Dixie Carter

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This article is about the actress. For the businesswoman, please see Dixie Carter (TNA).

Image:DesigningDixie.jpg Dixie Virginia Carter (born May 25, 1939) is an American actress noted for her portrayals of Southern women.

Early Life and Personal Life

Carter was born in tiny McLemoresville, Tennessee and spent many of her early years in Memphis. She attended college at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and Southwestern at Memphis (now Rhodes College). She is a graduate of Memphis State (now University of Memphis) with a degree in English. At school, she was a member of the Delta Delta Delta sorority.

In 1967 she married businessman Arthur Carter, to whom she is of no relation. With Arthur Carter, she had two daughters, Mary Dixie and Ginna (who would later appear in an episode of Designing Women.) Following the birth of her daughters, she left acting for eight years to focus on raising her children.

She divorced Arthur Carter in 1977, and married Broadway and TV actor George Hearn the same year. Two years later, in 1979, she divorced Hearn and married again five years later, on May 27, 1984, to the somewhat older actor Hal Holbrook, who is most noted for his appearances as Mark Twain. Carter and Holbrook live in Beverly Hills with Carter's elderly father, but they frequently pay visits to Tennessee.

Career

In 1960, Carter made her professional stage debut in a Memphis production of Carousel (musical). She moved to New York in 1963 and got a part in a production of Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale.

After her eight-year hiatus from acting, she returned to the craft in 1974, when she filled in for actress Nancy Pinkerton as Dorian Cramer Lord on One Life to Live, while Pinkerton was on maternity leave. She subsequently was cast in the role of 'Assistant D.A. Brandy Henderson' on the soap opera The Edge of Night, on which she appeared from 1974 - 1976. It was with this role that Carter was first noticed, and after exiting The Edge of Night, Carter pursued prime time television roles. She also appeared in series such as Out of the Blue, On Our Own, Diff'rent Strokes, and Filthy Rich (1982).

Carter's appearance in Filthy Rich paved the way for Carter's best known role, that of interior decorator Julia Sugarbaker in the 1980s/1990s television program Designing Women, set in Atlanta, Georgia. Filthy Rich had been created by Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, who went on to create Designing Women. (Filthy Rich also featured future Designing Women cast member Delta Burke in its cast.) The show enjoyed a seven-year run and made Carter a household name.

From 1999 to 2002, she portrayed brash Southern attorney Randi King on the legal drama series Family Law. She also starred in several Broadway musicals and plays, including portraying the late opera singer and diva Maria Callas in Master Class, for which she very effectively lost her regional accent. (Actress Faye Dunaway subsequently sought the film rights to the play, but no film has been made as of this writing.)

She is known for her Southern pride, which is evident in her product endorsements, like her appearances in commercials for Southern Bell (later BellSouth).

Carter is also a registered Republican, who was interviewed by Bill O'Reilly along with Pat Boone at the 2000 Republican National Convention. This often put her at odds with what she was expected to say as Julia Sugarbaker on "Women". Julia was nicknamed "the Terminator" for her cutting tirades; many of the earliest monologues were witty and full of common sense, but Julia also espoused very liberal thoughts, especially as the series progressed, and at one point, toasted Bill Clinton on air. Carter, who has also established a singing career and been featured as the headliner in many concerts, made a deal with the producers of "Women"; for every Julia tirade, she'd get to sing a song. Carter once jokingly described herself as "the only Republican in show business." [1]

In 1996, Carter published her memoirs, entitled Trying to Get to Heaven, where she talked frankly about her life with Hal Holbrook, Designing Women, and her plastic surgery (two face-lifts during the Women run).

External links

• The Cabaret (official website)
• {{{2|{{{name|Dixie Carter}}}}}} at The Internet Movie Database
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