Dolly Parton's 1978 TODAY Debut: Her Dream, Family and Crossover Plans
The archival clip captures the country star early in her push toward mainstream pop audiences.
A newly resurfaced clip from TODAY shows Dolly Parton in one of her earliest national television interviews, sitting down with Jane Pauley on Aug. 23, 1978. In the conversation, Parton discussed growing up with a dream of performing, her relationship with her family and her ambition to write songs about love that would resonate widely.
The interview also captured Parton addressing her crossover from country music into pop, a shift she was navigating at the time as she sought to broaden her audience beyond Nashville. She spoke to Pauley about wanting her music to reach people all over the world, a goal that would come to define much of her subsequent career.
The footage is part of a wave of archival material resurfacing following Parton's death, as networks have revisited her decades-long history with morning television. TODAY co-host Hoda Kotb recently led a retrospective tracing Parton's appearances on the program back to this same 1978 interview, while GOOD MORNING AMERICA aired its own look back at her television history spanning an early Barbara Walters sit-down through more recent visits to Dollywood.
Parton's team has confirmed that projects she had in development will move forward, including DOLLY: A True Original Musical on Broadway, which is set to begin previews on December 7, 2026 with an official opening on January 19, 2027. Hoda Kotb's retrospective of Parton's TODAY history offers additional context on the singer's decades-long relationship with the program.
