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INTRODUCTION: Over the past couple of weeks we've been asking some famous women in their forties, fifties, and beyond to share their secrets of beauty and vitality. Our national correspondent Hattie Coughman recently spent a day with actress Dixie Carter to find out why she feels sensational at sixty.
The segment opens with a clip of Family Law.
HATTIE: [voiceover] As attorney Randi King on Family Law, Dixie relates to her character's feisty, fighting spirit.
DIXIE: She believes in the power of her intellect, and she knows that if she gets out there and tries really hard she's gonna be able to stay afloat.
Fade into a clip of Designing Women
HATTIE: [voiceover] Dixie became a household name in the eighties starring as Julia Sugarbaker on Designing Women. Then over forty and wanting to look her best, Dixie revealed she chose plastic surgery.
HATTIE: You decided to talk about having a facelift, in this city, where no one talks about it.
DIXIE: I think if you want to work in Hollywood at a certain age, and I certainly have reached it, (laughs) you have to get chopped and sewn; you've got to get cut.
HATTIE: [voiceover] A ten-minute break on the set sets Dixie into motion.
DIXIE: (on the phone) Mary Dixie? It's Momma, did you have a wonderful time?!
HATTIE: [voiceover] It's a chance to catch up, touch up, polish, and primp. When Dixie's not filming Family Law, she stars in her own cabaret act, singing songs about life.
Fade into a clip of Dixie's 1999 cabaret performance in Hollywood, singing "I'm 27."
DIXIE: When women get older, they're not as attractive to men, period. Period. And older women are always interested in what younger women are looking like and doing so they can sort of imitate them and stay up with them. So that's a very basic, primitive urge.
HATTIE: Was there any age that scared you?
DIXIE: The eights and nines are worse then the big zeros. (laughs) When you're climbing up the hill and you get to the top, there's a little -- (gasps nervously in demonstration) -- when you hit the nine, and then when you go over, it's all of a sudden, you look around, the terrain is perfectly lovely.
Fade in again to Dixie signing "I'm 27."
HATTIE: What has kept you going?
DIXIE: I've always felt like if I stood still for a little while, there is a fountain that comes kinda up through me, comes out of the earth, sort of. That's just joy, just some kinda of wonderful, animal joy, at being alive.
HATTIE: [voiceover] She's also the mother of grown girls. And Dixie positively glows at the mention of her husband, actor Hal Holbrook.
DIXIE: I'm married to a man who only has eyes for me. But I'll tell ya, they're rare. As they say, a good man is hard to find. (laughs) They're rare, those men that don't have roving eyes. Face it.
HATTIE: Does love and marriage get better as you get older, when you're with somebody like Hal?
DIXIE: In my case it does, in my case it does. Love and marriage. (sings) "Love and Marriage, love and Marriage." Remember Sinatra sang that, it was great.
HATTIE: [voiceover] For the early show, Hattie Coughman, CBS news, Los Angeles.
CONCLUSION: She has a pretty good voice! Dixie Carter also said she drinks plenty of water, embraces change, and has a zest for life that she believes is contagious.
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