Jane Fonda Leads Hollywood Tributes as Dolly Parton Dies at 80 in Nashville
Dolly Parton died on Tuesday, August 25, 2026, in Nashville, Tennessee, at the age of 80. Her publicist confirmed she died peacefully, according to the Associated Press. A cause of death was not immediately known, per a family statement posted to her social media accounts.
Her nephew, Bryan Seaver, announced the death in a video message on Tuesday, CNN reported. The news arrived just four days after Parton told an interviewer, "I still have so many things I want to achieve," People magazine noted.
Jane Fonda, Parton's co-star and close friend for more than four decades, was among the first to respond publicly. Writing on Instagram on Tuesday afternoon, Fonda said she was devastated and had only just learned of Parton's death, according to Deadline. She called Parton "the voluptuous embodiment of empathy."
Fonda recalled Parton's final appearance on the Netflix series Grace and Frankie, in which Parton played "an Angel, the head honcho working class angel in Heaven." The two women, alongside Lily Tomlin, had first joined forces in the 1980 workplace comedy 9 to 5, written by Patricia Resnick and Colin Higgins and directed by Higgins. The cast also included Dabney Coleman, Elizabeth Wilson, and Sterling Hayden. The film grossed over $100 million at the box office.
9 to 5 — both the song and the film — took its name from the 9to5 National Association of Working Women, an organisation founded in 1973 to improve conditions for working women in the United States. A television adaptation ran for five seasons on ABC through the early 1980s. A musical stage version, with new songs from Parton, opened on Broadway in 2009.
Parton's career spanned country, pop, film, television, and the stage. She won 11 Grammy awards, including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, Reuters reported. Her official website announced on August 19, 2026 that she had been honoured with 82 new global sales certifications across 14 countries. A new musical, Hello, I'm Dolly, inspired by her life and career, was announced for Broadway in 2026. Her most recent venture, a Spring 2026 apparel collection with Good American called Dolly's Joleans, was her third with the brand.
For fans, the loss cuts across generations. Parton's work reached country radio listeners in the 1960s, office workers who saw themselves in 9 to 5, children who knew her only from her voice as Dolly in the animated film A Christmas of Many Colors, and theatre audiences who sang along to her Broadway score. Few entertainers covered that much ground.
As of August 25, Parton's official website carried no statement or tribute confirming her death. The most recent item on the site remained the August 19 announcement of her global sales certifications.
