Clarence Page: Thank you, Dolly Parton, for your music, good humor and public service

Clarence Page, Tribune Content Agency on Aug 31, 2026

Since imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I am told, I was not surprised to hear Dolly Parton say in an interview that she once entered a “Dolly Parton lookalike” drag queen contest in Los Angeles unannounced — and lost.

Parton, who died Tuesday at age 80, enjoyed telling that story, which illustrated, among other things, that it wasn't always easy to be Dolly, even for Dolly.

“Nobody applauded,” she said in a May 2025 radio interview, “like a little trickle that was probably David, my hairdresser.”

Go figure. Maybe she looked too much like the real thing for anyone to believe she really was.

Either way, that little story tells us a lot about Dolly. She was more than merely tolerant of different people, her fans will say. She was welcoming.

The “Queen of Country,” as many called her for her musical talents, won me over with her soulful voice and inspired storytelling in song and verse.

She also showed impressive skills as an actress, businesswoman, fashion icon and philanthropist, all without losing any of her engaging down-home wit, grace and charm.

And she never forgot where she came from, as the old saying goes. In fact, that’s where she got some of her best material, as the fourth of 12 children growing up in a tiny cabin in rural Tennessee, now reproduced in an exhibit at Dollywood, her amusement park in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.

My appreciation for her was renewed with Whitney Houston’s super-hit “I Will Always Love You,” popularized on the soundtrack of the 1992 thriller “The Bodyguard.”

Parton wrote the song as she was preparing to leave her working partnership with fellow country star Porter Wagoner.

Although many think of the powerful love ballad as a world-class break-up song, both Parton and Wagoner denied there was any romance involved in their writing partnership. Dolly actually was married to Carl Dean for an impressive 59 years until he died in 2025.

She wrote more than 3,000 songs in her career, which she described as starting with a tune she composed at age 5.

Dolly was the salt of the earth. This quality shone in her songwriting and in the way she lived her life. It's not surprising she had fans in every walk of life and in every corner of the earth.

Among her many memorable artistic collaborations was one with the Black South African a capella group Ladysmith Black Mambazo in the mid-1990s. Together they covered Bob Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" and Cat Stevens' "Peace Train," the latter of which she included on her 1996 album "Memories." She later invited the group to perform at Dollywood.

Sibongiseni Shabalala, a member of the group and the son of its founder, expressed his condolences to Parton's family.

“This terrible death is not only for them but for the world as well,” he told BBC World Service. "She was beautiful outside as well as within."

Back here in the USA, my respect for Dolly got a huge boost when we Americans were locked down during the COVID-19 pandemic.

As many Americans felt near panic, wondering what would happen next, Dolly Parton stepped up and announced a $1 million donation to Vanderbilt University Medical Center to help expedite development of the Moderna vaccine, which at least one correspondent suggested renaming it “the Dolly.”

And if her legacy is to be remembered for anything besides good music, I would vote for the Imagination Library, a program that Parton began in 1995, inspired by her father, who couldn't read.

The program mails a free book each month to millions of children from birth until age 5. Thanks to corporate and nonprofit partnerships, as well as grants from state governments, the Imagination Library has distributed more than 300 million free books.

Parton was a trailblazing philanthropist in other ways as well. When wildfires struck communities in the Great Smoky Mountains in 2016, she wrote monthly $1,000 checks to families made homeless.

The emergency aid, as the New York Times commented, “distinguished her as one of pop culture’s most prolific philanthropists.” Other rich people started funneling their charity through her foundation.

It's worth pondering that Parton focused so much of her charity on helping children and families, despite not having children of her own.

In that sense, dear Dolly reminds me of one of my favorite grade school teachers, who told our class she didn’t need to have children at home since she was happy to have all of us.

Perhaps Dolly felt that way, too. She will be missed and, as we should tell all conscientious schoolteachers, we thank her for her service.

(E-mail Clarence Page at clarence47page@gmail.com.)