Catch Dixie Carter on "Desperate Housewives" 2-Nite!

I'd be watching anyway but how terrific is it that the dazzling Dixie Carter is beginning a seven-episode stint on "Desperate Housewives" tonight? She'll always be Julia Sugarbaker to me but after meeting her at the "Desinging Women" reunion a few weeks ago, i gotta say, Dixie as herself is pretty damned cool!
But she won't be herself on "Housewives" with a gray wig and decidedly "de-glam" for the role of Bree's new scary mother-in-law!
I have a story in today's entertainment section of the Los Angeles Daily News about her role on the show. If you don't get the paper delivered at home (you must subscribe!) then click onto DailyNews.com.

At any rate, here are a few excerpts from the article just in case:

"Housewives" creator and head writer, openly gay Marc Cherry (right), was Carter's personal assistant during her days on "Designing Women." "He was handling my personal business and picked up my underwear at Neiman (Marcus) sometimes," Carter remembers, laughing.

Good thing Cherry remembers her fondly. Tonight, Carter appears in the first of at least seven episodes as the mysterious Orson Hodge's (Kyle MacLachlan) mother and Bree Van De Camp-Hodge's (Marcia Cross) mother-in law. She is going to make Bree's first annoying mother-in-law from her marraige to Rex (Shirley Knight) look like a saint. Gloria Hodge knows all of her son's secrets (and apparently there are many) and is expected to make life quite difficult for the clean-freak newlyweds (pictured, left).

"Marc was very memorable, a very memorable young man," says the actress. "He was always observing. We knew he was a writer. He never got upset with a really kind of goofy household that Mr. (Hal) Holbrook (her husband of 22 years) and I somehow rock along with. He never got upset with the zaniness of our life."

Carter's part of Gloria Hodge is a far cry from her signature role as the outspoken and stylish Julia Sugarbaker, who could annihilate anyone with words.

"Marc called me, and it was really exciting," Carter recalls. "He said, 'I have something nice for you to do if you are willing to de-glam. The woman is older and needs to be gray and not made up.' I said, 'OK, fine, I'll do it.' The part is quite wonderful...I'm a bad mama. I like to hit the liquor cabinet, and they don't like having me there on Wisteria Lane.""

"It's a very heady atmosphere," she says of her new gig. "When you drive onto the lot, your little heart beats faster and you're singing 'Hooray for Hollywood!' "