My Girl's Hair Was Always Laid!

She was something else but I suspect that a lot of black women admired her because her hair was always "did."

Former Texas Gov. Ann Richards, whose brassy, tough-talking persona and trademark white hair cut an indelible profile in Democratic politics, died Wednesday evening at her home in Austin, surrounded by her family, her spokesman, Bill Maddox said.

She was 73.

Richards, who served as governor of the Lone Star State from 1991 to 1995, announced in March that she was being treated for esophageal cancer. Maddox said Richards had shielded many family members and friends from the extent of her illness.

"It was a shock to a lot of us," he said.

Cecile Richards, the former governor's daughter, announced her death in a note sent to friends at 7:50 p.m. (8:50 p.m. ET), Maddox said.

The quick-witted Richards burst onto the national scene with rhetorical guns blazing at the 1988 Democratic National Convention in Atlanta, where, in a keynote address, she famously described the syntax-challenged Republican presidential nominee, George H.W. Bush, this way:

"Poor George. He can't help it. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth."

At the time, Richards was Texas state treasurer; two years later, she would be elected governor, only the second woman ever to hold that post.

RIP Miss Ann and I don't want my tombstone mentioning my "clean house" either!

She told an interviewer shortly before leaving office, "I did not want my tombstone to read, 'She kept a really clean house.' I think I'd like them to remember me by saying, 'She opened government to everyone.'"