All the Women of Designing Women

Welcome to Eighties TV Ladies, part of the weirding Way Media Network. Eightiesleyn So Pretty, Through the City gun Man World. Welcome to Eighties TV Ladies, where we explore the fabulous female driven television shows of the nineteen eighties with your hosts Susan Lambert had Them and Sharon Johnson. Hello, I'm Sharon and I'm Susan. Today we're going to talk about one of our favorite subjects, the women of Designing Women.

I can't wait, Sharon, I'm really excited to look at all these fabulous women, both the characters and the actresses same here, so many fabulous, fabulous women in front of them behind the camera on the show, and it's still one of my all time favorite comedies. It has been really fun to dive back into this show again, a show that I caught but didn't really watch, you know, religiously, and I know that it was one of your shows, but I'm really enjoying revisiting it, and just the performances are just sparkly performances. Writing all of it. Yeah, I have to admit that before I spent some time recently watching some of the episodes of the last two seasons after our Fab four if you will, Yeah, we lost a couple of them who decided to leave the show and brought on some other ladies.

I had always looked back on those seasons, those last two seasons is not being very good, and I'm really happy to say that in getting a chance to go back and rewatch season six and season seven, they're really great. Yeah. I mean, yes, they're different, but because we have different ladies, different different characters, but they're still really great. They're really well written and well performed. The cast is very strong.

I think it's hard because it's not the cast you know that the show grew up on and that you know, it's just a different point of view. I know that feeling of but this is the cast, and then the new people would always feel a little bit off. But at the same time, those cast members that they bring in are just amazing actresses. And I think the hardest thing for me is it they become you know, the like everybody has to be related or something like that just got weird. It was like I didn't think they needed that.

Just bring in someone. They don't have to be somebody's sister or cousin or whatever. Yeah, I'm sure they were thinking, well, this will maybe ease the transition a little bit. It's not just this completely foreign person who suddenly is tossed into the mix. But nevertheless, I thought they'd blended in really well.

I was so pleasantly surprised, as I have been with many of the shows that we've been watching, and how well they hold up. Yeah, I'm so happy and pleased about that. Yeah, this one's pretty fun, and I think sort of the show it was such a machine, you know, by the time they start bringing in different cast members, and I don't know, it just was really delightful. So let's dive in to talking about the women of Designing Women for our Designing Women November. So we had a big discussion in their last episode about who was first on the call sheet, and I'm still not sure.

If I had to pick, I would guess it was Dixie Carter. Yeah, yeah, I mean I know that Linda Bludworth Thomasin has said she had worked with all of them before on other projects. But still, the show is called Sugar Bakers, so it would surprise me greatly if Dixie Carter weren't first on the call sheet. Yeah, it's actually more interesting Who's next, Yeah, which we also don't have an answer to. But maybe it has to do with the order that they appear on the credits.

Maybe that well, maybe that's tough, but as Melissa pointed out, it's like alphabetical order. I don't know anyway, Okay, I think we should start with Dixie Carter. So Designing Women, if you're just joining us, and you did listen to our first Designing Women episode, if I may, though, I was just going back over their names just to make sure it was correct, because my brain chooses not to cooperate. Sometimes they're not in alphabetical order, because if they were, Delta Burke would be first in the credits, followed by Dixie Carter. And Dixie Carter is first in the credits, is she not?

That's my recollection. Again, my recollection is not always to be trusted, so I'm hoping you guys won't be able. I think she's first, all right, So now we're taking to Dixie Carter. She definitely had seen your so yes, I'm going to give it to her. And her character is the head of the business.

Even though it's an ensemble, her character is the lead of the group. It's her house, her character's house, so that for those reasons, I'd be surprised, but at some level it doesn't matter. But still, and listeners, if you know, because we haven't able to find out, please let us know who is first on the call sheet and designing women. You know, that's sort of interesting because I don't think it works the same as in I think for sitcoms, everybody's called, right, like, you just show up nine to five Monday through Friday and do the show. So it's slightly different.

And if you're not needed, you're sitting in your dressing room. But somebody has to be number one. Still you still have a call sheet, so right, all right, Well, let's going to say it's Dixie Carter since it is the Sugar Baker Firm and she is the number one in the business. Makes sense to me, all right. So Julia sugar Baker is the president and founder of Sugar Baker Associates, the interior design firm set in Atlanta, Georgia.

And she is classy, and she is feisty, and she is Southern, and she is very outspoken when it comes to feminist and sort of liberal perspectives, but also just protecting kind of her tribe, right. I think one of the first big speeches is the one the night the lights went out in Georgia, and she's kind of protecting her sister. Yes, And I gather from your comments there are a couple of other things you don't know, Marjorie. For example, you probably didn't know that Suzanne was the only contestant in Georgia pageant history to sweep every category except congeniality. And that is not something the women in my family aspire to anyway.

