led her down the “wrong path,” said on Good Morning America Monday that she didn’t want her daughter, who has been open about her recovery journey, to be remembered for her addiction struggles.
“I want Hayden to be remembered for the talented, beautiful, outgoing, intelligent woman she really was,” Vogel said.
Dolly Parton, the irrepressible singer-songwriter, actress and entrepreneur who penned chart-toppers such as “9 to 5” and turned her namesake Tennessee theme park Dollywood into one of the world’s top amusement destinations, died Tuesday. She was 80.
Parton died peacefully in Nashville, a rep announced.
She revealed in September that she was postponing a set of Las Vegas concerts to deal with “some health challenges.” THR reported days later that she would miss the Governors Awards, where she was to receive the prestigious Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in November, and she canceled scheduled Las Vegas residency dates for September in May. In the past few months, she put on a brave front, telling her fans that she was OK.
Her husband of nearly 58 years, businessman Carl Dean, died at age 82 on March 3, 2025.
The country music icon rose from an impoverished childhood in a one-room mountain cabin (shared with 11 brothers and sisters) to decades of global superstardom with hit songs, movies, eye-popping costumes and a joy of living few live entertainers could match.
Among her inescapable hit singles were three self-penned blockbusters — the haunting confessional “Jolene,” the workplace protest song “9 to 5” and the gentle 1974 ballad “I Will Always Love You,” which topped Billboard’s Country chart in 1974. That last one was given new life, topping the Billboard Hot 100 for a record-breaking 14 weeks, after Whitney Houston recorded her own dramatic version of it for her 1992 film with Kevin Costner, The Bodyguard.
“I Will Always Love You” remains the best-selling single by a female recording artist, earning more than $10 million in pure profit for Parton.
The Bodyguard originally included a different Parton song, but just as production was wrapping, Costner phoned Parton, asking to use “I Will Always Love You” instead. Beyond granting permission, Parton knew nothing about what Costner, Houston and producer David Foster had created in the studio.
Until … one afternoon when she was driving home from her Music Row office in Nashville, she heard something on the radio she couldn’t quite place.
“I thought, ‘That sounds familiar,” she told The Hollywood Reporter. She had recognized Houston’s voice and the first few words of the song, ‘If I should stay … ‘
“It was one of this things where you think, ‘What is that?’ And then all of sudden [Houston] started singing, ‘I will always love you.’ I just about wrecked the car.”
Parton rarely missed a chance to compliment Houston’s take. “Look at what a grand song she made out of that simple, heartfelt song,” she said. “She took it worldwide and made it a household word. I will always be thankful to her for that.”
Parton too had performed “I Will Always Love You” in a movie — The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982), in which she co-starred as Madame Mona opposite Burt Reynolds.
On the screen, she held her own (and more) with some of Hollywood’s finest actors. As the warm-hearted hairstylist Truvy Jones, she was the centerpiece of the ensemble dramedy Steel Magnolias (1989) alongside Shirley MacLaine, Olympia Dukakis, Sally Field and rising star Julia Roberts.
Parton’s biggest film was her first — 9 to 5, the 1980 workplace comedy in which she played saucy Doralee Rhodes, starring alongside Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and, as their abusive boss, Dabney Coleman.
While developing the film, Fonda and Tomlin thought their message about workplace exploitation, wage theft and sexual harassment would be more effective in the hands of three female leads with unique perspectives from disparate worlds. They started looking for a co-star.
Fonda recounted the story many times through the years about the night she “drove in to town” to see Tomlin in a play (Appearing Nightly), then got in her car afterward “and Dolly was singing.”
“As I was driving home, by myself, I turned on the radio,” she said on an episode of Netflix’s Tudum podcast in March 2025. “I suddenly had an image of Dolly at a typewriter.”
“She can’t see her fingers, obviously,” Fonda added, an aside to Parton’s voluptuous figure, often poured into a snug, bugle-beaded, one-of-a-kind wardrobe.
“She and Lily were friends,” Fonda continued. “It took me a year to persuade them, but it worked out fine. We had such a good time. Dolly had never done a movie before. She came the first day having memorized the entire script.”
Parton wasn’t nervous about making the leap from music and TV, where she had appeared for years on the syndicated country western variety program The Porter Wagoner Show.
“Lily and Jane were very hot at the time and I thought, ‘What can I lose?’” Parton recalled on Ellen DeGeneres’ show in 2006. “If it’s a big hit, I’ll take credit for it. If it’s a flop, I’ll blame them. I was in good company. They helped me — a lot.”
She remained lifelong friends with her co-stars.
From left: Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin in the 1980 film ‘9 to 5.’
20th Century Fox Film Corp./Courtesy Everett Collection
Parton wrote the movie’s infectious theme song — which earned her the first of two Oscar nominations — while on the set between shots. She created a beat that aped the rhythms of a typewriter by “strumming” her long acrylic fingernails, one hand against the other.
“I didn’t have my guitar with me because I didn’t want to get too scattered,” she said in 2020 on the Today show of her effort to stay in character while on the set. So I did it on my nails.”
