Anthony Bouvier
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Anthony Bouvier is a fictional character on the television series Designing Women. He was played by Meshach Taylor.
[edit] from Incarceration to Delivery man, to partner.
Anthony was brought up by his grandmother, Dondi, after his mother and father deserted him when he was a baby. They lived in Memphis, Tennessee. Dondi, a former schoolteacher, loved him very much, and would be firm with him, but yet there was a lot of love there. When he was younger, he was accused of a convenience store robbery, but the charges were dropped soon after. Despite this, though, he still he was incarcerated at a penitentiary, which didn't allow him to graduate high school.
Upon his release from prison, Julia Sugarbaker who had just opened a design firm, hired him as their delivery man. This met with resistance from her sister, Suzanne Sugarbaker who thought that a black man working for white women just didn't look right.
In fact, Suzanne often derived great pleasure from reminding Anthony that he was nothing more than a former convict and that whenever he was with them, that it just didn't look right for a black man to accompany four white women places. This condescending attitude just reflected more against Suzanne.
Despite it though, Suzanne thought Anthony to be her best friend, since none of the other women were very friendly with her. Ironically, Suzanne and Anthony were considered to be one of the oddest couples in all of television.
Anthony is considered to be not only a son, but also an object of lust to Julia's mother's friend, Bernice Clifton, the latter made more apparent in the later years when she begins to sing "Black Man, Black Man, where did you go to?" a characteristic that Anthony finds very uncomfortable.
Anthony is often asked to do errands that nobody else wants to do, especially dealing with Bernice, but he takes it in stride. When someone needs help, like in Charlene's cousin, Mavis Madling's situation with domestic violence, Anthony is willing to help pitch in.
In later years, Anthony becomes a full partner in Sugarbakers, for all his loyal service over the years, this makes him the only male partner in the all-female design firm. This met with extremely stringent opposition from Suzanne, of course, because she, once again, thought that it didn't look right that a black man could be a partner in a business with four white women, but she was voted down by majority vote. She thought it was for the American Family Sweepstakes and she was peeved that he was made partner. Julia told her to make him feel welcome or she would kill her.
During an episode when it was discovered that Sugarbaker's would be on a historical tour of homes, the snide historical society representative (played by Mary Ann Mobley) decided that Anthony would make a great contribution. When he discovered that meant what he thought it meant (basically dressed as a slave, a la "Kunta Kinte in Roots), he said no thank you, that he would do something like that "right before we all go ice skating in hell."
When Suzanne left Atlanta for Japan, she arranged for Anthony to live in her house, but then she unwittingly also leased the house to her cousin, Allison Sugarbaker. This sparked a war of the roses against the two. He eventually won the control of the house after Allison left for New York.
Anthony has had his share of relationships over the years, most especially with ditzy librarian Vanessa Hargreaves (played by Olivia Brown); overachieving businesswoman Lita Ford (played by Mariann Aalda); obscenely wealthy Vanessa Chamberlain (played by Jackee) and after his engagement to Vanessa was unexpectedly broken, he accompanied the ladies to Las Vegas where he met a lovely woman named Etienne Toussant Bouvier, a singer with the Folies Bergere floor show at the Tropicana Hotel. In a drunken haze, he married her impulsively, but later on discovered that he truly loved her, and made the marriage work.
Later on, Anthony graduated from Law School and became a lawyer. He and Suzanne were reunited on Women of the House, when he went to Washington to help the newly appointed Congresswoman Sugarbaker with a legal problem. However, no mention of his wife, Etienne, was made during the episode.
Today, Anthony Bouvier is honored through the daily life of Michael Kaplan. Michael is a law student at Duke University. He is the founder and president of the Anthony Bouvier fan club. Michael says he went to law school to be more like Anthony, has developed a group of his own close female friends that he likes to think of as his own personal "Designing Women", and tries to live his life in a way that he claims Anthony would if he were a real person.
