Richard Gilliland, who met his wife Jean Smart while guest-starring on Designing Women, dies at 71

The Hollywood Reporter

The character actor, who died March 18 after a brief illness, guest-starred on a number of TV shows, from CSI to Desperate Housewives to Thirtysomething. But it was a 1986 guest-starring role on Designing Women that changed his life. He guest-starred as J.D. Shackelford, the boyfriend of Annie Potts' Mary Jo Shively and he went on to work on 17 episodes of the series through 1991. "I met him when he was kissing someone else," Smart said with a laugh during a 2017 interview, recalling the she asked co-star Delta Burke to find out if he was married. “Naturally, Delta walked up to him and blurted, ‘Jean wants to know if you’re married,'" Smart said.