Intriguing but short-lived starring vehicles. A never-ending series of personal losses and health
struggles. A loved one who was always there to help her get through it all.
It's been a while since Designing Women, but Delta Burke has been plenty busy.
Delta Burke's departure from Designing Women in 1991 didn't exactly go smoothly.
Things were tense on the show for some time, and after Burke came forward about
being subjected to psychological abuse by the producers, she was then fired
from the show. The fallout was difficult. As Burke admitted to the Deseret News in 1992,
"There's still a lot of emotion there. A lot of frustration and anger."
Nevertheless, Burke was glad to be out of what she
considered an intolerable situation. As she put it,
"There were a lot of good times, but there were an awful lot of bad times that didn't have to happen.
Basically, it was like putting in five tours of duty of Vietnam."
While Burke was adamant that it was the producers of Designing
Women who were creating a hostile work environment,
they and her co-stars alleged that she was really the one to blame. Her reputation as a diva who
was difficult to work with hounded her for years. As she recalled to the Los Angeles Times in 2000,
"I could flip around the TV, and every damn time I would land on Married… with Children,
they’d say something snarly about me. I felt like it was hunting season and I was 'it.'"
Despite Burke's dramatic exit from Designing Women and her unsavory reputation, her name still
carried a lot of clout in Hollywood. She continued to act steadily throughout the 90s and 2000s,
with major roles on shows like Popular and Boston Legal. She even landed her own sitcom, Delta,
the year after leaving Designing Women, although it only lasted for one season.
"Actually, what I really want to do is to sing at the Grand Ole Opry someday."
Burke's other credits included guest stints on the likes of Diagnosis Murder,
Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, and Drop Dead Diva.
None of these roles were as iconic as Suzanne Sugarbaker, but they did keep Burke busy.
While Delta Burke may not have left Designing Women on the best of terms, her star power was
undeniable. She would go on to reprise the role of Suzanne Sugarbaker more than once, including
in 1995 on the Designing Women spinoff Women of the House. That short-lived series saw Suzanne
entering politics by taking over a congressional seat left by her deceased husband. Alas, Women
of the House lasted only one season, but this wasn't the last that fans would see of Suzanne.
A few years later, Burke rejoined her former castmates for The Designing Women Reunion in 2003,
seemingly putting past wounds aside to record the special.
In a 2000 interview with the Los Angeles Times, however, Burke revealed that she'd
barely been in touch with her castmates since leaving the show. As she admitted,
"It got so ugly at the end."
The years following Burke's departure from Designing Women were difficult,
with things really coming to a head in 1998. She experienced a number of losses that year,
including the deaths of her grandmother and her pet dog. Furthermore, her mother was diagnosed
with breast cancer. Meanwhile, the actress was experiencing her own health troubles, although
doctors initially couldn't figure out what was wrong with her. As she revealed to Eating Well,
"I was tired. My body didn't feel right. I knew something was wrong,
but nobody could tell me what."
Burke was initially incorrectly diagnosed with Epstein-Barr Virus
before another doctor determined that she actually had type 2 diabetes. She was told
that she needed to get a handle on her blood glucose, so she changed her eating habits and
took charge of her health. But this wasn't the only major health challenge for Delta Burke.
Mental health is important to stay on top of, and Delta Burke has been frank about
living with depression. She's experienced depressive episodes since her teens,
and living in the public eye made things even worse. Not only was there the public fallout
from leaving Designing Women, there was also the harsh treatment from the media as well as
constant barbs about her fluctuating weight. As she put it to the Orlando Sentinel in 2003,
"I had everything I ever wanted. I was famous. I
was making lots of money. But I was seriously depressed."
Burke also struggled with hoarding and even contemplated suicide at one point.
As she admitted to Entertainment Tonight,
"I just wanted the pain to go away."
Thankfully, Burke is doing better now, as she's sought treatment and has spoken out
about ending the stigma surrounding mental health. As she noted to the Orlando Sentinel,
"My message is, 'You don't have to live like this. There are therapies and medications that can help.
They changed my life. They can change yours.'"
"I'm much happier than I was."
One constant in Delta Burke's life for decades has been her marriage to fellow actor
Gerald McRaney. They met while she was at the height of her Designing Women fame in 1987.
He proposed on their second date, they married two years later, and the rest
is history. Burke credits McRaney with helping her through the highs and lows of her career,
as well as her health struggles. As she told the Orlando Sentinel in 2003,
"I'd become this sobbing fool who couldn't cope with life, but he helped by loving me,
protecting me and learning how to help me."
McRaney was also Burke's rock when she was publicly mocked for gaining weight,
as he's always loved her for who she is. As she put it to Eating Well,
"It didn't matter to him how fat I got."
McRaney has always prioritized his wife's health,
which has included helping take care of her diabetes. As she revealed,
"He likes to give me my shots and says it makes him feel like he's taking care of me."
"Send Delta our love. I certainly will."
While Delta Burke's onscreen credits may have slowed down, she has had the opportunity to
show off her skills on stage. In 2002, she made her Broadway debut in a production of
Thoroughly Modern Millie as Mrs. Meers. Her run in the musical came to an end in 2004,
and she was seen on the Great White Way once again in 2005 when she played Truvy in Steel Magnolias.
