Country music has lost an icon.

Porter Wagoner, whose rhinestone suits and pompadoured hair were staples of the Grand Ole Opry, and who is widely credited with launching the career of Dolly Parton, died Sunday after a bout with lung cancer. He was 80.

Wagoner enjoyed the kind of career that is increasingly difficult to attain in modern music, having spent 50 years with the Opry and hosted his own syndicated TV show for 21 years, not to mention a string of hits in the 1960s.

Although his career dried up in the 1980s, Wagoner enjoyed a revival in recent years, having signed to ANTI- Records in 2006 and landed an opening slot for the White Stripes at a sold-out show at New York's Madison Square Garden this summer.

The Missouri-born Wagoner signed with RCA Records in 1955 and joined the Opry in 1957, "the greatest place in the world to have a career in country music," he said in 1997. In 1960, he launched The Porter Wagoner Show, a Nashville-based TV show that ran for 21 years.

Along the way, his hits included "Carroll County Accident," "A Satisfied Mind," "Company's Comin'," "Skid Row Joe," "Misery Loves Company," and "Green Green Grass of Home."

In 1967, Wagoner hired Parton, then a 21-year-old singer, as his duet partner. They were the Country Music Association's duo of the year in 1970 and 1971, recording hit duets including "The Last Thing on My Mind."

The two quit singing duets in 1974, with Parton going on to stardom. Wagoner sued her for $3 million in assets, but they settled out of court in 1980.

However, the pair remained close and blamed the lawsuit on attorneys.

At a charity roast for Wagoner in 1995, she explained the breakup this way: "We split over creative differences. I was creative, and Porter was different." In 2002, Wagoner was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Parton attended a ceremony in May 2007 honoring Wagoner on his silver anniversary with the Opry. At the time, he called Parton "one of my best friends today." She also visited him in the hospital as he battled cancer.

Wagoner, who had survived an abdominal aneurysm in 2006, was hospitalized again this month, and his publicist disclosed he had lung cancer. He died at 8:25 p.m. CDT Sunday in a Nashville hospice, said Darlene Bieber, a spokeswoman for the Opry.

Country singer and Opry member Dierks Bentley visited Wagoner in the hospice over the weekend and said Wagoner led them in prayer, thanking God for his friends, his family, and the Grand Ole Opry.

"The loss of Porter is a great loss for the Grand Ole Opry and for country music, and personally it is a great loss of a friend I was really just getting to know," Bentley said. "I feel blessed for the time I had with him."

Wagoner's final album, Wagonmaster,, was released in June and earned him some of the best reviews of his career.