Suzanne Sugarbaker

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Suzanne Sugarbaker Goff Dent Stonecipher is the name of a fictional character. Suzanne was a character on the popular CBS television series Designing Women.

Designing Women was broadcast on CBS from 1986 until 1993. Suzanne was a character for the first five years of the show. She was also the central character on a subsequent series, Women of the House. She was played by actress Delta Burke.

Contents

[edit] Character synopsis

[edit] Sisters

Suzanne is the younger sister of prominent Atlanta decorator Julia Sugarbaker. She also was the half-sister of Clayton Sugarbaker, who had two daughters, Camilla and Jennifer (the latter who acted exactly like Suzanne). The differences in the sisters were substantial; there was over a decade's difference in age, and while Julia was a mature, successful businesswoman, Suzanne was more of an attention seeker. She is mainly a financial backer of Sugarbaker's Design Firm, but she "played the role" the firm's salesperson. Her main talent often appeared to be vexing everyone by sitting on the couch (in "her" certain designated place) and complaining about things. Suzanne was intelligent, and often "dumb like a fox".

Although she is extremely shallow, Suzanne truly loves her sister, and whenever something happens and Julia is unable to deal with it, she truly rises to the occasion and does whatever is needed to ensure things get accomplished. As Charlene noted, "One crisis and she's Scarlett O'Hara", with Julia extending the metaphor by saying Suzanne would likely go as far as taking Venetian blinds and hammering them into credit cards. Suzanne's sense of resolve was evident when Julia's boyfriend, Reese Watson suffers a first heart attack, and then later, when another heart attack proves fatal to him. (Ironically, a heart attack also was fatal to Julia's husband, Hayden.) Suzanne handles all the arrangements for her sister, to take the pressure off her, and to offer her older sister some much needed comfort.

[edit] The night the lights went out in Georgia

Suzanne was crowned Miss Georgia World 1975 (in real life, actress Delta Burke won the title of Miss Florida 1974). In the second episode of the series, one of the most memorable scenes of the series occurred. Episode 2 of season 1, titled "The Beauty Contest", underscored the sisters' complicated relationship (and helped define the tone of the show). Suzanne could be exasperating to Julia, but Julia loved her dearly and was willing to defend her. She had this exchange when she overheard the current Miss Georgia World make fun of Suzanne:

JULIA (to Marjorie Leigh Winnick, the current Miss Georgia World): "Excuse me, aren't you Marjorie Leigh Winnick, the current Miss Georgia World?" ("Why yes, I am") "I am Julia Sugarbaker---Suzanne Sugarbaker's sister" ("I'm sorry, I didn't know anyone was listening") "Yes, and I take it, Marjorie, there are a few other things you don't know. For instance, 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. Or 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 tiaras, grown men wept. 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 12,000 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!"

[edit] Romances

Her marriages and affairs became legendary. Suzanne's three marriages were to writer Dash Goff (played by Delta's real-life husband, Gerald McRaney); Atlanta Braves baseball pitcher Jack Dent; and a fellow named J. Benton Stonecipher, whom was mentioned only once but never seen. In the early episodes, she was also engaged to co-worker Mary Jo Shively's ex-husband, Ted, whom she saw as a professional call, but blossomed to dating, to Mary Jo's dismay.

At one point, her money troubles were so grave (not to mention her being audited by the IRS) that, out of desperation, she almost married an elderly man named Wilmont Oliver. His attendant, Roland, confided to Julia, Charlene and Mary Jo, that his children hated the idea of their father remarrying (to Suzanne) and they labeled Suzanne a "money sucking whore" and "society licking bitch."