This really Laura, that when she walked down the runway in her swimsuit, five contestants quit on the spot, Or that when she emerged from the isolation booth to answer the question what would you do to prevent war? She spoke so eloquently of patriotism, battlefields and diamond Tiara's grown men wet Rea. And you probably didn't know, Marjorie, that Suzanne was not just any Miss Georgia. She was the Miss Georgia. She didn't twirl just a baton.

That baton was on fire, and when she threw that baton into the air, it flew higher, further, faster than any baton has ever flown before, hitting a transformer and showering the darkened arena with sparks, And when it finally did come down, Marjorie, my sister caught that baton and twelve thousand people jumped to their feet for sixteen and one half minutes of uninterrupted thunderous ovation as flames illuminated her tear stained face. And that, Marjorie, just so you will know and your children will someday know, is the night the lights went out in Georgia. That is the one I think most people will remember, and rightly so. But she does have a little bit of a speech in the first episode. They're in a restaurant and poor ray Don decides to come up and try to interrupt them, and she lets him have it as nicely and as southernly as she possibly can, while still making her feelings known to him.

I could just hear her say ray down. Yes, it's such a defining moment for that character in that opening. It really is sort of I would say the most memorable part of that pilot, and then the most clear relationship in that pilot is Julia sugar Baker and her sister. But so Dixie Carter was born Dixie, Virginia, Carter on May twenty fifth, nineteen thirty nine, in Maclamoresville, Tennessee, and she grew up in Memphis and started working in theater, moved to New York, took several years off to raise her daughters, and then returned to work in nineteen seventy four in soap operas. In theater, she is.

She worked on the soap operas One Life to Live and The Edge of Night, amongst a few others, in the late seventies, and then started doing more seventies and eighties primetime series Different Strokes and Greatest American Hero one of my favorites, and then Filthy Rich, which was created by Linda Bloodworth Thompson and where they met. After Designing Women, she continued to do stage work. She starred in Family Law and did a really great run in season three of Desperate Housewives and in Huntingtondon, Tennessee. There is the Dixie Carter Performing Arts and Academic Achievement Center named after her, which I think is lovely. Yeah, as you mentioned rather infamously or the thing that brought her to Designing Women is working with Linda Bludworth Thomason on Filthy Rich and along with Delta Burke, and I believe both Annie Potts and Jeane Smart also worked with Linda on other projects before too, and Linda just basically said, come on with me, We're going to go do this show.

So I know, but it sounds like there's some stories to particularly Delta Burk's casting, so I'm hopeful to hear more about that soon. So I just an FYI, I just played the Designing Women opening, and it's stars Delta Burke. She is the first one to come up in the credits. Okay, Delta Burke, Dixie Carter, Annie Pots, Jean Smart, Betical order two it is. And I'm because I've been watching rewatching season six and seven, Delta Burke is not in the show any longer.

So exactly we might have to ask, thank you, Melissa appreciate that. Well, then let's go to Delta Burke. Delta Burke played Suzanne sugar Baker in the first five seasons. She's Julia's younger sister and a silent partner at sugar Baker's. She's also a former beauty queen, most notably a former Miss Georgia.

She was born in nineteen fifty six in Orlando, Florida and is a beauty pageant winner. In real life, she was Miss Flame for the Orlando Fire Department and was Miss Florida. She, as we mentioned, previously starred in Filthy Rich with Dixie Carter and did a number of guest stars on television, including The Fall Guy, I, Fantasy Island, Love Boat, Remington Steele, Who's the Boss, and from eighty four to eighty six she starred in First and Ten and after that she leaves to go to Designing Women. After Designing Women, she got her own sitcom called Delta, and then starred in Woman of the House and did a number of guest stars on a number of shows over the years, including an episode of Now and Again which also starred Andy Potts where they played sisters.

I've forgotten about that one. Yes. Yes. She has been married to actor Gerald McRaney since nineteen eighty nine, and they met when she guest starred on a Simon and Simon episode in nineteen eighty seven. That's so sweet, and then he came on the Designing Women's show as her ex husband.

I thought that was just I mean, clearly they were just having a blast and seems like a very sweet relationship. They're still married. So yeah, we talked a little bit in the last episode about the you know, the weight issue being such a huge tabloid like just endless discussion just drove me a little bit crazy. I think because of the she was a beauty pageant, both as the character and in real life. But you know, I don't know, I just that's sort of such an eighties thing to be, so, I mean, I guess it's it's a star thing.

There's a constant oh my god, look who's gained weight and look what they look like. Now I hate to say it, but it's still a thing now. Recently as her talk show has come back, Kelly Clarkson came back and has lost a lot of weight and got a lot of Internet trolling about it. For why, I mean, who cares? You know, who cares?

