Dolly Parton: everything to know about the country singer - net worth, family, height, greatest hits

Country icon Dolly Parton, who is to perform the half-time show during the Dallas Cowboys’ Thanksgiving game against the Washington Commanders today, has amassed a nine-figure fortune over a decades-long career as a singer, actor, businesswoman and philanthropist.

Record-setting music career

Parton, who released her first solo album back in 1967, is best known for hit singles such as “9 to 5″, “Jolene”, and “I Will Always Love You” - a track that was memorably covered by Whitney Houston for the soundtrack to the 1992 movie The Bodyguard. An 11-time Grammy Award winner, Parton has reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs Chart on more occasions - 25 - than any other female artist.

Parton wrote “9 to 5″ for the 1980 Hollywood movie of the same name, in which she starred alongside Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin - one of several big-screen acting credits on the 77-year-old’s resumé.

Parton’s business and philanthropy

In June, Forbes estimated Parton’s net worth at around $440 million. The finance magazine noted that that much of her fortune comes from her stake in the theme park Dollywood, in which she first invested in the mid-1980s. In addition to standard rides, Dollywood - which is located in her native Tennessee - includes Parton-specific attractions such as Dolly’s Tennessee Mountain Home and the soon-to-open Dolly Parton Experience.

The theme park is part of a Dollywood amusement resort that now also features a hotel and spa, and the water park Dollywood’s Splash Country.

Parton’s Dollywood Foundation, meanwhile, carries out philanthropic projects such as the literacy initiative Imagination Library. Created in honour of Parton’s father Robert, who was illiterate, Imagination Library mails more than two million free books a month to children in the US and overseas.

Parton’s family life: husband, children

Parton has been married to her husband, Carl Dean, since 1966. Dean has rarely been seen in public with her; indeed, he has kept such a low profile that Parton has even had to respond to conspiracy theories that he doesn’t exist.

“A lot of people have thought that through the years, because he does not want to be in the spotlight at all,” Parton told Entertainment Tonight in 2020. “It’s just not who he is. He’s like, a quiet, reserved person and he figured if he ever got out there in that, he’d never get a minute’s peace and he’s right about that.”

The couple do not have children - something which Parton says has given her more “freedom” to achieve all that she has.

“I didn’t have children because I believed that God didn’t mean for me to have kids so everybody’s kids could be mine, so I could do things like Imagination Library because if I hadn’t had the freedom to work, I wouldn’t have done all the things I’ve done,” Parton said in a 2020 interview with Oprah Winfrey on Apple TV+. “I wouldn’t be in a position to do all of the things I’m doing now.”