Country singer Dolly Parton offered herself for cancer drug trials

Dolly Parton told her sister that if her cancer treatment reached a dead end, she wanted her doctors to try experimental drugs on her anyway, on the chance the results helped somebody later. Stella Parton made the disclosure in the days after Dolly's death at 80, and SPIN reported it on August 27.

Stella described her sister as one of the most generous and thoughtful people she had known, and asked that anyone wanting to honour her do it by giving more of their own time and money rather than by grieving publicly. The instruction about the drug trials fits a pattern rather than breaking one.

Parton had already put money into exactly that kind of research. She donated $1 million to Covid-19 work at Nashville's Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center in 2020, funding that fed into the development of the Moderna vaccine, and her Imagination Library has sent hundreds of millions of books to children.

The screen tributes started almost immediately. AMC Theatres is showing Steel Magnolias and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas from August 28 through September 2 at roughly 200 US locations, including cinemas in her native Tennessee. Each site runs two matinees a day, one screening of each film, at the chain's lower Fan Faves pricing.

The stage tribute was already booked before she died and is going ahead as she wanted. Dolly: A True Original Musical begins previews on Broadway on December 7, with opening night set for January 19, 2027. That date would have been Parton's 81st birthday.

We have been following the last months closely: Parton missed a Dollywood appearance over health problems before her death at 80. More sits on the country hub.