Camilla Carr Dies: ‘Designing Women’ Star Was 83
What To Know
- Camilla Carr, known for her memorable guest role as Mrs. Imogene Salinger in a 1987 episode of Designing Women, has died at age 83 from complications of Alzheimer’s disease and a dislocated hip.
- Her acting career spanned from the early 1970s, with roles in films like A Bullet for Pretty Boy and Logan’s Run, to notable TV appearances including 34 episodes of Another World.
- Carr was married twice, collaborated with her first husband on screen, and her controversial Designing Women episode remains a significant part of her legacy.
Camilla Carr, the actress who played Mrs. Imogene Salinger in Designing Women, is dead at 83.
On Wednesday, February 4, Carr died at her home in El Paso, Texas, due to complications of Alzheimer’s disease and a dislocated hip. Her son, Caley O’Dwyer, confirmed the news to The Hollywood Reporter.
In Designing Women, Carr was an infamous guest star in a Season 2 episode titled “Killing All the Right People” that aired in October 1987. Her character, Mrs. Imogen Salinger, was a client of Sugarbaker who thought that gay men who contracted AIDS got what they deserved.
“I don’t like to hurt anyone’s feelings, but if these boys hadn’t been doing what they do, they wouldn’t be getting what’s coming to them now,” Salinger said to Julia Sugarbaker (Dixie Carter) after she learned about a funeral for an interior designer played by Tony Goldwyn. She later declared, “As far as I’m concerned, this disease has one thing going for it — it’s killing all the right people.”
Carr started acting in the early ’70s in films like A Bullet for Pretty Boy (1970), Don’t Look in the Basement (1973), and Logan’s Run (1976). In Don’t Look in the Basement, directed by S.F. Brownrigg, she played a patient who killed a nurse. Carr collaborated twice more with Brownrigg in the horror films: Poor White Trash II (1974) and Keep My Grave Open (1977).
In addition to her movie credits, Carr notably starred as Rita Connelly in 34 episodes of the NBC soap opera Another World from 1963 to 1999. She also had TV roles in A Year in the Life and Falcon Crest, both in 1988.
Designing Women, streaming on Hulu and Disney+