I met Loni Anderson 20 years ago in Los Angeles on a Television Critics Association press tour. It was at a cable network event that took place at the Universal Hilton. Other stars, including Wayne Newton and George Hamilton were in the room.
It was cool meeting those guys as well but Anderson stood out because of her warm greeting. She clasped my hand with both of hers upon introduction. I found her very friendly and down-to-earth, as did other reporters at the event. I don’t remember why she was there or what she was promoting but it was nice to meet Jennifer Marlow from WKRP in Cincinnati.
Anderson died Sunday in Los Angeles, just two days shy of her 80th birthday.
The Minnesota native was already a pin-up queen when she was cast on WKRP by Hugh Wilson. As the late writer-producer told me (as can be heard on brioux.tv: the podcast), Anderson was cast for her sex appeal but also for her comedy chops. The actress told Wilson she didn’t just want to play TV’s next “dumb blonde” and he took that note to heart in creating her character. As the radio station’s comely receptionist, she was the highest-paid and generally the smart one among the station’s daffy personnel.
Anderson and co-star Jan Smithers (Bailey Quarters) had sort of a Ginger (Tina Louise) and Mary Ann (Dawn Wells) from Gilligan’s Island thing happening. One was the fantasy or the unobtainable beauty; the other the attractive girl next door.
After WKRP‘s four-year run ended in 1982, other networks tried to take advantage of Anderson’s allure. She starred opposite former Wonder Woman Lynda Carter in another Hugh Wilson effort, Partners in Crime. In what would seem like a can’t miss casting stunt, they played over-attractive private investigators. The pin-up girl partnership, however, was a bust.
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As a young TV Guide Canada writer I was on the TCA tour by the time Easy Street, a 1986-86 comedy, was added to the NBC schedule. that forgettable sitcom cast her as a Beverly Hills widow who welcomes two middle-aged Hillbilly relatives (Jack Elam and Lee Weaver) to camp out at her mansion. Neither the press session nor the series was particularly memorable.
Like another pin-up queen from the ’70s, Three’s Company‘s Suzanne Somers, Anderson at one point held out for pay equal to that of her male costars. Unlike Somers, Anderson’s ploy worked and she got a raise. Her high price, however, later limited her to a two-episode arc on The New WKRP in Cincinnati (1991-93).
As a result, aside from the fourth and final season of the 1993-94 NBC series Nurses, she never won a broadcast network series starring role again. She did guest star on shows such as The Love Boat and Melrose Place and did voice work on animated kiddle fare such as “All Dogs Go to Heaven.”
Then there was that feature she did with Burt Reynolds, “B.L. Stryker” (1983). The NASCAR-themed, Hal Needham directed car chase romp did nothing for either of their careers but it did lead to their 1988 marriage (the third for Anderson and second for Reynolds). Together, they were a tabloid sensation, something I witnessed first hand at another press event, this time held at Walt Disney World. The theme park invited several jumbo jet loads of reporters to their Florida resort. Every tuxedo rental company in the state and beyond had been raided in order to glam up the media for the gala reception. Among the honoured guests of Michael Eisner and other Disney execs were John Glenn, Wally Schirra and all seven of NASA’s original Mercury astronauts.
Before you could say, “The Right Stuff,” reporters knocked the astronauts flying as the press stampeded towards the late arrivals: Burt and Loni. It was not the media’s most shining moment.
The Hollywood power couple adopted a son, Quinton, before the marriage ended in 1994. Reynolds did not hide his contempt for Anderson in his 2015 memoir, “But Enough About Me,” “She bought everything in triplicate,” was perhaps the nicest thing he had to say about her. Anderson came in for more grief in the 2020 documentary, “I Am Burt Reynolds,” produced by his niece Nancy Lee Hess, although the actress did at least get to tell her side of the story in that film.
There was one last little role that showed what might have been for Anderson had she not already been tarred and feathered for divorcing Mr. Smokey and the Bandit. In 2017, Anderson was cast in Bridget Everett’s Amazon Original Love You More. The outrageous comedy never made it past the pilot stage, but Anderson was very effective in it, showing an unseen, vulnerable side as Everett’s 71-year-old roommate.
As for WKRP‘s legacy, it would have been easy for Hugh Wilson and others to have simply cranked out just another “jiggle era” sitcom but, on Anderson’s insistence, they did not. Fact is, Herb Tarlek (Frank Bonner) wasn’t the only one who had a mad crush on the station’s hot receptionist. She didn’t just bedazzle Dr. Johnny Fever (Howard Hessman) and Venus Flytrap (Tim Reid). She brought heart as well as sex appeal to the series, especially when she went out on a date with Les Nessman (Richard Sanders). As for Fever’s dirty lie that Jennifer Marlow had undergone a sex change operation — well, Tarlek never got over that one.
Condolences to her children, family, friends and many fans.
