Friends And Co-Stars Of Dixie Carter React To Her Death

Readily recognized for her long time tenure on TV's "Designing Women" as Julia Sugarbaker and for her starring roles in seven other TV series, Dixie Carter has passed away Saturday morning in Houston from complications of endometrial cancer. The actress was 70 years old.

"This has been a terrible blow to our family," her husband HAl Holbrook told ET. "We would appreciate everyone understanding that this is a private family tragedy. Thank you."

Friends and co-stars of Carter having been sharing their thoughts & memories with various news outlets.

"Designing Women" co-stars Jean Smart and Richard Gilliland: "Dixie was such an amazing person." Smart added, "She was gorgeous, hilarious, incredibly talented and so devoted to her family. There was no one else like her and I was completely crazy about her. She exuded joy. Richard and I will really miss her and our hearts go out to her beautiful family."

Annie Potts, "Designing Women" co-star: "Dixie Carter was a goddess. Beautiful and brainy, smart and funny, prim and sexy, wickedly talented and divinely sweet. The kind of wife and mother that every mother hopes their daughter will become, and the kind of friend that is absolutely irreplaceable. She loved fiercely and was adored in return. To have known her a little was a delight to all. To have known her well, a treasure beyond reckoning. And now, a loss beyond measure."

Marc Cherry, creator of ABC's "Desperate Housewives": "I started out as a fan, then became her employee and ended up as her friend. Sadly, there aren't many people in this town with such class, dignity and integrity. She will be missed."

Gregory Boyd, Alley Theatre artistic director: "We were so lucky that we knew her well, and we loved Dixie very much. She was an astonishingly versatile actor - everyone knows her expertise in contemporary comedy - but she also excelled in Shakespeare, in Wilde, in musicals. She was a sublime cabaret artist, and her act at the Carlyle in New York was the best cabaret act I've ever seen. She had the thing that the theatre at its best, though only rarely, sees in an artist - an inner light, a spiritual depth and an abiding sense of grace."

Alley Theatre company member Todd Waite (co-star in Arsenic and Old Lace): "She was ladylike and sexy as hell, but she was tough as nails, battling through excruciating back pain to move (it seemed) effortlessly up several flight of stairs each night, eight shows a week during the run of our play. Once she fell, hard to the ground, and as I went to help her up she snapped ‘I'm fine!' and leapt up, not missing a beat or a word in her lines. Later she gave me a hug and touched my cheek saying, ‘I hope I didn't scare you, sweetie.'"

Carter was last seen on stage in "Southern Comforts" back in 2006, in which she starred with her husband HAl Holbrook in Coconut Grove, Florida. Carter was also seen at Washington, D.C.'s Shakespeare Theatre where she played a standing room only run as Mrs. Erlyn in Oscar Wilde's "Lady Windermere's Fan."

Broadway fans of course know Carter for her earlier appearances in "Thoroughly Modern Mille," as Maria Callas in "Master Class," for her role as Melba in the Circle in the Square production of "Pal Joey," and for her run in "Sextet" at the Bijou Theatre.

In 2006 and 2007, Dixie Carter found played the "disturbed and disturbing" Gloria Hodge on Desperate Housewives, earning an Emmy nomination for her work on the series.

Her Off-Broadway credits included New York Shakespeare Festival: The Winter's Tale (Perdita); Public Theatre: Taken in Marriage (Dixie Avalon), Fathers and Sons (Calamity Jane), Buried Inside Extra (Liz Conlon), Gogol (Chained Woman), Jesse and the Bandit Queen (Belle Starr); Music Theatre of Lincoln Center: Carousal, The King and I, The Merry Widow; Astor Place Theatre: A Coupla' White Chicks Sittin' Around Talkin'; Upstairs at the Downstairs.

Regional Credits include Matrix Theatre, LA: Names (Stella Adler), A Streetcar Named Desire (Blanche DuBois), The Applecart, Kiss Me Kate, A Little Night Music, Mame, Babes in Arms, Oklahoma, Brigadoon, The King and I, The New Moon, The Student Prince, Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night. In addition to her most well known television role, that of Julia Sugarbaker on Designing Women, she has starred in seven other television series

She has recieved numerous honors including Southeastern Theatre Conference; National Corporate Theatre Fund; The Shakespeare Theatre Millennium Recognition Award; Theatre World Award: Jesse and the Bandit Queen; Drama Desk Nomination: Fathers and Sons; Dramalogue: Names.

The Dixie Carter Performing Arts Center (The Dixie) opened in November 2005 in Huntingdon, Tennessee.

Born in McLemoresville, Tennessee, she is a graduate of the University of Memphis. She and Mr. Holbrook met while filming the CBS-TV movie, The Killing of Randy Webster. Carter and Holbrook reside in Los Angeles.