Actress Loni Anderson, best known as the high-heeled-strutting receptionist in the 1980s hit TV comedy “WKRP in Cincinnati,” died Sunday.
She was just a few days shy of her 80th birthday, which would have been Tuesday.
“We are heartbroken to announce the passing of our dear wife, mother and grandmother,” Anderson’s family said in a statement.
Her longtime publicist, Cheryl Kagan, confirmed her death at a Los Angeles hospital after a “prolonged illness.”
AP
Loni Anderson in 2023. (AP)
“WKRP in Cincinnati” chronicled a fictional — and flailing — Ohio radio station as it attempted to rebrand itself as a rock music hub. As receptionist Jennifer Marlowe, Anderson rejected the “dumb blond” stereotype as she refused to take dictation, type letters or make coffee, instead portraying the character as “the smartest person in the room,” as recounted in The Hollywood Reporter. She also saved the struggling station from many a pickle and fending off unwanted business calls for her boss, Mr. Carlson (Gordon Jump). The cast also included Gary Sandy, Tim Reid, Howard Hesseman, Frank Bonner and Jan Smithers.
The actress garnered nominations for two Emmys and three Golden Globes for her starring role in 89 of the show’s 90 episodes during its 1978 to 1982 run.
Anderson made a splash on the big screen as well. After she co-starred in the 1983 comedy “Stroker Ace” opposite Burt Reyolds, the two became an item, marrying in 1988. The pair dominated the tabloids, especially during their messy 1994 divorce.
“I think back to the beginning of our relationship, it was so, oh, gosh, tabloidy,” Anderson told The Associated Press in 2021 at the unveiling of a bronze bust honoring her late ex-husband and his career, at his gravesite. Reynolds died in 2018.
“We were just a spectacle all the time,” Anderson said. “And it was hard to have a relationship in that atmosphere. And somehow, we did it through many ups and downs.”
That didn’t stop each of them from airing their respective dirty laundry in separate memoirs, Reynolds in the 2015 “But Enough About Me,” and Anderson decades earlier with My Life in High Heels, published in 1995. However, they remained bonded over their adopted son, Quinton.
Post-“WKRP,” Anderson appeared in numerous television movies, most recently the 2023 holiday romp “Ladies of the ’80s: A Divas Christmas,” co-starring with Linda Gray, Donna Mills, Morgan Fairchild and Nicollette Sheridan. They played a group of 1980s soap opera stars reuniting to shoot the final Christmas episode of their long-running soap, cat-fighting all the way.
“I am heartbroken to hear of the passing of the wonderful Loni Anderson!” Fairchild mourned on X. “We did Bob Hope specials together & a Christmas movie 2 years ago. The sweetest, most gracious lady! I’m just devastated to hear this.”
Anderson also appeared in numerous television shows both before and after “WKRP,” such as “S.W.A.T.” and “Police Woman” in the 1970s. In later years, she appeared in “Nurses,” “Sabrina, the Teenage Witch” and “V.I.P.,” as well as playing Tori Spelling’s mother in the 10-episode 2006 series “So Notorious.”
Anderson, born in Saint Paul, Minn., on Aug. 5, 1045, started out as a beauty queen — and a natural brunette, according to Deadline. She was married four times, People noted, starting with Bruce Hasselberg in 1964, with whom she had a daughter, Deirdra, before they divorced in 1966. From 1974 to 1981 she was hitched to actor Ross Bickell, then later that decade married Reynolds. She and musician Bob Flick were married in 2008, a union that was still going strong 17 years later.
Besides Flick, Deidra and son-in law Charlie Hoffman, Anderson’s survivors include son Quinton Anderson Reynolds, two grandchildren, a stepson and daughter-in-law, and two step-grandchildren. The family will conduct a private service at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, according to Kagan.
With News Wire Services
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