Dolly Parton, the country singer, songwriter, entertainer and entrepreneur whose rags-to-riches story, outsize persona and prodigious vision and talent placed her in a class by herself, died on Tuesday in Nashville. She was 80.
The death was announced in a video posted on social media by her nephew, Bryan Seaver. No cause was provided. Concerns about Ms. Parton’s health, which began last year as she postponed and later canceled a Las Vegas residency, grew to the point that she took to social media last fall to confirm that “I ain’t dead yet.” In May, she said she had responded well to treatment after, as she put it, her immune and digestive systems “got all out of whack” in recent years.
Ms. Parton’s life, as depicted in autobiographical songs like “Coat of Many Colors” and “My Tennessee Mountain Home,” was the stuff of make-believe, from her hardscrabble beginnings in Appalachia to her glittering stardom in Nashville and beyond.
The writer Chet Flippo likened her to the Big Rock Candy Mountain, the Depression-era symbol of abundance personified by Ms. Parton’s voluptuous figure, rhinestone-studded stage costumes and blonde bouffant wigs. Her songs spoke to millions, confronting privation and loss even as they radiated possibility and hope.
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