Dolly Parton and Will Rogers

By Ralph Peck

A strange day has hit the world again.  

When Dolly Parton left this world, not long after her birthday, on August 25, 2026 the world began making its condolences to Dolly and her life, through news statements, internet comments, with other entertainers, the government and plain ordinary folks having to gather the tears and make that part of this world felt like it was something it had experienced before. 

It is an amazing consideration when one thinks about the steps leading up to Will Rogers’s death at age 55 on August 15, 1935.

Their two lives seem to have been on the same path, entertaining folks throughout the country and around the world.  The startling fact that Will Rogers passed so young, through the accident he had with Wiley Post, and Dolly’s death at age 80 may seem different, but at the same time, likely in their happenings.

Dolly was born in 1946 and grew up in Sevierville, Tennessee, a very small part of the eastern Tennessee hills, where she was born and lived with her parents and 11 brothers and sisters. 

Will was born in 1879 at his home near Oologah, Oklahoma, a very small town about two miles from where the Rogers family lived.  His life was one of adventure and world travel.  He managed to get at least three or four lifetimes in his few years, but made traveling a significant part of his life.

Both of them started from small family dwellings, out in the country away from people, but both learned the difference between themselves and the story that could be told to the world.

The similarities between the two are obvious now that we have to look back at both of them in their worlds.  

Will went from being a son of an Oklahoma Territory family, learning to rope and manage cattle.  He was sent to Boonville, Missouri, while still school age and enrolled in Kemper Military Academy.  His quick wit, his laughable self, and some felt like obnoxious behavior were enough to only keep him there for a semester’s journey.  He then traveled to West Texas to work for a cattle group that moved herds from South Texas to Colorado.  He felt things were right and headed for South Africa to be part of the cowboy days of his life, working as a stock manager and then as a roper who made the “Big Show” of talent and started doing day-to-day roping shows for entertainment.  

When he decided to come back, broke, with no money but only experiences, he contacted his father and got enough money to ride a ship back to America.

When he finally managed to get back to Oklahoma, he got a contract for a very brief time to rope on the New York stage.  That brief time turned into 25 years of stage acting, roping, etc… All of this turned into his starting in New York and moving to Hollywood to make movies, writing his daily thoughts for newspapers, traveling the world as a speaker, and creating friends of the rich, and famous, and political participants and for the poor, and those becoming poor, speaking for those people who were drowning in the Depression and trying to have any money for working forward.  His donations were quiet, but he made many.

Will did not build his reputation as someone on television, as there was none, until after he had died.  

Dolly sang for the first time as a 13-year-old in the old Grand Ole Opry theater.  Five years later, at 18, she moved to Nashville and began working to fulfill her fever to entertain.  When she went there she was looking for something and some way of getting her face and her talents seen.  This worked as well as anything she could have hoped for.  Dolly traveled all over the United States, but kept Nashville at her heart.

Dolly got set up with Porter Wagoner, playing his show from 1967 to 1974, during which she took the steps to become the great musician she eventually became.  

Dolly, at the end of her life had written over 3,000 songs.  

Will wrote 3,600 to 4,000 total syndicated newspaper writings.  

She also played in 12 theatrically released motion pictures.

Will played in 50 silent films and 21 talkies.

Dolly shared her vision for children to read and write and donated over 332 million books to support the free program.

Will donated so much undocumented money to people suffering through the depression and to places around the world where he played to audiences.

Dolly made numerous other donations to private individuals and moved her dollars to the people who needed it to make their lives.

Will, who died at 55 in an aircraft crash in Alaska, kept his time at home private, and kept his time with his children to himself.

Dolly kept her time at home and with her husband, Carl Dean and her time with her family all extremely quiet.

Dolly was well known for her wit and quick remarks to speakers and stars and politicians, keeping everyone on their toes.  Her feelings toward politics were limited to her acerbic remarks and funny asides to the politicians that were played on TV and radio.

Will was known as an actor, writer, movie star, and a speech maker who kept the listening world hearing and enjoying his overall presentations and way of portraying himself as a boy from Oklahoma, who could make his points about the world.

Dolly’s photographs were with Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama, and George Bush.

Will was pictured with Presidents as well; Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover and Franklin D Roosevelt.

Dolly Parton outlived Will Rogers by 25 years. In those years, she stepped forward on behalf of herself and the hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of people she helped throughout her life.  She wrote the number one selling female song, ever, of “I Will Always Love You.”  She traveled a good part of the world performing for people virtually everywhere. 

Dolly made her life by smiling, telling the truth, and ultimately making people happy to know her.

Will made his for the exact same reasons.