LOS ANGELES — Loni Anderson, who performed a struggling radio station’s empowered receptionist on the hit TV comedy “WKRP in Cincinnati,” died Sunday, simply days earlier than her eightieth birthday.
Anderson died at a Los Angeles hospital following a “extended” sickness, mentioned her longtime publicist, Cheryl J. Kagan.
“We’re heartbroken to announce the passing of our expensive spouse, mom and grandmother,” Anderson’s household mentioned in an announcement.
Loni Anderson arrives on the seventeenth Costume Designers Guild Awards on the Beverly Hilton Resort on Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2015, in Beverly Hills, Calif.
Picture by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP
“WKRP in Cincinnati” aired from 1978-1982 and was set in a flagging Ohio radio station attempting to reinvent itself with rock music. The solid included Gary Sandy, Tim Reid, Howard Hesseman, Frank Bonner and Jan Smithers, alongside Anderson because the horny and sensible Jennifer Marlowe.
Because the station’s receptionist, the blonde and high-heeled Jennifer used her intercourse attraction to deflect undesirable enterprise requires her boss, Mr. Carlson. Her effectivity typically stored the station operating within the face of others’ incompetence.
The function earned Anderson two Emmy Award nominations and three Golden Globe nominations.
Anderson starred on the massive display screen alongside Burt Reynolds within the 1983 comedy “Stroker Ace” and the 2 later married and have become tabloid fixtures earlier than their messy breakup in 1994.
Their son, Quinton Reynolds, was “the very best choice that we ever made in our whole relationship,” she mentioned throughout the unveiling of a bronze bust at Reynolds’ Hollywood grave web site in 2021.
“I feel again to the start of our relationship, it was so, oh, gosh, tabloidy. We had been only a spectacle on a regular basis. And it was onerous to have a relationship in that ambiance. And one way or the other, we did it by means of many ups and downs,” Anderson instructed The Related Press.
Anderson detailed their tumultuous marriage within the 1995 autobiography, “My Life in Excessive Heels,” which she mentioned was about “the expansion of a lady, a lady who survives.”
“I feel if you are going to write about your self, you must do it warts and all,” Anderson instructed the AP whereas selling the e book. “You might not even inform the nicest issues about your self, since you’re telling the reality.”
She married 4 occasions, most not too long ago to Bob Flick in 2008.
Anderson was born Aug. 5, 1945, in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Her father was an environmental chemist, and her mom was a mannequin.
Her first function as an actress was a small half within the 1966 movie “Nevada Smith,” starring Steve McQueen. Most of her profession was spent on the small display screen with early visitor elements within the Seventies on “S.W.A.T.” and “Police Girl.” After “WKRP” Anderson starred within the short-lived comedy collection “Simple Road” and appeared in made-for-TV motion pictures together with “A Letter to Three Wives” and “White Sizzling: The Mysterious Homicide of Thelma Todd.”
Whereas dealing with her medical analysis with willpower, she continued working and co-starred in Lifetime’s “Women Of The 80s: A Divas Christmas” with Linda Grey, Donna Mills, Morgan Fairchild and Nicollette Sheridan. The favored TV film aired on Dec. 2, 2023, as a part of a Great Lifetime vacation slate.
Anderson is survived by Flick, her daughter Deidra and son-in legislation Charlie Hoffman, son Quinton Anderson Reynolds, grandchildren McKenzie and Megan Hoffman, stepson Adam Flick and spouse Helene, and step-grandchildren Felix and Maximilian.
A personal household service is deliberate on the Hollywood Perpetually Cemetery, Kagan mentioned.
Related Press journalist Itzel Luna in Los Angeles contributed.
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