In Memoriam - Dixie Carter

The Los Angeles Times reports:

Dixie Carter, who gained television fame as Julia Sugarbaker on the long-running CBS sitcom "Designing Women," has died. She was 70.

Carter died Saturday morning at a Houston hospital of complications from cancer, said Steve Rohr, publicist for Carter and her husband, actor Hal Holbrook.

"This has been a terrible blow to our family," Holbrook said in a written statement. "We would appreciate everyone understanding that this is a private family tragedy."

Carter had a long career as a stage actress and cabaret singer. But her signature role was as the opinionated star of "Designing Women," which focused on four women running an interior design firm in Atlanta. The show ran from 1986 to 1993 with a long life in reruns.

Carter, Delta Burke, Annie Potts and Jean Smart were the original leads. "The show was written just for us," Carter told the Palm Beach Post in 1999. "We all thought we were the prettiest and the funniest."

Potts told the Associated Press at a 2006 cast reunion: "It was something so unique, because there had never been anything quite like it. We had Lucy and Ethel, but we never had that exponentially expanded, smart, attractive women who read newspapers and had passions about things and loved each other and stood by each other."

I loved Dixie Carter, and all the Designing Women. Rest in peace.