Vale: Dixie Carter

Actress Dixie Carter, best known for her role on the US sitcom Designing Women, has died aged 70.

Details about the time, place and cause have not been revealed.

“This has been a terrible blow to our family,” said her husband Hal Holbrook. “We would appreciate everyone understanding that this is a private family tragedy.”

Carter appeared in Diff’rent Strokes as the wife of Conrad Bain’s character Philip Drummond, although the role was later assumed by Mary Ann Mobley after it switched networks. In 1986’s Designing Women, her sharp-tongued character, Julia Sugarbaker, was an advocate of liberal causes and women’s rights.

She started her acting career in a 1960 stage production of Carousel. Later she also appeared in the soap operas One Life to Live and The Edge of Night, and in such series as Out of the Blue, On Our Own, Filthy Rich, and Family Law.

In 2007, she received an Emmy nomination for a stint as the devious mother-in-law of Marcia Cross’ character in Desperate Housewives (pictured top, centre).

She is survived by husband Holbrook and two daughters.

Source: ABC, EW