Happy 70th Birthday to Dixie Carter!

Whenever I’m asked what stars I’ve enjoyed meeting and interviewing the most, Dixie Carter’s name always enters the conversation.

The great star, who played the outspoken Julia Sugarbaker on Designing Women for seven seasons, had some of the most delicious lines on that show including her famous “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia” speech (posted HERE last week) which I did part of with her when we did a phone interview several years back.

“We were told right away that gay bars all over the country were showing the show and bars in Atlanta and L.A. would do the “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia” speech,” Dixie told me.

Dixie tsaid she loved doing Julia’s famous speeches but after they were filmed “I’d have to drop all that information as soon as we drive off the lot in order to clear the brain for next week’s script!”

In the pilot, her character got the most laughs so this was a real showcase for the actress. One of my favorite lines of Dixie’s is when obnoxious Ray Don Simpson (“I want to thank you…RAY DON…”) tries to join the women for lunch at a sushi restaurant saying they look like they could use a little male company. Dixie puts down her chop sticks, looks at him and says: “Trust me when I say that you have completely misjudged this situation.”

Carter’s favorite episode?  The episode when Charlene (Jean Smart) wants to become a pastor and Julia gets to sing How Great Thou Art at the end. Carter’s mother was dying and that was the last episode of the show she ever saw, her daughter by her side. “She got to see her little girl sing this great Methodist hymn for the whole country.”

After Designing Women left the air, Dixie spent four years playing an attorney on the CBS drama Family Law and earned an Emmy nomination for her juicy recurring role of Gloria Hodge on Desperate Housewives. She also has performed her one-women show all around the country and is one-half of one of showbiz’s great marriages: she and Hal Holbrook will celebrate their 25th anniversary on Wednesday.

Happy birthday to Dixie! Here is another of my favorite Designing Women clips. It’s Julia singing at her son’s wedding after one too many glasses of champagne!