When Designing Women was a big TV hit in the late '80s and early '90s, everyone loved Delta Burke, who played the sassy interior designer Suzanne Sugarbaker. But I was partial to Dixie Carter, who played her sister, Julia, the head of an Atlanta design firm. Carter's character was strong-willed but respectful of Southern mores, using a well-placed quip and an arched eyebrow to make her point. She was smart and sexy and funny but always a lady. She embodied the Southern women I knew growing up near Memphis, which coincidentally was where Carter, a west Tennessee native, got her start in show business.

And she was a good actress, too.

Carter died Saturday in Houston, where she was being treated for endometrial cancer. She was 70.

Carter and her husband, Hal Holbrook, were favorites at the Alley Theater. They appeared together in the world premiere of the Ken Ludwig play, Be My Baby, in 2005. Two years later Carter starred in the Alley production of Arsenic and Old Lace. Last year, the couple were honorary chairs at a "roast and toast" fundraiser to celebrate Alley artistic director Gregory Boyd's 20th year with the Houston theater company.

In program notes for the production of Be My Baby, Ludwig recalled that Holbrook and Carter got involved with his play after he met Holbrook at an Alley fundraiser in 2004. He sent a copy of the play to Holbrook, who agreed to star.

"We began talking about who should play the woman’s role opposite him," Ludwig wrote. "Needless to say, his wife Dixie Carter is marvelous, and I desperately wanted her to do the part. So I suggested, delicately, that – with his permission – my agent could overnight a copy of the script to Dixie, with the message that she shouldn’t feel obligated to even read it."

And, he said, “Well, we can do that. Or, I can walk across the room and hand it to her.” About two hours later, the phone rings and Dixie says, “Ken, I love this play. I’ll do the part.” It was music to my ears."

The Tennessee native often portrayed independent Southern women in theater and television. She played recurring roles in the sitcoms Different Strokes and Filthy Rich in the '80s before starring in Designing Women, which ran from 1986 to1993. In 2007, Carter was nominated for an Emmy for a seven-episode guest stint on Desperate Housewives.

She met Holbrook in 1980 while making the TV movie, The Killing of Randy Webster. They married in 1984. The couple starred together in her final project, the 2009 independent film That Evening Sun, shot in Tennessee and based on a short story by Southern novelist William Gay.

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