“I would just kind of play my little fingers, go back to the hotel at night, write down the words, or get my guitar and start singing it. That’s kind of how it worked. I played my nails on the record just for fun.”
The musician credits for the original recording session read, “Dolly Parton: Lead vocals and typewriter.”
Dolly Rebecca Parton was born on Jan. 19, 1946, in the Smoky Mountains town of Pittman Center, Tennessee. She was the fourth of 12 children born to Avie Lee Owens and Robert Lee Parton, a sharecropper, tobacco farmer and occasional construction worker.
Parton’s mother often entertained her growing brood (she had kid No. 12 by age 35) by reciting folklore and singing ballads, some of which had made their way to Appalachia via immigrants who shared music from their home communities in the British Isles.
The family later moved to a cabin on farmland in nearby Locust Ridge.
(A replica of the home is on display at Dollywood, part of the 150-acre destination she co-founded and owned with Herschend Family Entertainment in the town of Pigeon Forge.
The grounds, which also includes a waterpark, hotels and historical attractions, was named Tripadvisor’s “No. 1 U.S. theme park” in 2022, ‘24 and ‘25. Dollywood also recently topped Traveler’s Choice “Best of the Best Awards.”)
Parton never shied away from a background she described as “dirt poor” and worked many of her childhood memories into Dollywood and her songwriting, including “In the Good Old Days (When Times Are Bad)” and “Coat of Many Colors.” In 1995, when she formed her book-gifting philanthropy Imagination Library, which has distributed millions of free books to young readers, she said she did so to honor her father, who had never learned to read or write.
By age 7, Parton had taught herself to play a homemade guitar. The next year, she was gifted a real one by her uncle Bill Owens (her mother’s younger brother), a musician, songwriter and lifelong mentor with whom she wrote many early songs.
Parton soon had a performing career, singing on local radio and TV shows. After a couple of recordings for small labels, she landed an appearance at the Grand Ole Opry when she was 13.
Parton made her way to Nashville for good in 1964, a day after graduating from Sevier County High School. She soon signed with a publisher and continued co-writing with Owens, penning hits for such artists as Hank Williams Jr. and Kitty Wells and two top 10 songs for Bill Phillips, “The Company You Keep” and “Put It Off Until Tomorrow.”
She was signed by Monument Records at 19, but the partnership was bumpy. The label saw her girlish soprano and bubbly personality as perfect for the pop charts, but Parton longed to be a country star.
Eventually, Monument gave her a shot with the Curly Putman song “Dumb Blonde” and her own composition, “Something Fishy.” She included both on her debut album, 1967’s Hello, I’m Dolly.
She was soon spotted by country elder Wagoner, who not only signed her to perform on his weekly TV show with him, but also brought her to his label, RCA — overseeing that deal, managing her career and taking a half-ownership in her publishing company with Owens, Owe-Par.
The two had hits with several of their weekly TV duets, including “The Last Thing on My Mind.” Parton’s solo songs in this era were initially not as successful, but she soon broke out with “Coat of Many Colors” and “Touch Your Woman.”
By the time she hit it big with “Jolene” — a song that went on to earn widespread admiration from generations of musicians — Parton was ready to leave Wagoner and a professional relationship she described as “oil and water.”
Though chafing under his control, Parton was determined to depart on a friendly note. She had written “I Will Always Love You” (on the same day she wrote “Jolene”) as a way to politely say goodbye to her boss.
She did eventually sing it to him during her final appearance on the show in 1974, though Wagoner continued to linger in her life for more than a year, insisting on producing her studio sessions and recording one last duet album, Say Forever You’ll Be Mine.
“I just wasn’t going to take somebody else’s idea of who I was and live under their roof,” Parton told Martha Stewart during a 2024 podcast. “I had my own identity, and I had to fight to keep it — and I’m still doing that.”
With “Jolene,” she had crafted what would become one of the most revered pieces of songwriting of her career. (Or any career). And she knew it.
Parton had drawn inspiration for the “vulnerable story” song a few years earlier as she watched a local bank teller flirt with Dean, whom she had married at age 20 in 1966.
“She got this terrible crush on my husband,” Parton told NPR in 2008. “And he just loved going to the bank because she paid him so much attention.
“It was kinda like a running joke between us — I was saying, ‘Hell, you’re spending a lot of time at the bank. I don’t believe we’ve got that kind of money!’”
She said she could joke because she believed the situation to be harmless. But the song, she acknowledged, “sounds like it was dreadful.”
Dolly Parton in London in 1977.
Keystone/Getty Images
Though she had written some 3,000 songs throughout her career, the 2011 Recording Academy’s Lifetime Achievement Award recipient never stopped performing “Jolene,” which through the years had been famously covered by The White Stripes, Miley Cyrus and Kelly Clarkson. The song re-entered the U.K. pop charts in 2014 after Parton performed it for some 180,000 fans at the annual Glastonbury Festival.
Young fans seemed to know every word, a reflection of how her popularity had shifted and soared through years — from country darling to ’80s movie star to television and film producer to one of the world’s most widely embraced pop culture icons.
“Parton offers a reprieve from the news cycle,” Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom, of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, wrote in an analysis explaining her massive modern-day popularity, which only seemed to keep growing.