[edit] General character quirks

As the series went on, the character of Suzanne became progressively quirkier and human. She experienced a number of trials and tribulations:

  • She nearly lost all her fortune because of a crooked accountant, named Reggie Mac Dawson, who is still her arch-nemesis. He absconded with her whole fortune, and is still on the loose. This stopped her extravagant spending, but she still puts on airs that she is rich. She did make something of a financial rebound in the episode High Rollers when she took the last of her savings and made a spur of the moment trip to Atlantic City, and with the help of Anthony and Charlene won $39,000 in a casino, allowing her to make payments to the IRS, get her house back and still had a considerable amount leftover.
  • Her maid, Consuela Valverde, is alternately a joy and a trial to Suzanne. At times, Suzanne would confide in Consuela, or ask her to put a voodoo curse on someone; but at other times, Consuela and Suzanne will go at one another over minor things. Consuela's family presented Suzanne with a pet pig whom she named Noel, because she was given to Suzanne as a Christmas gift. The pig eventually ran away. Consuela was never seen on-screen; in one episode, Anthony dressed in drag to impersonate Consuela so she could become an American citizen.
  • Suzanne has very few female friends; she feels they are all jealous of her, or think she's after their men. At the beginning of the series, she envied the close bond and friendship between her co-workers, Mary Jo and Charlene Frazier Stillfield. However as the series progressed, her relationship with Charlene became strong to the point where Charlene dumps Mary Jo and picks Suzanne as her partner, when a radio station promotion gives Charlene a chance to obtain items from a record store in one minute. There were several episodes that showed Julia and Mary Jo pitted against Suzanne and Charlene. She and Charlene teamed up against Julia and Mary Jo in two trivial pursuit games to show that they are not dumb. In a memorable episode, she also sticks up for another friend, Eugenia Weeks, a lesbian, when a woman makes homophobic comments. Even Mary Jo, in an earlier episode, stands up for Suzanne when, on a singles cruise, a guy who was pursuing both, callously dismissed her, and pursied Mary Jo, who lashed out at him, and told him that Suzanne "was no two-bit singles cruise barnacle, but the Rolls-Royce of females, who has more beauty titles than you have teeth!"
  • Suzanne almost lost her Miss Georgia US crown during a voting mixup, as the pageant representative, a Mrs. Audrey Dickers, stated with truly vicious glee, but in the end, it came out that she had won it honestly and not by sleeping around with the judges, as her hateful, bitter (and somewhat obese) rival, Donna Jo Carnes, (who was supposedly supposed to have won the title) had done. Despite the mixup, and whilst Donna Jo and Mrs. Dickers were complaining and cursing their foiled plan, Suzanne retained the title.
  • At her high school class reunion, Suzanne had been viciously and gleefully insulted by former classmates due to her weight gain, and thanks to the support of Julia, she accepted a trophy for the person most changed, and chose not to savagely insult them, as she would have usually done.
  • When addressing anyone who is annoying her, loudly shouts "'scuse me, 'SCUSE ME!".

[edit] Keeping up appearances

As a Southerner who was affluent, raised to be a debutante, and later became a beauty queen, Suzanne was extremely concerned about the appearances of her actions to others. She was uneasy and sometimes unpleasant when she interacted with some people. She felt that if these people were seen with her, they would have a negative impact on how others perceived her.

  • Her relationship with the firm's deliveryman, and later partner, Anthony Bouvier is very hard to explain. On the one hand, she is somewhat irritated by the fact that a black man (and an ex-convict at that) is working for her and her sister, stating on more than one occasion that "it just doesn't look right", but yet, on the other hand, she considers him to be her best friend and co-conspirator in many schemes. When she left Atlanta, she leased the house to him, but unwittingly also leased it to her cousin, Allison Sugarbaker, who was more obnoxious than Suzanne was at her worst.
  • She also had an ambivalent, and sometimes negative, response to gay men and lesbians. However, in the 1987 episode "Killing All the Right People", in which a young gay interior design colleague named Kendall Dobbs confides to Julia, Suzanne, Charlene and Mary Jo that he has been diagnosed with HIV and doesn't have long to live, Suzanne is supportive, going so far as to echo Julia's outrage over the insensitivity of one of their homophobic clients. This was the beginning of a change of heart for Suzanne towards gays, solidifying with the aforementioned Eugenia Weeks, when she stands up for her against homophobic comments by other women.

[edit] Second series

During the brief run of "Woman of the House", Suzanne takes over the congressional seat of her deceased fifth husband, and softens a bit, realizing with power comes responsibility. To that end, she also decides to pursue her dreams of having a family (illustrated earlier in the Designing Women episode "Oh Susanna"), and adopts an Asian child named Desiree.