I’m Sorry To Tell You That Dolly Parton Died. She May Have Been The Last Person Nobody Had A Problem With, And She Liked Cadillacs

As I suspect you’ve already heard, Dolly Parton died today, at the age of 80. Now, there are so very many reasons to celebrate the life of this talented singer, songwriter, entertainer, actress, philanthropist, and just overall icon, but I think perhaps her greatest achievement was a more subtle one, one that wasn’t entirely obvious unless you started to really look for it. Dolly Parton may have been the last human being for whom nearly everybody – from almost every walk of life, socio-economic class, cultural background, location on the political spectrum, or whatever – liked. Or, at the very least, had no problem with. Who didn’t like Dolly Parton?

Nobody, that’s who.

Dolly Parton lived to be 80 years old, and lived the sort of wildly fulfilled life most of us can only hope for, and even then, hoping to accomplish all that she managed would seem like an overreach. But she did it. Will we ever again have a public figure for whom admiration spreads so widely across the vast, conflicting spectrum of humanity? Maybe? I’m not so sure.

Here’s the official announcement of her passing, from her Instagram:

 

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A post shared by Dolly Parton (@dollyparton)

Dolly Parton’s contributions to music, especially country music, are, of course, well known. Still, it can’t hurt to listen to a song like Jolene again, right?

It’s also worth taking a moment to remember all of the philanthropic acts Dolly undertook, many of which had some very direct and real benefits. For example, remember the pandemic? Remember the vaccines that kept it from becoming devastatingly worse? Dolly Parton was an early donor of a million dollars of crucial funding to the vaccine research project that would eventually create the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, for example. There were plenty of tech billionaires who could have done similar sorts of things, but who actually stepped up? Dolly.

She started the Dollywood Foundation in 1988 to help kids in her childhood home of Sevier County, Tennessee get the educations they need, and it eventually expanded into an organization that has given over 270 million age-appropriate books to kids in America, Canada, Great Britain, Ireland, and Australia. She’s given money to Hurrican Helene victims, and relief donations to other victims of natural disasters top $12 million. There’s a reason she receieved the Carnagie Medal of Philanthropy in 2022.

Speaking of Carnagie, which begins with the same three letters that spell “car,” we may as well recall we are a car blog, and note that Dolly Parton definitely did have a car marque of choice: Cadillac.

 

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Dolly’s appreciation of Cadillacs goes way back to her childhood, and, really, the culture in which she grew up. A Cadillac was one of the most obvious and notable signs that you had “made it” in mainstream American culture, and as a result, once Parton started to make money, she wanted to buy a Cadillac, because that felt like the right thing to do, almost a requirement, along with having big hair, as Parton herself has noted on occasion.

There’s that famous picture above of Dolly Parton, likely taken sometime in the 1970s, posing with a 1964 Cadillac Series 62. She bought Cadillacs for her mother for many years, trading them in as their luster faded. Dolly Parton donated one of her Cadillacs, a gold 1997 Cadillac D’Elegance to the Gatlinburg, Tennessee-based Hollywood Star Cars museum, and noted that the car really isn’t all that spectacular in this short interview she did for the museum:

@codyallenshelby Dolly Parton talks about her 1997 Cadillac in the Hollywood Star Cars Museum located in downtown Gatlinburg, Tennessee #dollyparton #1997cadillacdeville #hollywoodstarcarsmuseum #gatlinburgtennessee #dollypartonscar ♬ original sound – Cody Allen Shelby

I know the audio on that isn’t great, so, apologies for that.

I do realize the car angle here is a bit of a stretch, but I don’t really mind. Dolly Parton was an overwhelmingly positive force in this world, and she’s absolutely worth celebrating and remembering. She really did seem to have a fondness for Cadillacs, too, so it’s not like there is zero automotive tie-in here, but I’m well aware it’s just an excuse to have a justification so we can share our thoughts and condolences on this site.

Rest in peace, Dolly.