Trivia: The epitomical "Southern belle," radiant with finesse, grace, and an aura of down-home hospitality, Tennessee-born actress and chanteuse Dixie Carter received her broadest exposure on television thanks to two memorable sitcom roles: that of TV exercise hostess Maggie McKinney, spunky romantic partner and wife of millionaire Philip Drummond (Conrad Bain), on Diff'rent Strokes, and that of Julia Sugarbaker, Atlanta fashion designer extraordinaire, on the long-running Thomason-produced sitcom Designing Women.Carter was born in McLemoresville, TN, the daughter of two grocery-store proprietors. As a young lady, she projected a heightened gift for song. She studied music at Rhodes College in Memphis, then moved to Manhattan in 1963 to launch herself as a musical-theater star, but her career stalled for seven years given her 1967 marriage to Wall Street financier Arthur Carter (no blood relation to her; the common surname was a coincidence). Carter returned to the stage in 1974, with pivotal roles in such productions as Fathers and Sons and Pal Joey, and landed the part of Brandy Henderson in the soap opera The Edge of Night. In 1979, the actress moved to Los Angeles to commence film work. In the mean time, the marriage to Carter, and then a subsequent marriage, to Broadway star George Hearn, dissolved.By the late '70s and early '80s, Carter started racking up occasional bit parts and guest appearances in such series as Lou Grant, Out of the Blue, and Quincy, M.E. The Diff'rent Strokes part (which lasted only one season -- Carter withdrew from the series and was replaced at the start of the 1985-1986 season by cover girl and one-time Miss America Mary Ann Mobley) represented her highest billing up through that time. Then came the Sugarbaker role. Carter was one of the few members of the ensemble (alongside Annie Potts and Meshach Taylor) to actually remain with the program through the end of its run (in 1993), and fans continued to indelibly associate her with the series even after it wrapped. In the mean time, Carter's third husband, actor Hal Holbrook (who signed for a supporting role alongside his wife on Designing Women), encouraged her to resuscitate her singing career, and she mounted a well-received cabaret act, modeling her approach to old standards after the esteemed Mabel Mercer.Carter's resumé of onscreen work also included appearances in such long-form projects as the feature The Killing of Randy Webster (1981) and the miniseries Dazzle (1995). She gained additional acclaim and recognition with her portrayal of Gloria Hodge on the prime-time black comedy series Desperate Housewives. Carter died of endometrial cancer at age 70 in April 2010.

Trivia: Involved in amateur theatricals since childhood, Annie Potts received her BFA in theatre arts from Missouri's Stephens College. Potts has been seen in comic supporting roles in films since 1978; she is most closely associated with the part of ditzy secretary Janine Melnitz in the two Ghostbusters flicks of the 1980s. On television, Potts has played Edith Bedelmeyer on the one-season sitcom Goodtime Girls (1980), then enjoyed a longer run as Mary Jo Shively on Designing Women (1986-93). Her characterization of outspoken gourmet chef Dana Paladino on the prime time sitcom Love and War won Annie an Emmy nomination in 1994. Annie Potts has also been featured in a popular series of commercials for a well-known corn-chip product, and has served as national spokesperson for the Women for Arthritis Foundation. In 1996 she was cast as a no-nonsense schoolteacher of troubled inner-city high schoolers in the ABC-TV show Dangerous Minds, a series based on the 1995 Michelle Pfeiffer film of the same name. She voiced the part of Bo Peep in the first two Toy Story films, and in 2003 she took part in a Designing Women reunion. That same year she was the lead in Defending Our Kids: The Julie Posey Story. She appeared intermittently on the Showtime series Huff, and in 2007 she joined the cast of the short-lived series Men In Trees. In 2012 she was cast as one of the leads in the new TV series GCB.

Trivia: Born in Missouri and educated at the University of Oklahoma, Alice Ghostley created a sensation in her first Broadway production, New Faces of 1952. In the company of such powerhouse co-stars as Paul Lynde, Robert Clary and Carol Lawrence, Ghostley stole the show with her plaintive renditions of the satirical ballads "The Boston Beguine" and "Time for Tea." Within a year of New Faces, she was headlined in the film version of that popular revue and was cast as a regular on the network-TV series Freedom Ring. Ghostley has been convulsing audiences ever since, playing a rich variety of man-chasing bachelorettes, overprotective mothers and dotty neighbors. While most of her film appearances have been in comedies (Viva Max!, The Graduate, Grease), Ghostley proved quite effective in the comparatively straight role of Stephanie Crawford in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). In 1965, she won a Tony award for her performance in the Broadway seriocomedy The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window. In addition, Ghostley has been a regular or semi-regular on a multitude of TV series: The Jackie Gleason Show, Car 54 Where Are You, Captain Nice, The Jonathan Winters Show, The Golddiggers, Designing Women and a host of others. She is most fondly remembered for her portrayal of bumbling witch Esmerelda on the long-running (1964-72) sitcom Bewitched. On both this series and 1972's Temperatures Rising, Alice Ghostley was reunited with her old New Faces cohort, Paul Lynde. Ghostley died of colon cancer at age 81 in September 2007.