In 2006, Burke then headed to the West Coast stage,
as she starred in Southern Baptist Sissies in Los Angeles. She played three roles in the production,
which centers on men dealing with questions of faith and sexuality.
Playwright Del Shores had nothing but praise for the leading lady, as he told Broadway World,
"Delta is a brilliant actress and an absolute dream to work with.
I can't wait to have her on stage."
By the late 2000s, Delta Burke's acting roles were drying up. Then in 2012, she appeared in what is
listed on IMDb as a TV movie, Counter Culture. But Counter Culture was actually filmed as a pilot for
what should've been a glorious return to TV for Burke. Sadly, the show never got off the ground,
but not because the pilot flopped. Instead, a series of unfortunate circumstances were to blame.
Production was initially delayed due to casting troubles, then Burke fell on set,
leading to a further delay in the taping schedule. Eventually, the show was scrapped entirely.
Had Counter Culture gotten off the ground, there's a good chance it would've resonated with Designing
Women fans. Like that earlier show, this ill-fated series focused on a group of businesswomen,
in this case three sisters running a family diner. Burke was set to play one of the siblings
alongside Kerri Kenney and Margo Martindale, with Doris Roberts slated to play their aunt.
Since that ill-fated attempted comeback, Delta Burke hasn't had much luck landing
any other acting roles. She hasn't announced that she's officially left
show business or anything like that. But since the cancellation of Counter Culture in 2012,
she only has one screen credit to her name: a 2019 episode of the anthology
series Dolly Parton's Heartstrings, which also featured her husband Gerald McRaney.
In 2014, Burke hinted to the Daily Mail that she would be happy to continue acting, but it seems
there aren't many offers on the table. As she put it, she had "no work on the horizon." At least
some of this circumstance seems to be by choice, though. In 2020, a source told OK! Magazine,
"Delta disappeared from Hollywood because the industry and the people in it were
becoming detrimental to her health. Now she's older, wiser and in a good place."
"Now hold your horses!"
What Delta Burke is doing these days is really anyone's guess. She's living life
out of the spotlight. Meanwhile her husband Gerald McRaney is still acting steadily.
She's rarely seen in public, and she has no public social media profiles,
indicating that she probably doesn't want anyone prying into her private life.
Simply put, Burke seems perfectly okay with not being as famous as she was decades ago. In a 2014
interview with The Daily Mail, she insisted that fans shouldn't worry about her. As she put it,
"Everything is fine, I'm just not very exciting right now!"
Burke also spoke extensively about her husband in the interview,
so it appears that she's focused on enjoying her home life outside of the spotlight.
She's not entirely secluded, though, as a source told OK! Magazine in 2020,
"Delta does get out by herself occasionally. She's moving more slowly these days,
but she still smiles at people who recognize her on the street."
Like a lot of other stars from beloved classic TV shows, the cast members of Designing Women have
reunited a couple of times since the series ended. There was the 2003 reunion special, and then they
gathered together virtually in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic for a read-through of the
show's pilot episode. They raised money for the racial justice organization Color of Change
as well as COVID relief efforts through World Central Kitchen. However, one star was notably
absent: Delta Burke, with Wendi McLendon-Covey of The Goldbergs filling in for her.
Burke's absence wasn't due to any bad blood with her former castmates. As Jean Smart explained to
Collider, she instead had to miss out on the event because she was caring for her mother at
the time. While Burke's presence was certainly missed, the performance still went smoothly,
as it garnered tens of thousands of views on YouTube. As Smart described it,
"[It] was absolutely shocking, how familiar [working together with her former castmates] felt.
Annie [Potts] and I were saying, 'This is bizarre. It feels like we just did this a week ago.'"
If you're hoping to see Burke in a full-on Designing Women revival eventually,
don't hold your breath, as three of the main cast members — Dixie Carter,
Meshach Taylor, and Alice Ghostley — have died since the show wrapped.
Delta Burke's fluctuating weight has been a frequent subject in the tabloids over the years. A
source told OK! Magazine in 2020 that the actress even took meth to control her weight, noting,
"She lost weight because she wasn't hungry, but meth is very addicting and dangerous."
Burke spoke for herself about her drug use in a 2002 interview with UPI, as she admitted,
"In my 20s I would starve myself for, like,
five or six days. And for three months, I took crystal meth."
"I'll admit, I have put on a few pounds here and there,
but you all act like I should be ordering fabric over at Georgia Tent & Awning."
Thankfully, since then, Burke has adopted healthier methods of keeping the weight off.
She credits the diabetes medication Byetta, which curbs cravings. As she explained to Eating Well,
"With Byetta, I can eat foods I like, but not all at once.
I go through phases where I really want macaroni and cheese or sweets.
Then Mom makes me sugar-free gelatin. That or some fruit is my little treat."
Burke is managing her diabetes, but she still has other health problems, like depression,
which she's lived with for decades. Her mental health is better today, although in October 2021,
she was seen in public using a cane, leading to concerns about her physical health.
If you or anyone you know is struggling with addiction issues,
help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).