Bonnie Jean "B.J." Poteet

Bonnie Jean Poteet, best known by her nickname, "B.J.", is a character in the final season of the television series, "Designing Women". She was played by Judith Ivey.

Hair full of air

B.J. is a rich, eccentric and very down-to-earth widow who came at a time that she was needed most. Sugarbaker's was near bankruptcy, especially since obnoxious and selfish Allison Sugarbaker just pulled her money out of the firm to buy a more lucrative Victoria's Secret franchise. She was a former court reporter in Houston, Texas, when she met James Poteet, the owner of Poteet Industries, a large conglomerate. She met him when he was a litigant in her courtroom. They had only been married a very short time, since he died of a heart attack at his own wedding reception. He was leading a conga line to the song, "Proud Mary" when he died.

This left B.J., who was a recovering alcoholic, a very wealthy widow, and with nothing more than time on her hands, she felt she wanted to help wherever she could. So, she hired Sugarbakers Design Firm to help decorate her new home, then she won the company through a hand of Poker. Being generous, however, she offered to lose, so Julia Sugarbaker could get her company back. Because of this, Julia tended to get along a little bit better with B.J., than even her own family, like Allison, or even her own sister, Suzanne.

One day, B.J., after seeing her new friends depressed, had them all take a trip to Las Vegas, on the spur of the moment. During this trip, their male partner, Anthony Bouvier met and impulsively married his wife, Etienne Toussant.

One of B.J.'s most trusted people, aside from her new friends and business partners is her long-time butler, Steadman.

With the Poteet Industries money behind them, Sugarbakers was back in the black, for a while. Until an arrogant business rival of her late husband's who was surnamed, Kearney (no first name was revealed), tried to take over Poteet Industries, and also, Sugarbakers. His scheme was to finally get even with B.J's late husband, James. The premise was that the design firm would redecorate a beautiful antebellum house and make it horridly modern, not to mention them tearing down a beautiful antebellum staircase and installing an escalator. Something which the design firm didn't want to do.

Astonishingly, he also schemed to give Sugarbakers (since it was owned by Poteet Industries) to his young trophy wife, named Kiki (Gail O'Grady) to run as she saw fit. She insisted (sometimes wrathfully) that her name was Kiki but she was called Kinky, Kookoo, Kooky; and other snide names by the Sugarbaker staff, who didn't like her from the first. His aim was to allow her to rename the firm "Kikibakers", much to everyone's horror, but mostly to Julia's horror. Kearney, whom Kiki called Kearnsey, thought he had B.J. and her friends exactly where he wanted them. B.J. then took a page out of Julia's book and unleashed her anger on her husband's rival, but it ended up with everyone being fired, which Kearney did with undisguised glee.

They commiserated about their woes, until it was discovered, by Mary Jo Shively's sometime date, Craig (Patrick Warburton) that Kearney had committed money laundering. (He called it washing some man's money, as he thought he was a dry cleaner, told all this by Kiki) Upon that discovery (B.J. told him the news of his plan being foiled with the same glee as he had when he fired her and her friends) Kearney and Kiki were promptly arrested; his hostile takeover was stopped cold by the SEC; and Sugarbakers and Poteet Industries were both saved. (This entire situation occurred in the series finale, "Gone with a Whim")

B.J. has a tendency to speak her mind, much like Julia, but she does so only to playfully push her buttons. She is also very generous, offering to buy things for everyone. Since she has all this idle cash and not anyone to be with or share it with, what with James having died and all; she feels that she could use her fortune to help some friends who came to mean a lot to her, and she gets great joy out of being with such an interesting group of people. She said she didn't drink, (and she didn't) but she enjoys seeing people enjoy life and all it had to offer.