{"id":116824,"date":"2025-08-03T23:56:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-03T23:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/116824\/"},"modified":"2025-08-03T23:56:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-03T23:56:09","slug":"emmy-nominated-wkrp-in-cincinnati-star-was-79","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/116824\/","title":{"rendered":"Emmy-Nominated ‘WKRP In Cincinnati’ Star Was 79"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tLoni Anderson<\/a>, the twice Emmy-nominated star of WKRP in Cincinnati<\/a>, has died at the age of 79, days before her 80th birthday.<\/p>\n

\n\tHer cause of death was \u201can acute prolonged illness,\u201d her longtime publicist, Cheryl J. Kagan, told Deadline.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe are heartbroken to announce the passing of our dear wife, mother and grandmother,\u201d Anderson\u2019s family said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnderson is best known for her role as the clever receptionist Jennifer Marlowe in CBS\u2019 sitcom about the eccentric staff of a struggling Top 40 rock radio station in Ohio. Created by Hugh Wilson, the multi-cam comedy ran from 1978 through 1982, and Anderson\u2019s ultra-capable employee appeared in all but one of the series\u2019 90 episodes. Her vivacious character cemented her as a bona fide TV sex symbol and subverted stereotypical \u201cdumb blonde\u201d tropes, as Jennifer remained savvy among a team of often incompetent coworkers, refusing to do typical receptionist chores like fetch coffee or take dictation. <\/p>\n

\n\tFor her work, Anderson garnered two Emmy nominations in 1980 and 1981 for Supporting Actress in a Comedy or Variety or Music Series, as well as three Golden Globes.<\/p>\n

\n\tBorn Loni Kaye Anderson on Aug. 5, 1945, in Saint Paul, Minn., the actress began her career as a beauty queen, taking after her model mother. Though known as a blonde bombshell, Anderson was naturally black-haired, saying in a 2020 interview<\/a>: \u201cI loved being a brunette. It was exotic, people weren\u2019t quite sure what nationality I was, there was a mystery. When acting, I could play the bad lady.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tInitially, Anderson turned down the gig on WKRP, saying she liked the show but not the part.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI went in and sat on my little soapbox: \u2018I don\u2019t want to play this part because she\u2019s just here to deliver messages and is window dressing.\u2019 Then Hugh said, \u2018Well, how would you do it?’\u201d Anderson recalled. \u201c\u2018Let\u2019s make her look like Lana Turner and be the smartest person in the room.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOutside of WKRP, Anderson portrayed Jayne Mansfield in a 1980 TV film opposite a then-unknown Arnold Schwarzenegger. She played another real-life sex siren in 1991\u2019s\u00a0telefilm White Hot: The Mysterious Murder of Thelma Todd. Her other TV credits include S.W.A.T.,\u00a0Police Woman,\u00a0Barnaby Jones,\u00a0The Bob Newhart Show\u00a0and\u00a0Three\u2019s Company, and in later years, The New WKRP in Cincinnati, Empty Nest,\u00a0Sabrina the Teenage Witch and\u00a0Clueless.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnderson is also known for her 12-year relationship and six-year marriage to Burt Reynolds, which captivated Tinseltown in the late \u201980s during its height as well as its subsequent, tumultuous dissolution. The two worked together on 1983\u2019s action comedy Stroker Ace and began dating shortly afterward, tying the knot in 1988<\/a>. Their acrimonious divorce came amid Reynolds\u2019 struggles with substance abuse, resulting in a protracted public battle that featured the Boogie Nights actor bashing Anderson in the press.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe were bombarded, I mean, we could not leave the house. There were people outside the gates, people got onto the property. I was serving him breakfast one morning and there was somebody in the window,\u201d Anderson recalled of the tabloid fervor.<\/p>\n

\n\tHowever, Anderson and Reynolds kept in contact through the years while meeting with their son until the actor\u2019s 2018 death. The two spoke at his funeral.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn 1995, she penned the autobiography, My Life in High Heels, which she said was about \u201cthe growth of a woman, a woman who survives. It\u2019s about my childhood, the death of my parents, my career, my divorces, and my children. Then of course, the trauma of my marriage to Burt,\u201d per the Associated Press<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnderson is survived by her husband Bob Flick, daughter Deidra and son-in law Charlie Hoffman, son Quinton Anderson Reynolds, grandchildren McKenzie and Megan Hoffman, stepson Adam Flick and wife Helene, step-grandchildren Felix and Maximilian.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Loni Anderson, the twice Emmy-nominated star of WKRP in Cincinnati, has died at the age of 79, days…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":116825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[185,171,73124,67,132,68,73164],"class_list":{"0":"post-116824","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-loni-anderson","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us","14":"tag-wkrp-in-cincinnati"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114967542915288014","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}