CMT Blog: Archive

When I heard the news that actress Dixie Carter had lost her battle with cancer, my heart sank. I will always remember when my mother and I would watch her on our favorite late ‘80s television show, Designing Women. Carter played Julia Sugarbaker, the well-spoken, refined and no-nonsense character who handled herself with the utmost class and poise. I immediately texted my mom and told her the news. Her reply to me was, "She made the South proud." I couldn't agree more.

Through Julia Sugarbaker, also known as "The Terminator," she made women feel like a force to be reckoned with. Owner of her own design firm in Georgia, Sugarbaker was confident, assertive, independent and not one to mince words. Throughout the episodes she would address topics that ranged from freedom of speech to women's rights. Once she even spoke her mind to a New York Times editor, Mr. Weaks, who said all Southerners ate dirt for vitamins. After reading such nonsense, she called and left him a piece of her mind in her usual zinger fashion. "But ... speaking for myself and hundreds of thousands of my Southern ancestors who have evolved through many decades of poverty, strife, and turmoil," she said, "I would like for Mr. Weaks to know that we have surely eaten many things in the past, and we will surely eat many things in the future, but -- God as my witness -- we have never, I repeat, never eaten dirt!"

According to her International Movie Database page, the McLemoreville, Tenn., native was the valedictorian of her high school and graduated from Memphis State University (now University of Memphis) with an English degree. At one time she served as the national spokesperson for the Salvation Army. She became an accomplished Broadway actress and television star and came to Nashville in 2006 to perform in the Broadway Meets Country concert alongside Laura Bell Bundy (now a country newcomer) and country artists like Raul Malo, Lorrie Morgan, Jamie O'Neal and Lee Ann Womack. She was a polished, highly regarded woman who succeeded onstage and off and represented the qualities of a true upstanding Southerner. She will be greatly missed.

Photo Credit: Steve Granitz