From 1986 to 1991, she starred as Suzanne Sugarbaker in the CBS sitcom Designing Women, for which she received two Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series.

[2] She has produced and starred in made-for-TV movies, appeared in the film What Women Want (2000), and had a recurring guest role in the drama series Boston Legal (2006–07).

[7] Burke won a talent scholarship from the Miss America Organization, allowing her to attend a two-year study program at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

Burke spent a year on Filthy Rich in 1982 playing the wily young widow, Kathleen Beck.

In 1986, Burke was cast as Suzanne Sugarbaker in the CBS sitcom Designing Women; she left 1st and Ten in order to appear on the show.

Designing Women was created by Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, who had previously cast Burke in her show Filthy Rich.

In 1990, Burke publicly expressed dissatisfaction with the show on a televised interview with Barbara Walters and other media outlets.

At the end of the fifth season of Designing Women in 1991, Burke was fired from the show due to her contentious relations with Carter and the Thomasons.

She became a much-parodied figure in the press due to the media's incessant obsession with her weight, including in a skit on Saturday Night Live, wherein Leon Phelps from The Ladies Man has a sexual fixation with her.

", had Suzanne Sugarbaker going to her 15-year high school reunion and having her feelings hurt after hearing disparaging remarks about her weight.

[11] In the early 2000s, she co-starred with David Alan Grier on the sitcom DAG; she had lost much of her excess weight for the role after being diagnosed with diabetes.

[15] She also played Bella Horowitz during a five-episode arc on Boston Legal as a former flame of William Shatner's character, Denny Crane, in season three.

Burke and McRaney's primary residence is in Los Angeles, California; they also own a house in Telluride, Colorado, and one in New Orleans, Louisiana.