If she's more comfortable, who cares. But it's it's still something that women are the ones that constantly have to deal with. I don't ever remember the hue and cry of that kind being directed at any men over their weight. I'm sure it's maybe it's happened a few times, but not nearly in the same way that women continue to have to deal with it. But that said, you know, Linda Bludworth Thomasin did write that beautiful episode for her.

They shoot fat women, don't they, You know, since I put all little weight, I mean, they don't have as many cute things in my size right now. But well, I thought this blue silk was kind of nice, looks a little matronly, you know, Susan, you ought to go over that specialty shop and Lenox Square. They have some great things that are very expensive looking, you know, designer things for you know what, Big and Beautiful I beg your part. Well, you know that's the name of the show, Big and Beautiful. Well, thank you very much, Mary Joe for the hot tip.

I just don't think I need to patronize any story that we call itself by that thing. But since you think it's such a good idea, why don't we just go all the way and start shopping at Fat and Fabulous. So Sam, you don't have to be so sensitive. Mary Joe's just trying to be helpful. I don't care what she's trying to be.

I don't appreciate being told to go all of a stout shop. I'm admit I have good on a few pants here and there, but you all act like I should be ordered fabric over at Georgia Tenton Auning. Delta Burke gave an amazing performance, kind of a thumbing her nose at all the people who were coming after her about her weight. So good for her, that's what I have to say. Good for her, good for both of them, Good for both of them, and I kind of love.

There was also some you know, fodder in the trades and the people magazines of the day that Delta Burke was unhappy, you know, by the end of the season five and left the show, probably over money, I assume, but also that there was some rift between her and Linda Bloodwick thomasin so I was so thrilled they were able to then work together again professionally on Women of the House, which we talked about. How just delightfully surprising that show is. I think it's got just an amazing cast to talk about, another amazing cast of women. I can't wait to look at that show. At some point, I think we were going to have to maybe in our lost year wonders.

Was it a single season, Yeah, it's a single season. I think we have to to the list I'd like to add to this list because she's just it's just a very at least the few episodes I saw, I think we saw two episodes really just great, so very intrigued by that creative relationship, which clearly was a very inspiring one for them and both and so I wish we had been able to see more. Anyway, so super fun. I also had sort of forgotten about that first and ten show. I kind of vaguely remember that the football show where she it was very much Ted Lasso, right, like she's the you know, it was early Ted Lasso, but with American football where she's the ex wife who gets the team in the divorce and then is you know, the owner of the football team.

And that was quite a fun concept, I thought. And so she had been kind of the star of a show before Designing Women and left that show in season three because though it was the opening of the story revolved around her, it was really about the football team, and so I think she saw that Designing Women was going to be more about the women. Excellent. And then I'm you know, I'm just a big huge fan of Annie Potts, who plays Mary. Joe Shively is basically like in some ways she and Shirley the only one doing any actual workaround.

She's the main designer, She's not a figurehead. She is apparently doing the actual designing. And she's you know, sarcastic and also kind of kind. She's kind of sweet. She's got two kids and just as delightfully played by Annie Potts.

Oh no, what's the catch? I mean, why aren't you going out with him yourself? Because I don't want to go out with him. I'm knowing him too long. Anyway.

He's darling and funny and recently divorced, and you'll just love him recently divorced. Now, I know, I'm not going Now, what is the matter with that? You've recently divorced too? Yes, I know, but men are different when they've just gotten out of a marriage. They've got something to prove.

They're macho and crazy and nuts, and they all talk about their ex wives and they've all got to have sex on the first date. And frankly, I just don't think I'm up to it. Nope, no count me out, not now, Maybe not ever. Was born Anne Hampton Putts on October twenty eighth, nineteen fifty two, in Nashville, Tennessee. She's another Tennessee girl.

I did like that they got actual Southern women, not for every role, but for many roles. She started in television and movies in the seventies. Annie Potts did. She was in shows like Family and Busting Loose. She made her feature I thought I didn't know this.

She made her feature film debut in nineteen seventy eight's Corvette Summer, which co starred Mark Hamill, and she was nominated for a Golden Globe. And I didn't know anything about this movie. I saw this movie in a theater. You did, I did, absolutely. I don't remember a lot about it, but you know, I do have this sense of when I first saw designing women that I had heard of these women before.

So I'm going to guess that for Annie Potts it was from Corvette Summer that she was in this movie with Bark Hamill. Yeah, and because it was Mark Hamill's like movie after Star Wars. Yes, right, it was just a regular movie. And then he was such a phenomenon. He had this like, you know, career going along as a young Hollywood actor, you know, kind of bit parts, a couple of good things, and then freaking Star Wars.

My guess is he already had this movie to do because it comes out in nineteen seventy eight, so you know it's right after Star Wars. But it's literally Mark Hamill's first role in a movie. It looks like after Star Wars. I'm sure Star Wars was somewhere still in a theater when that movie came out. Sure, it's stayed in theaters for a year, because that's what happened back then.

