Loni Anderson, ‘WKRP in Cincinnati’ Star, Dies at 79
Loni Anderson, who starred as shrewd radio station receptionist Jennifer Marlowe on WKRP in Cincinnati before her fairy-tale marriage to and acrimonious divorce from Burt Reynolds kept her uncomfortably in the tabloids, died Sunday. She was 79.
A two-time Emmy nominee, Anderson died at noon in Los Angeles from “an acute prolonged illness,” publicist Cheryl J. Kagan announced.
The Minnesota native also portrayed doomed Hollywood sex sirens in two telefilms: 1980’s The Jayne Mansfield Story — alongside an untested Arnold Schwarzenegger as her second husband, Mickey Hargitay — and 1991’s White Hot: The Mysterious Murder of Thelma Todd.
And from 1988-90, she toplined TV movie remakes of the classic films Leave Her to Heaven (in the Gene Tierney role), Sorry, Wrong Number (in the Barbara Stanwyck part) and Three Coins in the Fountain).
After appearing on such series as S.W.A.T., Police Woman, Barnaby Jones and Phyllis and auditioning to play Chrissy Snow on Three’s Company, Anderson in 1978 read for Jennifer on MTM Enterprises’ WKRP in Cincinnati, created by Hugh Wilson.
Anderson liked the concept of the sitcom but had a problem with her role, “so I refused,” she explained in a 2020 interview.
“I went in and sat on my little soapbox and said, ‘I don’t want to play this part because she’s just here to deliver messages and is window dressing.’ Then Hugh said, ‘Well, how would you do it?’ … He said, ‘Let’s make her look like Lana Turner and be the smartest person in the room.’”
With Jennifer refusing to take dictation, type letters or make coffee as the opposite of the “dumb blond” stereotype that blanketed TV back then, Anderson starred on all but one of the show’s 90 episodes during its four-season run through April 1982.
She received Emmy nominations after the second and third years of the series in 1980 and ’81 but lost out to Loretta Swit of M*A*S*H and Eileen Brennan of Private Benjamin, respectively.
After WKRP, Anderson appeared as Sunday school teacher Pembrook Feeny alongside Reynolds as a NASCAR driver in Stroker Ace (1983), directed by Hal Needham.
She and Reynolds had met for the first time in 1981 on The Merv Griffin Show when she was still married to actor Ross Bickell and he was involved with actress Sally Field, and they began dating a year later. (He had been married to actress Judy Carne from 1963-66.)
On April 29, 1988, the couple exchanged vows on Reynolds’ 160-acre ranch in Jupiter, Florida. During the ceremony, he presented her with a seven-carat ring, which he designed and People in its cover story about the wedding described as “a canary yellow diamond surrounded by smaller white diamonds.” She was 41, he was 52.
“We all cried,” said actor Robby Benson, who was a guest. “It couldn’t have been lovelier. They looked like the perfect couple, the kind you see on the top of a wedding cake, only bigger.”
Loni Kaye Anderson was born on Aug. 5, 1945, in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Her father, Klaydon, was an environmental chemist, and her mother, Maxine, a model.
She was naturally dark-haired. “I loved being a brunette,” she said. “It was exotic, people weren’t quite sure what nationality I was, there was a mystery. When acting, I could be the bad lady.”
Anderson graduated from Alexander Ramsey Senior High School in Roseville in 1963 and finished runner-up in the 1964 Miss Minnesota pageant while an art student at the University of Minnesota.
Also in ’64, she eloped with Bruce Hasselberg, the brother of a fellow Miss Minnesota contestant. They had a daughter, Deidra, but their marriage was effectively over in a matter of months.
The 5-foot-7 Anderson donned a blond wig and was hired to play Billie (in the role made famous by Judy Holliday) on a Minneapolis stage in Born Yesterday, kickstarting her career. She was in another play with veteran actor Pat O’Brien, who told her she should try her hand in Hollywood.
