Dixie Carter dies of Endometrial Cancer Saturday, April 10, 2010. Former Designing Women star and Emmy Award-winning actress suffers a type of cancer that begins as a result of abnormal cell growth that later spreads to the uterus and uterine lining.Carter’s husband, actor Hal Holbrook, released a statement through the couple’s shared publicist, Steve Rohr. Holbrook said, “This has been a terrible blow to our family,” and asked the public to give the family privacy in their time of grieving.
While many of us remember Carter in her role as Julia Sugarbaker on the 1980s sitcom, Designing Women, Carter actually trained in her youth to become an opera singer. Complications that resulted from a tonsillectomy stood in the way of her dream, but didn’t stop her from learning a variety of musical instruments.
She debuted on the stage in the 1960s, appearing in a number of onstage productions before she met her first husband, Arthur Carter. After the couple was married, Dixie Carter took an eight year break from the entertainment industry to devote time to raising her two daughters.
During the late 1970s and early 1980s, she hit primetime, appearing in a number of popular television series, like On Our Own and The Greatest American Hero. Most recently, she appeared on Desperate Housewives.
Carter is survived by her husband, Hal Holbrook, and her two daughters from her first marriage, Ginna Carter and Mary Dixie Carter. Elegant and beautiful, talented and poised, the entertainment world will definitely be a grayer place without Miss Dixie Carter.