Trivia: Born in Georgia, comedian Jan Hooks perfected her exaggerated Southern accent and carved a niche for herself satirizing the eccentric wives of prominent politicians and public figures. After making her film debut as Tina, the Alamo tour guide in Pee Wee's Big Adventure, she joined the cast of Saturday Night Live. Starting in 1986, she created over-the-top characterizations for Nancy Reagan, Kitty Dukakis, Ivana Trump, Tammy Faye Bakker, and Hillary Clinton. She left the show in 1991 and put her Southern accent permanently on display for Designing Women as Carlene, the naïve sister of Charlene (Jean Smart). Movie roles were usually small yet quirky, like the image consultant in Batman Returns or the driving student in Coneheads. In 1994, she joined a team of hard-working comedians at the The Martin Short Show, who she would later work with on the Comedy Central program Primetime Glick. She was ideal for the role of Dixie Glick, the wife of the 300-pound celebrity talk show host Jiminy Glick (Martin Short). While making regular appearances as Vicki Dubcek on 3rd Rock From the Sun and as Apu's wife Manjula on The Simpsons, she reprised her role of Dixie Glick for the feature-length movie La La Wood in 2003. In 2010, she played Jenna Maroney's mother on 30 Rock. Hooks passed away in 2014, at age 57.

Trivia: Texas native Judith Ivey studied acting at Illinois State University, and began her acting career in the same state shortly afterward; by 1974, Ivey had debuted in a Chicago production of The Sea, and would continue to build her resumé until her move to New York City in the late '70s. A series of on- and off-Broadway performances met her there, as did two Tony awards (the first for her largely nude performance in Steaming [1983], and the second for her role as an abused go-go dancer in Hurlyburly [1985]). Known for her Southern charm and distinctive, rather nasal, voice, Ivey could be seen in film roles throughout the 1980s, appearing alongside Steve Martin in The Lonely Guy, Paul Newman in the family drama Harry and Son, Gene Wilder in The Woman in Red, and in the role of the outspoken best friend of Susan Sarandon in Compromising Positions (1985). The actress also found a great deal of success on the small screen -- Ivey starred in television productions of The Long, Hot Summer (1985), Dixie: Changing Habits (1985), We Are the Children (1987), and Decoration Day (1990) before landing several prominent sitcom roles. In 1991, Ivey returned to her Texas roots for NBC's Down Home, though she found more success playing wealthy widow B.J. Poteet on the final season of the long-running sitcom Designing Women (also NBC). Though Ivey continued to make regular appearances on television (including a performance on the Emmy-winning series Frasier), she found moderate success in several films. In 1997, Ivey played the well-to-do mother of Celine (Cameron Diaz) in Danny Boyle's A Life Less Ordinary; the same year, she would play supporting roles in Washington Square and The Devil's Advocate with Al Pacino. After appearing in several inconsequential films throughout the late '90s, Ivey was featured in Rose Red, Stephen King's popular television miniseries. In 2003, she had a prominent role in the independant film What Alice Found, which won a Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. She could next be seen alongside Maggie Gyllenhaal, Elizabeth McGovern, and Peter Sarsgaard in 2004's In God's Hands.

Trivia: Refined comedic actor Meshach Taylor was most well known for his role as Anthony Bouvier on the CBS series Designing Women (1986-1993) and as the flamboyant Hollywood Montrose in the fantasy comedy features Mannequin and Mannequin 2: On the Move. He started his career by touring in national theater companies and appearing on the TV series Buffalo Bill with Dabney Coleman. He has been in several made-for-TV movies, including the Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen title Double, Double, Toil and Trouble. Some of his feature films included the sci-fi adventure Explorers, the Susanna Hoffs vehicle The Allnighter, and the Kid 'N Play movie Class Act. In 1993, he joined the cast of Dave's World as Harry Anderson's neighbor, Sheldon. After hosting his very own series on HGTV, The Urban Gardener with Meshach Taylor, he appeared on Broadway as Lumiere in Beauty and the Beast. In addition to being a regular panelist on the game show To Tell the Truth, he also appeared in the feature film Friends and Family, a comedy about a literally gay mafia. He had a recurring role on the Nickelodeon sitcom Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide, playing the school principal. Taylor had four children with his wife, veteran General Hospital actress Bianca Ferguson. He died in 2014, at age 67.