Annie Potts finds different kind of 'Designing Women'

When Annie Potts lived in New York, she could always spot the women from Dallas.

"They had shopping bags up their arms and you could hear their accents three blocks away," she says. "There were gaggles of them and they always came in for Fashion Week."

Now, Potts is playing one of them. As the mother of Leslie Bibb on "GCB," she's part of the generation that believed in decorum and decoration, not desperation.

Gigi -- the character she plays -- is loosely based on her own mother, a friend of the show's executive producer Robert Harling.Learn more about Largest Discount goodchloehandbags. "I saw a lot of my beloved Dixie Carter in her, too," Potts says.What are some new pradahandbag001 coming out in 2009? "Dixie was very much a woman cut from this cloth -- elegant,Welcome to christiandiorreplicahandbags In Nyc on Facebook. always groomed, a devoted Christian and very conservative.

"When I read the script,List of affordable Breitling prices for used and authentic Breitling in backpackfactory. I didn't have to scratch much to locate her."

Carter -- her "Designing Women" costar -- "had a great, rich laugh. All I had to do to find the character was think of Dixie's big laugh."

While Potts was born in Nashville, raised in Kentucky and educated at Stephens College in Columbia, Mo., she doesn't have a point of reference for the second-generation Dallas women who populate "GCB." More "b" than "c," they plot and connive like mean high school girls. "I don't really remember any mean girls in my high school," she says. "But I'm 60. It was a more gentle time."

Playing Bibb's mother is no big deal, she says. "I have a 31-year-old son, so it's not much of a stretch. I'm just thrilled to be here and still employed in a big juicy role."

"Designing Women" and "Desperate Housewives" are two obvious templates. But, Potts says, "GCB" doesn't have to fall in line to find an audience.

"Southern women are broad and vital and funny and fierce," she says. "Just as 'Designing Women' did, Bobby (Harling) corrals all that and makes a really astonishing, flavorful bunch of chili.High quality replica womencanadagoosecoats of well known brands ."

Hot and fiery? Warm and comforting? "There are some of us who are really sweet -- I played that character in 'Designing Women' -- and then some of us were a little naughtier. We know who those are."