Loni Anderson, ‘WKRP’s’ Not-So-Dumb Blonde, Dies at 79

Loni Anderson, the platinum bombshell whose efficiency on “WKRP in Cincinnati” turned the stereotype of the dumb blonde on its head within the ’70s and ’80s, died Sunday in L.A.

In response to her publicist, Cheryl Kagan, Anderson had endured a “extended sickness.”

She was two days shy of her eightieth birthday.

Anderson was born August 5, 1945, in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

She started performing on TV with appearances on the exhibits “S.W.A.T.,” “Phyllis,” and “Police Lady” (all 1975), “Barnaby Jones” (1976), “The Bob Newhart Present” (1977), and a fortuitous look on “Three’s Firm” in 1978 that caught the eyes of her future employers at “WKRP in Cincinnati.”

Having misplaced the Suzanne Somers function of Chrissy Snow on “Three’s Firm” in 1976, she received the function for which she would change into well-known, Jennifer Marlowe, showing on 89 episodes of the edgy comedy set at a radio station.

Voluptuous and at all times high-heeled (her 1995 memoir was cheekily entitled “My Life in Excessive Heels”), Anderson’s Jennifer was good as a whip, working circles across the station’s on-the-make males and rattling off one-liners like Eve Arden whereas oozing Jayne Mansfield.

She even performed the latter within the 1980 TV film “The Jayne Mansfield Story.”

Throughout her run on “WKRP,” Anderson was twice nominated for the Emmy, turning into a family identify and the topic of a sequence of swimsuit posters that flew out of malls nationwide. She was so in demand she was the one star who booked passage on “The Love Boat” and went on to “Fantasy Island,” in a basic crossover of the exhibits in 1980.

Displaying a few of Jennifer Marlowe’s smarts, Anderson wore the identical swimsuit from one in all her hot-selling posters for many of this “Love Boat” voyage.

She subsequent appeared within the TV motion pictures “Sizzle” (1981) as a Prohibition-era gangster, “Nation Gold” as a down-home crooner, a high-priced “My Mom’s Secret Life” (1984) as a high-priced intercourse employee, and performed a real-life ill-fated ’30s actress in “White Sizzling: The Mysterious Homicide of Thelma Todd” (1991).

She labored with Burt Reynolds within the flop film “Stroker Ace” (1983), performed herself in Steve Martin’s “The Lonely Man” (1984), was the voice of Flo within the animated basic “All Canines Go to Heaven” (1989), and was at her most over-the-top entertaining in a bit in “A Evening on the Roxbury” (1998).

As for tv, the place she shone, Loni by no means once more landed an enduring sequence, however did seem with Lynda Carter in “Companions in Crime” (1984) and was an everyday on “Simple Avenue” (1986-1987), “Nurses” (1993-1994), “The Mullets” (2003-2004), and “My Sister Is So Homosexual” (2016-2020), all of which had been short-lived.

In 2006, she performed Sweet Spelling on Tori Spelling’s VH1 sequence “So NoTORIous.”

Maybe extra well-known than any of her appearances was her tumultuous time as film icon Burt Reynolds’ second spouse. Burt, her third husband, was allegedly emotionally and bodily abusive along with her. They accused one another of infidelity, and he accused her of spending an excessive amount of of his cash, tossing her out of their Florida house.

Their 1993 divorce bought numerous gossip magazines and took its toll on them each. By 1995, she was prepared to speak, and instructed an interviewer Reynolds was erratic with alimony and assist funds for his or her little one, admitting they’d by no means spoken since he served her with papers.

Blaming Reynolds’ violence towards her on painkillers, she mentioned, “Burt shoved me throughout the room, then threw me to the ground and opened the drawer and bought out a loaded gun. He handed me the gun and instructed me to shoot myself and do us all a favor. I used to be terrified. Burt at all times mentioned nobody would ever consider me as a result of he was Mr. Great and the world liked him.”

Since 2010, she made only a few performing appearances, however they included the TV sequence “Child Daddy” (2016), the TV film “Love You Extra” (2017), and her last-ever work on tv, 2023’s “Girls of the ’80s: A Divas Christmas” with Donna Mills, Morgan Fairchild, Linda Grey and Nicollette Sheridan.

Fairchild wrote of Anderson’s passing, “I’m heartbroken to listen to of the passing of the fantastic Loni Anderson! We did Bob Hope specials collectively & a Christmas film 2 years in the past. The sweetest, most gracious woman! I am simply devastated to listen to this. Love & condolences to Bob (who was on set each day w her) & her youngsters and grandkids, who she adored.”

Watch her remaining “Additional” interview:

Anderson, who was a preferred and frequent visitor at autograph exhibits for a few years, is survived by her fourth husband, Bob Flick, of 17 years; by her daughter Deidra from her first marriage; and by her son Quinton from her marriage to Reynolds, who died at 82 in 2018.