You know, movies could literally stay in theaters for a year. But yeah, so I'm curious to track it down and watch it. I also thought it was interesting. In nineteen eighty she was in another one season show called The Good Time Girls, women sharing an apartment in Washington, d C. During World War Two.

Again another perfectly good idea for a TV show, and one with any Potts. That sounds great, So I'd love to also take a look at that show. Yeah, same if it's if it's something that we can find, I know, yeah, I'd love to say. I had never heard of that, The Good Time Girls. And then of course she was in other television shows and did an episode of Remington Steel.

I think there's kind of like a six degrees of separation for Remington Steel, where maybe it always comes back to Remedden Steal that everyone somehow is connected to Reminden Steel. It seems only fair, I guess. But of course I think I remember her most from her breakout role in nineteen eighty four Ghostbusters as the receptionist Janine Melnitz. She was just hilarious and just so great and so memorable. Not a lot of screen time.

She's up against you know, comic geniuses arguably, and she is too and completely memorable and all of that. She of course continued on in a lot of amazing movies and television roles after Designing Women. Probably one of the other most famous ones is the voice of bo Peep in the Toy Story franchise, and she starred in the late nineties early two thousand television show development series any Day Now, and of course, most recently in Young Sheldon as Connie me Ma Tucker. And So, I mean again, I would kind of Auntie Pott's is one of those people I would watch in anything. Yeah, she's It's so interesting that she's had such a diversity of types of roles too over the years, but yeah, she's so great.

She's definitely, so, she's definitely so great and so watchable. I love her. Okay, And then last, but certainly not least, we have Jeane Smart as Charlene Frasier still Field in seasons one through five of Designing Women, and she guest starred in the first episode to transition Jen Hooks as her sister Carlene, and Charlene was Julia's late husband's former secretary and now is the office manager of Sugar Baker's. Charlene came from Poplar Bluff, Missouri, and was one of a large family many children. She is naive and big hearted, but her naivete can sometimes be annoying to some of her co workers.

Well passes all on, Well you all want to sign the decorating papers. How something can get started, Charlie. A few things have been happening around here. I think many significance. We just wondered if there was some explanation.

Oh, you mean, like things moving around in that painting phone off the way. Yeah, there's a logical explanation for that. See, I knew there would be hass haunted she in a lot of ways. It is the heart and soul and maybe the viewers touchstone in the show because of her populous kinds of things that she likes, from Elvis to all kinds of other popular things, Like there's a lot of like she's always about to go to a concert or something. She's always planning some event.

Yeah, exactly, exactly, And I love that she's from Poplar Bluff, Missouri, which is where Linda Bludworth Thomasin is actually from exactly, which I found out is right across the border from Arkansas, so very close to Arkansas, where her husband Harry Thomason is from. Yeah. Elizabeth Smart, the actress who portrayed Charlene, was born on September thirteenth, nineteen fifty one in Seattle, Washington, and did regional theater in the Pacific Northwest after college in the seventies. In the early eighties, she also started working in television and lots of ladies driven shows, including Alice, Facts of Life and Yes, Remington Steel, which I feel like I have to go back. Did we notice that that she was in Remington Steel?

Yeah? Oh, yeah, she's in the episode the Cookie episode. Oh, the Cookie episode with everybody. That's because because there's so many stars in that. Geena Davis for some reason Janda Davis in it, so I totally forgot that Jane Smart was also and there's like another couple people in that episode.

That's crazy. Yeah, it's and that's not the that is not the reason it's my favorite episode, but I but nevertheless, it doesn't hurt. So after she left Designing Women, she did mostly TV movies and films in the nineties, including playing the famous serial killer in Overkilled, the Aileen Warnus Story. In the two thousand, she guest starred in Fraser and won two Primetime Emmys for Outstanding Guest Actress, which is something I'd forgotten. I'd forgotten she was on Frasier.

Yeah, anyway, she married Richard Gillian, who she met on the Designing Women's set when he guest starred as Mary Joe's boyfriend J D. Shackleford. There was a whole lot of loving going on. It was a lot going on, and we forgot to talk about the fact that Dixie Carter was married to Hal Holbrook, which they convinced to be on the show as her boyfriend and then they get married, right, Yeah, that's so funny and hell, hold we're kind of again. Brid just brings a level of class to kind of everything.

So absolutely absolutely a lot of love stories surrounding designing women, which is kind of neat, like wow, yeah, yeah. Jean Smart has been nominated and won Primetime Emmys for a number of things over the years. As we mentioned, she won twice on Frasier, once on a rather short lived show called Samantha Who which I loved, and twice most recently on Hacks. She also has a Tony nomination for her performance in the Broadway revival of the Man Who Came to Dinner. She's just an amazing actress and is always someone that classes up the joint when she shows up.

