Singer, song writer Dolly Parton inspired PJ Library

Dolly Parton — an American treasure who emerged from dirt-poor childhood to become a superstar singer, songwriter and philanthropist — died in Nashville, Tenn. on Tuesday, her family announced. She was 80 years old.

Her philanthropic Imagination Library program inspired Jewish philanthropist Harold Grinspoon to start PJ Library, which distributes Jewish books to children.

“My daddy didn’t get a chance to learn to read or write, and that was so hard for him,” she told PJ Library. “He was one of the wisest men I have ever known, but his inability to read kept him from fulfilling all his dreams. Inspiring kids to love books and reading early in life became a passion for me.”

She noted that she was “a big believer in putting my money where my heart is. But it’s impossible to do this work alone.”

A Christian who once told the New York Times that she kept a Bible on her nightstand, Parton was born in a one-room cabin in Pittman Center, Tenn., in 1946. She was the fourth of 12 children. Her family moved into a two-room cabin and farm on Locust Ridge when she was a child, a replica of which is displayed at Dollywood, Parton’s theme park in Pigeon Forge, Tenn.

Parton met her husband, Carl Dean, outside a laundromat on the first day she arrived in Nashville, one day after graduating from high school. They married two years later in 1966. They never had children. Dean died in 2025.

Some of her most well-known musical hits include “Islands in the Stream,” “Jolene,” “9 to 5" and “I Will Always Love You.”

Parton’s songs tend to include Bible references, including the songs “Coat of Many Colors” and “The Master’s Hand.” She was said to have written thousands of songs, not just for herself but for artists across the musical spectrum.

In 1976, she began working with Sandy Gallin, her personal manager, who was Jewish. In her 2020 visual memoir “Songteller,” Parton wrote about Gallin, “Nobody could quite get how the Christian Southern girl and the New York Jewish boy could have so much in common. But it was real.”