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Parton sat down with On The Red Carpet's George Pennacchio in 2023 to talk about her life from songs, stage and screen.
In a music career that began when she was still a child, born into poverty in the tiny mountain community of Pittman Center, Tennessee, Parton went on to become one of the world's most successful and admired entertainers, regarded as a country music living legend. Her trademark style - big blonde hair, flamboyant clothes and makeup - was cultivated early in her career, while she was still in her teens.
Parton released "Behind the Seams: My Life in Rhinestones" in 2023 on how her iconic style evolved over the years.
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"I take my negatives and try to make them into positives, and I always feel better being more flamboyant," she wrote.
Parton's style helped her get noticed but her musical gifts made her unforgettable. She wrote and recorded many of country and pop's most enduring songs, including the hits "Jolene," "Coat of Many Colors" - added to the Library of Congress National Recording Registry in 2011 - "Here You Come Again," "Love Is Like a Butterfly," "9 to 5" and more.
Dolly Parton was also generous with her money. Through her nonprofit Dollywood Foundation, "Saint Dolly," as her fans dubbed her, supported education by providing scholarships and financial assistance to people in need. Her Imagination Library,
begun in 1995, has provided nearly 308 million books for free to children in the U.S., the U.K., Ireland, Canada and Australia, according to its official website.
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When wildfires in 2016 ravaged the Great Smoky Mountains in Eastern Tennessee, where she grew up, Parton created a fund that gave $1,000 a month for six months to some 900 families affected by the fires to help them get back on their feet, and also organized a telethon to raise money for the fires' victims. Four years later, Parton donated $1 million to Tennessee's Vanderbilt University Medical Center to help fund the search for a COVID-19 vaccine, and later urged Americans to get vaccinated against the virus in a video that showed her receiving the shot as she sang her hit "Jolene," with the refrain updated to "vaccine."
So what was Dolly's secret to success over the years?
"I have a lot of inner confidence and I was always surrounded you know with good people."
The 2023 special "On The Red Carpet Icons: Dolly Parton" can be seen in the video player above.
ABC News contributed to this report.