Phenomenal, phenomenally talented, and just so great in Hacks. I mean really, like, is the show for me for sure? Oh? Absolutely? Yeah.

So those are original designing women, yes, and me suck Taylor, but he's not a woman of designing women, so we'll talk about him, and that we talked about him in that first episode. Yes, those are women of designing women, and all of them were you know, very well designed characters, played beautifully by each and every one of them, and it was you know, it's that magic that sometimes you get with being a TV show or a movie when the stars align and everything just seems to fit together and work together. Yeah, it really is. It really is a show that feels like magic, like The Golden Girls, like you know, Friends, like any of those ensemble shows that you know, sort of there's a sex in the city element to it.

In some ways, I was realizing, like you know, because they are often talking about relationships in that workplace comedy, those discussions were so there weren't a lot of them on eighties television because there weren't a lot of women workplace. You know, we see it with It's a Living But I feel like Designing Women was even more because of the family aspect. They were actually family and the coworkers, so maybe that's why they had to have all the new Designing Women also be family. Well. I think part of it too is unlike men.

I think women at work do talk about their personal lives to each other, and I don't know that men talk about their personal lives when they're together the way that women do. And it also, you know, probably the setting kind of helped that cross discussion as well. They're all sitting in one big room, so anything that they have going on, anything that's happening it's kind of hard to hide it from anybody, and it probably helped that they were family and friends, so of course they're going to talk about what's going on in their lives and some of the challenges they're facing and their relationships and all that kind of stuff. But it's what made the show so much fun and so great that they that they did talk about those things.

Yeah, and I love that. Then the show got there was a lot of physical comedy, and we talked about that last episode. But yeah, all right, But then so everybody kind of laught for five seasons, is that right? Yeah? Five seasons.

As often happens with TV shows, people start leaving, people start leaving, So Delta Brooke leaves and Gene Smart leaves. So then Julia Duffie comes in correct as Suzanne's cousin, correct to be a partner at Sugar Baker and associates from New York City moving back to the South. And Julia Duffy, I mean, come on, she's just really really good and really good at playing that sort of slightly like not quite the Delta Burke right, like so's she's spoiled, but more like the character that should be played on New Heart was you know, slightly siddl Yeah. Her, this character Alison, as well as a character she played on New Heart, were spoiled women who felt superior to other women. Yes, whether it be because of the way they looked or because because of what they perceived their social status or their money, they felt that they were better than other people, and those shows tended to spend some time showing them that they really weren't.

Yeah. I learned that the Yes, Alison talks a lot about, you know, going to Wellesley and being in New York and around all these people, and it turns out, well, really not so much. What she's describing is maybe not exactly what happened, But nevertheless, she brought that to the show, and I think it, you know, it gave them the others something to play against, which was really great, but in a different way than they did with Suzanne. Yeah. So the actress Julia Duffy was actually born Julia Margaret Hines, which I didn't know, on June twenty seventh, nineteen fifty one, in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Isn't that the home of Mary Richards Well? The New Home is indeed, Yes, that's always whenever I think of Minneapolis. I'm thinking of Mary Richards. She studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City and also started working in soaps. That was the way in.

It feels like less the way in than it used to be. I don't hear a lot about people going from soaps to STIV, but maybe you just don't hear about it. Well. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that there are so few soaps anymore. There are only four left, and at one point there may have been as many as eleven.

A lot of them shot in New York and it was you know, it was great work if you could get it, so not unlike Law and Order with their litany of theater actors who've shown up on those shows over the years. You know, a whole host of people have gone from New York soap operas, whether it be onward in television or in movies. Both Susan Sarandon and Tommy Lee Jones both were in soap operas in New York early in their careers. Both are Oscar winners. I'm sure there might there might be others, but those are the ones that I always think of.

Yes, so I do remember her from The Doctors briefly, I do not. I didn't watch The Doctor. I watched The Doctors because I was sort of vaguely interested in doctors. What I did also find out in our little research was that she was actually considered for the role of Diane Chambers for Cheers. I did not know that and didn't get it.

But she did a guest role in the first season, and I'm wondering if they were like, oh, we like her, but you know, but she doesn't get the role, but you know, we'll find something for her, which is great, I mean, which was really nice of them, I think, yeah. But she joins the cast of New Heart in its second season in nineteen eighty three with Peter Scillari. She's playing Stephanie Evander Kellen and again another sort of spoiled rich girl who has been kind of taking care of her whole life, but she's sort of running away from that life and impending marriage I think, and basically becomes the housekeeper, which is a very funny, you know thing. But I have to say, having sort of fairly recently rechecked out New Heart, it's really when Peter's Gloria and she show up.

That's when it becomes the show that you kind of remember New Heart being. And I think it is partially because of the two of them, and also just the other things kind of fall intok place. The rhythm of the show is found for sure in that second season. She played that role for seven seasons and earned several Emmy nominations in a golden globe. She's a delightful actress to watch.