She moved to Los Angeles in 1975 with Bickell, dyed her hair platinum blond and found steady TV work, including a guest-starring stint on MTM’s The Bob Newhart Show as a woman who files a paternity suit against Dr. Hartley patient Elliot Carlin (Jack Riley), then wants to rescind it.
Anderson didn’t land the Three’s Company gig because “she was too beautiful, too savvy,” John Ritter said in Chris Mann’s 1998 book, Come and Knock on My Door. “No one would believe she couldn’t live in her own apartment, that she would have to struggle to get the rent paid.” Suzanne Somers, of course, would gain fame as Chrissie.
Bickell had auditioned for the part of Andy Travis on WKRP and told her about the Jennifer opportunity. After getting hired, she would have an affair with Gary Sandy, who would play Travis the station manager, she revealed in her 1995 autobiography, My Life in High Heels.
In the summer of 1980, she asked for a big raise from the WKRP producers and got it.
In 1984, Anderson starred with Lynda Carter as private detectives who share an ex-husband who is murdered on NBC’s Partners in Crime, which lasted just 13 episodes. Also that year, she appeared as herself in The Lonely Guy, starring Steve Martin.
She reunited with Wilson in 1986 on the NBC comedy Easy Street, playing a former showgirl who inherits a bundle after her younger husband dies, much to the dismay of his sister. It lasted one season.
After marrying Reynolds, they voiced pooches in All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989), appeared in 1990 on an episode of his short-lived ABC series B.L. Stryker and attempted to portray husband and wife on a new CBS series, Evening Shade, but network execs wanted Marilu Henner instead.
In 1991, Anderson let a chance to replace the fired Delta Burke on CBS’ Designing Women slip away but returned as Jennifer for two episodes of The New WKRP in Cincinnati. She joined the third and final season of the NBC sitcom Nurses in 1993.
Meanwhile, her marriage was falling apart. Reynolds served her with divorce papers in June 1993 and began publicly bashing her, saying she had cheated on him and calling her unfit to raise their son, Quinton, whom they adopted weeks after his 1988 birth. She said he was the one having an affair and that he was hooked on painkillers and had abused her.
“I’m very happy that we were able to sell papers for a year and a half,” Reynolds told reporters in 1994. “Why that doesn’t translate into money, I don’t know. … I’m glad America is curious about us.”
During David Letterman’s Top 10 List on his inaugural Late Show broadcast on CBS on Aug. 30, 1993, No. 3 on the list of the “Ways the New Show Will Be Better” was: “I’m more focused since my break-up with Loni.”
One of the nastiest divorces in Hollywood history became official in December 1994, and two years later, Reynolds filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. It wasn’t until September 2015, when he wrote Anderson a check for $154,520, that their financial ties would finally end.
However, Anderson said she and Reynolds would occasionally meet with their son and that after the actor died in September 2018, she spoke at his funeral and would keep his ashes.
Anderson also played the conniving Teri Carson on Melrose Place in 1996 and Tori Spelling‘s materialistic mother in So Notorious in 2006, and her résumé included work on Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Clueless, The Mullets, My Sister Is So Gay and A Night at the Roxbury (1998).
In addition to her daughter and son, survivors include her fourth husband, folk singer and musician Bob Flick (The Brothers Four), whom she married in May 2008 after they first met 45 years earlier; grandchildren Megan and McKenzie; stepson Adam; and step-grandchildren Felix and Maximilian.
A private family service will be held at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery followed by a celebration of life at a future date. Contributions in her memory can be made to the National Lung Health Education Program and/or the American Cancer Society.
“Loni was a class act. Beautiful. Talented. Witty. ALWAYS a joy to be around,” Steve Sauer, president/CEO of Media Four and Anderson’s manager for 30 years, wrote in a statement. “She was the ultimate working mother. Family first … and maintained a great balance with her career. She and I had wonderful adventures together that I shall forever cherish. I will especially miss that infectious chuckle of hers.”
