Smart Accents

Monday through Thursday, Jean Smart puts on a honeyed Southern drawl and becomes the slightly daffy, eternally optimistic Charlene on CBS’ “Designing Women.” Thursday through Sunday, Smart dons a British accent and becomes Terry, a harried and cheated-upon housewife in Alan Ayckbourn’s ultra-funny farce “How the Other Half Loves” at the Tiffany Theatre in West Hollywood.

“My date night’s gone,” laments the actress. But Smart is only kidding: For the last 17 months she’s been married to Richard Gilliland, who plays Annie Potts’ boyfriend on the series. “My husband’s come to see the play twice,” she says proudly. “He actually gave up watching a World Series game to come to my opening--which I thought was wonderful. Of course, it was the night Kirk Gibson hit his ninth-inning home run, so I haven’t stopped hearing about it.”

Their on-set love connection, she adds, was “pretty quick. I knew right away. It took him a day or two to catch on. Actually, it was really sophomoric. I had (co-star) Delta Burke go over to him and ask if he was dating or married or living with anybody. I found out later she’d also informed him that I sent her over. But we got engaged four months later and got married five months after that. I think we still qualify for ‘The Newlywed Game.’ ”

Meanwhile, life continues happily on “Designing Women,” which begins its third season Monday (KCBS-TV Channel 2, 10 p.m.). “You know, we were never really canceled,” she notes of the time in 1987 when a public letter-writing campaign was launched to demand the series’ return. “(The network programmers) had moved it to another time slot and that didn’t work out, so they pulled it for a few weeks to find another spot for it.

“I guess people sort of assumed it was canceled and wrote all those letters. We didn’t want to tell them otherwise because we figured, ‘Hey, this is getting us a lot of good attention. Let’s see how much response we get.’ But I knew they had no intention of canceling us. . . . That is, I think I know. Actresses are always the last to find out.”

Speaking of being the last to know, what is hubby dearest up to (now that baseball season is over) all those long nights when she’s at the theater? “ Good question! “