Yeah, I enjoyed her on New Heart as well. I didn't remember seeing her, at least as I'm sitting her now. I don't recall seeing her on Cheers, although I'm sure I did because I watched every single solitary episode of Cheers. Yes, I think it's season one episode. I don't know.

It's called like Diane's Friend or something. Oh, yes, I remember now. I think it's called any Friend of Diane's where she plays Diane's friend from college. Yes, it's all right. I know that you weren't here, All right?

How did you find out? I called your mother? Oh? She took her head out of the oven long enough to fill me. Oh God, I have you missed you.

I'll never forget those long afternoons in the Quad drinking champagne, eating briosh and strawberry preserves, reading and talking chop now yeah, well enough choke talk. Oh fun Yes, she was terrific on that episode, so funny, and so terrific on New Heart. And as we talked about earlier, there were some similarities to that character and the character that she played on Designing Women as well. But she's a terrific comedic actress and it was nice to see her again on Designing Women when she joined the show. Yeah again, they brought in some really just just talented people.

Indeed, well, speaking of talented people, Jan Hooks also joined Designing Women in season six, playing Charlene's sister, Carlene Frasier Dobber. She also had similar characteristics to Charlene's in her demeanor and he her likes and just sort of the way she comported herself. She was very similar, but was a broader, more physical character. The things that they gave her to do tended to be more along maybe some of the things that Jane Hooks did when she was on Saturday Night Live, because she did come from Saturday Live into Designing Women. So she was on the show for two seasons.

She was in the process of getting a divorce when she came to replace Charlene, and her ex husband showed up occasionally on the show as well. I met a lot of people. Everybody was real nice, except for this one guy who kept wanting to stick his tongue in my ear. And I said, excuse me, my divorce is not final, so I suggest you take that rude remark to someone who is not still missus. Dwined Auber.

Oh that was good, LUSA. Well, he looked kind of confused, and then he said, who's Dwined Auber? And I said, well, he's only the number one import auto salesman in all of Southeast Missouri and we're Jo sported him with her gun. You took a sport into a singles bar. Yeah, it really comes in handy, guys.

Is the wrong thing? You just whip out the gun and make a big wet spot on the front of his fants. She too, was a terrific addition to the show. There are a lot of x's on Design Women. Yes, there's you know, all that romance of happening between actors and there's just a lot, you know.

Well, it helps that Delta Brooke has been divorced three times when the show starts, so she's got three, but Eddie Potts has one, you know, Carlene has one. It's just a I don't know. It's sort of interesting now that when you just said it, I was like, oh, yeah, another ex that sort of is a recurring kind of thing. Yeah. I mean, looking back on it, it is kind of too bad that none of our women found that forever relationship.

I mean I think, well, Julia Brook, like Juliet sugar Baker did. Yeah, but I think I was about to say, I think that might have been the one if not for the fact that they apparently they decided to kill off hal Halbrook's character because he went over to Evening Shade. Oh right, because he was a recurrent character on Designing Women, but they made him a regular I believe, on Evening Shade. So I get it. But still, and Julia did go on to do some dating later on, but you know, she'd had the two great loves of her life, and I'm but still, we could have, you know, had found somebody for somebody else, for for Carleen or for Mary Joe.

Yeah, Mary Joje. My brain has left the building. So many names now, so Julia Duffy is only on for season six. Correct, Then Julia Duffy goes away and Judith Ivy comes in. Correct, she's a millionaire.

She's not family, right, but I do love her. She's from Texas, yeah, and so she comes in and basically kind of shakes things up, right like, so I love that and we love Judah Ivy. She has two Tony Awards. She was born September fourth, nineteen fifty one, in El Paso, Texas. So once again she's casting type.

She made her film debut in nineteen eighty four which I had a Note with The Lonely Guy opposite Steve Martin, and did a lot of movies and television, including a guest starring role in Cagney and Lacy. So that was very exciting to realize. But not Remington Steele. But I bet we could tie her to Remington Steel through somebody there. I'm sure are just a couple of degrees of separation between her and Remington Steel.

There have to be. But I really enjoyed her character Bjay on the show. She brought a totally different energy and it just was a totally different character from any of the other women that we had seen before. She didn't come from money. She married this millionaire who died at their wedding reception and left her all of his money, much of the chagrin, I'm sure of his family and everything, but still she was very down to earth and you know, loved to laugh and you know, was a really great care I would have liked, you know, if the show had gone on, it would have been great to see more of her.

Yes, Yeah, because she was kind of the first outsider in some ways, and so I think that was a really good thing to kind of shake it up a little bit. That's all the women that played the main characters, and that's a lot of women, which I love. And then we had some cool guest stars and recurring characters. My favorite was Cherily Ralph, who comes in season seven as a showgirl Anthony Mary's after he's trying to get over the fact of the hit. He was basically stood up for his wedding and the girls take him to Vegas and he meets and marries her that night, and there's a couple of episodes where they're married and she's great.

