15 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets You Never Knew About ‘Designing Women’

Do you remember which country music sensation made a guest appearance in the show?

By Linda Rodgers and Raquel Lekic Updated: October 24, 2023

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Every week from 1986 to 1993, Americans watched four sassy, smart, Southern women speaking their minds on the hit sitcom Designing Women. The series followed four lively ladies —the late Dixie Carter as Julia Sugarbaker, Annie Potts as Mary Jo Shively, Jean Smart as Charlene Frazier-Stillfield and Delta Burke as Suzanne Sugarbaker — who work together to run interior design firm Sugarbaker & Associates. And while we loved to see them shine on our screens, the cast of Designing Women had their fun behind the scenes as well.

Jean Smart looked back fondly on her time on the show in a 2022 interview with Variety: “There weren’t a lot of shows that were just about women back then. Linda [Bloodworth-Thomason] is such a good writer that she made the characters so distinct from each other,” Smart said. “A lot of times, back in the day on sitcoms, you could practically all trade lines and nobody could tell the difference. The jobs are kind of all the same.”

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Smart continued, “I would kill to play a part like that again — someone who’s kind of sweet and gullible. It’s funny, in some ways I see myself more that way than some other roles I’ve played recently.”

Smart isn’t the only member of the cast who fondly remembers their time on the show. “Somewhere in the second or third year, I felt like the stories weren’t going my way, that I was more of an ancillary character. I wasn’t very happy at work at the time,” Annie Potts, who played Mary Jo Shively, recalled to Glamour in 2022.

“So anyway, a friend of mine was sick and at Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles. I was lost trying to find her room and kept going down every corridor. After 15 minutes of being lost, I realized that every room I had passed had their TV on and was watching Designing Women. To me, that was the universe’s way of showing me how I needed to think differently about my success. The show brightened their life a little bit; it helped them forget their pain or forget their problems.” And brightened lives it sure did!

15 Designing Women behind-the-scenes secrets

Here, take a walk down memory lane with a look back at the romances, friendships and behind the camera secrets of Designing Women.

The show was written for the actresses

Dixie Carter, Jean Smart, Annie Potts, and Delta Burke, 2006 Getty images

Dixie Carter, Jean Smart, Annie Potts and Delta Burke didn't audition for their roles. The show's creator, Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, wrote the sitcom for them.
Finding love on the screen

Gerald McRainey and Delta Burke, 1988 Jeff Kravitz / Contributor

Delta Burke met Gerald McRaney when he played the role of her character, Suzanne's, ex-husband. They got married in 1989, and are still together today!
Viewers almost lost 'Designing Women'

Cast of 'Designing Women', 1986 Getty images

Designing Women was almost cancelled. A huge letter-writing campaign encouraged viewers to write letters of protest to CBS president Bud Grant as well as to major TV journalists and critics. The campaign worked and all told, CBS received an estimated 50,000 letters in support of Designing Women and the show hit ratings gold in 1987 when CBS moved it to Monday nights.
Friends on and off screen

Dixie Carter and Delta Burke, 1987 Getty images

Dixie Carter was the matron of honor at Delta Burke's wedding.
Carter alters her image

Dixie Carter, 1987 Getty images

Carter, then 46, had plastic surgery between the first and second seasons. "I thought if this turns out to be my first big success, I couldn't bear to be identified as 'the older one,'" she told The Chicago Tribune in 1996.
Dolly Parton was a huge fan of the show

Dolly Parton in an episode of 'Designing Women' in 1990 via YouTube

Dolly Parton was a HUGE fan of the show, and lobbied to be a guest star. She got her wish when she played Charlene's "guardian movie star," on January 1, 1990.
An even trade

Dixie Carter sings in an episode of 'Designing Women', 1988 via YouTube

Julia Sugarbaker's politics didn't always suit Carter, a libertarian. Whenever her character gave liberal speeches Carter didn't agree with, she got to sing in the following episode.
Burke received a letter from Elizabeth Taylor

Elizabeth Taylor, 1990 Getty images

Elizabeth Taylor wrote Burke a letter, calling her courageous in the face of tabloid headlines about her weight gain. "Whenever I'm down, I read it," Burke told Ladies Home Journal.
Jean Smart also found love on the screen

Jean Smart and Richard Gilliland, 1992 Getty images

Jean Smart met Richard Gilliland on set. She asked Gilliland, a crossword-puzzle pro, to help her solve one — and the two got married in 1987. Sadly, he passed away in 2021.
Carter's real-life husband made a few on-screen appearances

Dixie Carter and husband Hal Holbrook, 1991 Vinnie Zuffante / Stringer

Hal Holbrook, Dixie Carter's real-life husband, had a recurring role as Julia Sugarbaker's boyfriend. Sadly, he passed away in 2021.
Meshach Taylor became a fan-favorite

Meshach Taylor, 1991 Getty images

Anthony Bouvier, Meshach Taylor's character, was a one-off character. But Taylor had so much chemistry with the four actresses that Bouvier was written into the show. He unfortunately passed away in 2014.
Jean Smart was a west coast woman

Jean Smart, 1990 Getty images

Smart, originally from Seattle, was the only lead who wasn't from the South. Burke was from Florida, Potts from Kentucky, and Carter from Tennessee. (Read more about Jean Smart's latest Emmy win)
Writer Linda Bloodworth-Thomason was quick on her feet

Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, 1990 Getty images

During her pitch for the sitcom, CBS executives asked show creator and writer, Bloodworth-Thomason what the setting was. "Uh….an interior design company,” Thomason ad-libbed. Sold!
Annie Potts hides her bump

Annie Potts, 1991 Getty images

Annie Potts got pregnant during the sixth season, but since Mary Jo Shivley was single, Potts had to hide her belly in oversized shirts and behind strategically placed furniture. (Read on for Annie Potts' tips for self care)
Going on to be 'Filthy Rich'

Cast of 'Filthy Rich', 1982 via Wikepedia

Burke and Carter worked together on another Bloodworth-Thomason sitcom — Filthy Rich — which ran for one year in the early 1980s.

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