Women We Love: Dixie Carter

This is the first in a four-part salute to the Designing Women We Love, the first season of which finally makes its DVD debutMay 26:

Object of our affection: Dixie Carter, actress.

- Her career began in New York, on the Broadway stage with the musicals Sextet and Pal Joey and on the daytime soap operas One Life to Live and The Edge of Night.

- Primetime called, and she answered by co-starring in such sitcoms as Diff'rent Strokes and Filthy Rich; the latter was created by Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, which led to Carter's most famous role, that of the strong-willed and outspoken Miss Julia Sugarbaker on our beloved Designing Women.

- Subsequently, she has appeared in the series Ladies Man, Family Law and, in an Emmy Award nominated performance, Desperate Housewives, which was created by Marc Cherry, her former assistant on the set of Designing Women.

- Back on Broadway, she played Maria Callas in Master Class and Mrs. Meers in Thoroughly Modern Millie.

- Most recently, she co-starred with her husband Hal Holbrook in the film That Evening Sun, which won a special jury prize for its ensemble cast at the SXSW Film Festival.