Cherilie Ralph was fantastic. She's always fantastic, very memorable. Absolutely, absolutely, And then of course none of us can forget Alice Ghostly, who played Bernice Clifton. She was the best friend to Susanne and Julia's mother and was actually on the show throughout all seven seasons, which surprised me again as I was looking into it. For some reason, I thought maybe she'd come along a lot later.

But I'm guessing i'd have to look at the episode count. I'm guessing she probably wasn't in very often early on, and they just realized, oh, we really like her, let's bring her back. But she was sort of an older version of some of our women, thanks to what they call an arterial flow condition. Tended to speak her mind, tended to say inappropriate things, do inappropriate things, where you know, just about anything you could think of. She seemed to be game four.

Happy New Year, Susan, Happy New Year to you too, Bernie. She love fruitcake. Oh she knows, I'm just kidding. She wants for me to call her that, don't you, Bernie. It's okay.

I wouldn't mind, though, if, for example, we were at the White House, Okay, I'll remember that, Bernie. Why are you wearing your Christmas tree? Skirt. Well, this is the skirt you gave me for Christmas. Yes, I know it's not to wear.

It's a Christmas tree skirt. You're supposed to put it around the base of your Christmas tree. Oh oh well, no, wonder I like to never got this thing on. I finally just let the waist out and tied it with a belt. And she was nominated twice for an Emmy for that role, which is really great for a guest performance.

Yeah, Alice Ghostly was really terrific on the show. Well, and she you know, comes from The Witched and Mayberry RFD, but she's also just sort of like been and everything right, Like it feels like she definitely was all over television in the sixties, seventies and eighties, and yeah, always brings a great element. Yeah, you know, you know you're in for a little bit of a ride when the door opens and she shows up. You never know what that she's gonna say. Yeah, she's one of those character actors that make you laugh almost walking in the door.

Right, You're immediately drawn to watch her. Yeah. Another recurring character was for season five, Lexi Randall played the young girl who stays with Julia while her parents are in Europe. It's a weird thing. I think they were trying something.

Yeah, her parents basically abandoned her and left her behind to go off to Europe and do god knows what. So Julia ends up being essentially her guardian caretaker, parental figure through no you know, poor kid. Yeah, they definitely were trying something. I think. Yeah, it was interesting because I think they you know, they didn't have a lot of kids on the show, right, there were a lot of women, not necessarily a lot of children or a lot of parenting episodes, right, which is significant.

That's a significant choice to make because you could have gone otherwise. I think Mary Joe is the only one who talks a lot about her kids. Yeah, Well, she and Julia are the only ones that have take it back, well only have are the only ones that have kids for at the start of the show. Charlene has a baby near the end towards the end of the show, but Julia's son is off at college and so the only shows up occasionally. It's so it's Mary Joe's kids who are the ones that we hear about that we see occasionally on the show, because they're young and they're there and when the show starts, they're both in grade school, I believe, so they're the ones that we see primarily.

And so the Priscilla Weims plays Mary Joe's daughter for five seasons, so they kept her on, which is always nice. You know, sometimes they change out child actors for reasons. They probably think the audience won't notice, just like they didn't think we'd noticed that there were three Cagneys. I didn't until recently. I had forgotten.

I was completely completely fooled. Well, I, of course always like to talk about by the numbers, yes, and for this show designing women. Of course, the show was created by a woman, Linda Bloodworth Thomasin but very interesting numbers for this show. So seven seasons, and they had nineteen directors over the course of seven seasons, three of whom are women, Iris dug Out, Ellen Gittelson and Arlene Sandford. Iris directed five episodes, which I thought was pretty interesting.

Arlene Sandford it was actually one of her first credits, I think, like her third credit. She's still working, which is kind of neat, so we might try to track her down. And I was intrigued that though not a woman, Assad Colada, who is from Egypt and was a big TV director in the seventies and eighties, didn't do Designing Women. He also did episodes of Phyllis wrote One Day at a Time, w k P and Cincinnati, and for our purposes seventy seven episodes of the Facts of Life. So I thought that was interesting.

But not Remington Steele. Well, it looked like he was a sitcom director. Yes, okay, so truth fair enough to We'll let him slide for that. Well, so a lot of writers, but it is noteworthy that Linda Bludworth Thomasin wrote seventy three episodes of Designing Women herself, which is a lot. But there were twenty eight writers listed on the show, including Linda blood Worth Thomasin.

Twenty of those twenty eight writers were women. That may be our biggest percentage of shows we've looked at so far. I wouldn't be surprised if it were near the top of all TV shows of all time. Still, that's pretty remarkable. It's pretty remarkable.

