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Dixie Carter, who's probably best known as Julia Sugarbaker in the TV series Designing Women, says her one ambition growing up was to be an opera singer. Well, her dream has come true. Somewhat. On Friday, she becomes one of the great divas -- Maria Callas -- in the award-winning play Master Class. She replaces Patti LuPone, who replaced Zoe Caldwell in the Terrence McNally play about the singer reflecting on her career as it comes to a close.
So why is Carter weeping?
"Oh God! I am!" she says, dabbing her face with a tissue. Then she stops to ask: "Is my mascara running?"
No, but . . . "I've been rehearsing all day," she says. "And it's so hard for me to rehearse this part, because I cry. It's so touching.
"When you get to be a certain age, you're more inclined to weep for joy. Here I am, 50-plus, and I finally get to get on a Broadway stage in a great role, and what do I do? I cry!"
Tall, dark-haired, full of chat and very Southern -- she isn't named Dixie for nothing -- Carter hasn't exactly been sitting around waiting for the phone to ring.
She was last onstage in Memphis, in her home state, in A Streetcar Named Desire. She has done Fathers and Sons at the Public, Pal Joey at Circle in the Square and A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking.
And every spring, she performs at the Cafe Carlyle in the hotel of the same name. Pretty impressive, all told.
She lives in L.A. with her husband, actor Hal Holbrook, her father and two dogs. Her two daughters are grown and on their own; Holbrook will join her here soon. He's in An American Daughter, a play by Wendy Wasserstein, opening in April.
Carter loves performing in front of an audience. "You know," she says, "Being in movies or on TV does not give one any psychic income, and that's a horrible, callous fact. Hollywood is where we live because I like to live well, and I earn a good living there. But if you want psychic rewards, you don't get it looking into the eye of a camera. You need a live audience."
Yet one would have to admit that casting Carter as Callas was unusual. Callas was Greek-American, strong-willed, volatile, temperamental -- in a word, difficult. So how come the gentler-seeming Carter got the part?
"I wish I knew. I'm not real sure. I guess somebody had something nice to say about me onstage here.
"At the same time, I couldn't say no to this part. I've adored Callas since I was a child. Growing up, I'd sing along with her records, but she had too big a voice for me. I was a soprano, but I sounded more Jeanette MacDonald than Callas."
In the play, Callas reviews life with her husband, Giovanni Meneghini, and her love, Aristotle Onassis. How will Carter summon up those people onstage, especially Onassis, a public figure in his own right, who dumped Callas to marry Jackie Kennedy?
"Hmmmmm," she says. "You have to let the audience know what she saw in him, how she related to him, why she loved him. It's a challenge.
"Maybe one day, after it's all over, I'll ask why I was chosen to do this."
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