Dixie Carter, Best Known as Julia Sugarbaker on "Designing Women" Dead at Age 70

Dixie Carter's knowing smile.

Dixie Carterr, best known as the dignified, intense southern belle on television's Designing Women has passed away at age 70, according to her husband, actor Hal Holbrook.

With a career in film and television that began in the early 1960s, she became the go-to actress for a strong independent woman in the 1980s, with key roles on Diff'rent Strokes before the defining role as interior designer Julia Sugarbaker, famous for her politeness until pushed too far. Then, like many southern women I've known, she was a force of nature that was a beauty to behold.

She later played to that strong type on Family Law, and recently had a character arc on Desperate Housewives.

Our condolences to her friends and family at this time.