It's very mindful. You don't get to those numbers by accident in the eighties. I don't think you get to them by accident now. But some of the notable writers that were on the show. Cassandra Clark, Emily Marshall, who worked on Laverna, Shirley Newhart and The Bomb Newhart Show, wrote a Angie Mary also w kerp in Cincinnati, the sitcom version of Reminton Steele and what was also interesting, and I'm going to say fairly unusual.

I don't usually do the count on the producers because there's usually not any women, but out of twelve producers listed on this show, including Linda Blugworth Thomasin, there were six women. Half of the producers credited on this show were women. Most of them were also writers. Pamela Norris, a writer on twenty nine episodes, also producer on the show, Emily Marshall, also writer Norman Stafford, Vella and Ade Laduk and then Judith Burke was listed as a coordinating producer but she was also an editor on the show. Amazing.

Those are some pretty pretty healthy parody numbers for sure for this show, which is again very impressive and I'm very happy to see that. I'm happy to see it too, although I guess at the end of the day now surprised that Linda would have since she was in such control of the show, would have made sure that they were a number significant number of women behind the scenes, and probably with an understanding that it was really what was needed for her show. Yes, for this show to have those female voices around to help shape the female voices it were on screen. I think that is true. I think that's great.

I'm curious to see if there's another age show that has that many women on it. But yeah, that was surprising. I mean, again, not terribly surprising in some ways that there were women in all of those categories, but the number of them was actually really quite significant. I thought. So.

Yeah, and you know, we really need to talk some more about Linda Blowood thomasin but maybe we saved that for another episode or two. Uh, there you go, that makes sense. I'm so excited. So shall we? Uh?

I think I think we've talked about the women of designing what we have. Indeed, have we forgotten anybody? Did we forget any I mean there were lots of guest stars, obviously a ton of guest stars, but I thought it was important to kind of take a moment and really honor kind of all these women that created such it just groundbreaking work and really indelible characters. Yeah, I can't think of anybody else, of any other women that were on the show that that played a significant role. I think we've pretty much hit them all.

Yeah, there's some guest stars. I'm sure we missed. Oh I'm always there. Always, For instance, Dolly Parton, who was a guest star. Yes, that's true.

Yeah, I mean there were the big yes, yeah, but but still, you know, week in week out, I think we've hit the most significant ones. Now if we include the additional season sixty seven Designing Women, are you going to change who your Designing Woman character is? No, I don't think so. No, No, think I'm good. What about you?

No, I think it's still married Joe. All right, should you take us into our audiography? Yes? Please. In today's audiography, we have a few things to point out for you.

First of all, you can check out Designing Women online. You can also read Harry Thomas's memoir Brother Dog, Southern Tales and Hollywood Adventures. And then, last, but not least, of course, there's Linda's novel Liberating Paris. Yes, so I have both those books and I'm going to read through them, but I have it yet. Thank you all so much for listening to eighties TV ladies.

If you are liking this show, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Good Pods, or wherever you listen. And if you're really liking the show, which we hope you are, consider supporting us on Patreon. You can help us make more episodes and you get videos, perks, and ad free episodes. Go to patreon dot com slash eighties tv Ladies. Be sure to tune into our next episode.

We're going to continue Designing Women November with a two part amazing interview with the show's creator. Yes, we will be talking with Linda Bludworth Thomason herself in two very special episodes. Stay tuned. You do not want to miss it. My head is still spinning from that episode.

I still have a hard time believing it actually happened. Like so many things related to this podcast, we can't wait to share it with you. In the meantime, we wish you a very happy Thanksgiving and holiday season. We hope you had a great Halloween. I would like to take a moment to acknowledge that this is just another time of great tragic global events yet again, and give a thought to those who are facing the terror killings and kidnapping of hostages by Hamas and Israel, and the horrible war that's affecting innocent civilians in Gaza.

I know people are in great crisis, and it can be very difficult to have hope, I think, And yet I'm also going to have it. And I don't know, Sharon, sometimes you're like, what are we doing? It's worth it, I think, But I think it is important to at least acknowledge that there's a lot of suffering going on, and to work for kindness and hope and peace and justice absolutely to all of that. And at the end of the day, I know sometimes it feels overwhelming that, you know, what can I as a person do to change any of that? And the reality is, of course that none of us has a magic wand to make all this stuff go away or make it better.

But as Susan said, kindness, you know, approach things in your day to day from a place of hope, and a place of kindness will go a long way to spread that kindness and that hope in ways that you'll never necessarily see. But I don't know about you, but anytime someone treats me that way, I know it makes me feel better. It makes me want to treat other people in a way that will make them feel better and hopefully spread that around. So I would start with that. I think that's a great place to start.

In any event, we hope eighties Tavy Ladies brings your joy and laughter and lots of fabulous new and old shows to watch in the meantime, all of which will lead us toward being amazing ladies of the twenty first century. Take care, thanks for listening so pretty through the city. Good things