She was among the rare celebrities who transcended whatever domain first made them famous, Cottom wrote, while never disappointing their fan base: “It has become verboten to dislike her, much less critique her. By tacit consensus, Dolly Parton is the one good thing in our empire’s twilight.”
Parton’s writing prowess extended to a lifetime of self-penned one-liners, homespun homilies and self-deprecating cracks. The banter made her a favorite of talk show hosts and endeared her to generations of concert audiences.
“Everything that comes out of Dolly’s mouth seems to be a lesson,” Foster said about her.
“It costs a lot of money to look this cheap” was probably her most famous wisecrack, a reference to her famously overdone hair and make-up that she said she had “modeled on the town tramp” when she was a youngster — because she thought she was the most beautiful woman she’d ever seen.
“My mom called her trash — I thought that’s what I want to be! I grew up to look just like her,” she said.
Some of her other classics: “I’m not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb — and I’m not blonde either.”
And, “People always ask me how long it takes to do my hair. I don’t know, I’m never there,” a reference to her vast wig collection.
She lost roughly 40 pounds following Rhinestone co-star Sylvester Stallone’s recipes for nutrition and chiseled abs (she cut white bread and processed foods), transforming from buxom to curvy petite — a look she would maintain for the rest of her life.
“If I see somethin’ draggin’, saggin or baggin’, I’ll just go fix it,” she was fond of saying.
Parton earned some of the best reviews of her career after forging another partnership — this time with good friends Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt for 1987’s multiplatinum album Trio. The women, who had been covering one another’s work for years, earned an album of the year nomination, facing off against Prince, Michael Jackson, U2 and Houston. They took home the best country performance duo or group trophy — one of Parton’s 10 competitive Grammys off 55 career nominations — then reteamed for Trio II in 1999.
She also had a long touring and recording partnership with Kenny Rogers starting in 1976. They had a huge No. 1 hit with 1983’s “Islands in the Stream,” written by the Bee Gees.
Throughout her long career, Parton often had a behind-the-scenes hand in television. With longtime manager Sandy Gallin, she formed Sandollar Productions, producing Buffy the Vampire Slayer, its spinoff series Angel and the redone Father of the Bride movies.
She produced a comedy special for Whoopi Goldberg; the 1989 documentary Common Threads: Stories From the Quilt and endless holiday fare, among them movie fantasies such as Dolly Parton’s A Smoky Mountain Christmas.
In 2019, she teamed with Netflix for the anthology series Dolly Parton’s Heartstrings, in which she turned some of her favorite songs into stand-alone TV episodes, among them “Jolene” starring Kimberly Williams-Paisley, “Sugar Hill” with Timothy Busfield and “These Old Bones” with Ginnifer Goodwin.
The following year, also for Netflix, she co-wrote and starred in the Debbie Allen-directed Christmas on the Square, a huge a hit during the pandemic for which she also wrote 14 new songs and won an Emmy.
Through the years, she was often asked how she does so much and rarely seemed to tire.
“I’ve got so many irons in the fire sometimes I’m burning my own butt,” she said on Adam Grant’s WorkLife podcast in 2022. “I always wanted to be a star. I wanted my dreams to come true, and they did. So I have to keep them alive. Every day something new comes up, and I have to get in there and be with it. I can’t just leave it as long as I’m living. I can’t leave that in the hands of other people. I have to be on top of all of it to make sure that it’s being done right. The way that I want it done.”
Survivors include her siblings, Willadeene, Coy, Robert Jr., Stella, Cassie, Freida and Rachel. She and Dean never had any children.
Parton said she had few regrets, but among them was never getting the opportunity to duet with Houston on “I Will Always Love You.”
“I would’ve loved that,” Parton told Andy Cohen in 2021. “But I don’t think I could’ve come up to snuff with her though,” she said of Houston, who died in 2012. “She’d have outsung me on that one for sure.”
She was also wistful about a missed opportunity with Elvis Presley. The King was eager to record “I Will Always Love You” soon after it was released in 1974, and she was thrilled at the prospect.
But when Presley’s manager, Col. Tom Parker, demanded 50 percent ownership of the song publishing — as was customary with everything Elvis recorded — she turned him down flat.
“I said, ‘This is the most important copyright in my whole publishing company, and I can’t do that,” she told BBC Radio in 2023 of her conversation with Parker.
“Other people were saying, ‘You’re nuts. It’s Elvis Presley. I mean, hell, I’d give him all of it,’” she said in 2006. “I said, ‘I can’t do that. Something in my heart says, ‘Don’t do that.’”
Parton recounted in numerous interviews how she cried all night after turning him down.
“I always wondered what it would sound like. He would have killed it. But anyway, so he didn’t,” she said. “Then when [Houston’s version] came out, I made enough money to buy Graceland.”
At her request, a small, private service will be held for immediate family. Her fans and friends from around the world are encouraged to pay tribute to her on social media by tagging @DollyParton or by leaving a message here.
“I look like a woman, but I think like a man,” she said in 2021. “In this world of business that has helped me a lot. Because by the time they think I don’t know what’s goin’ on, I then got the money and am gone.”
