Los Angeles – Loni Anderson, who played a fighting radio station in the authorized receptionist in the HIT TV comedy “WKRP in Cincinnati”, died on Sunday, a few days before her 80th birthday.
Anderson died after a “longer” illness in a hospital in Los Angeles, said her long -time publicist Cheryl J. Kagan.
“We are aware of the death of our dear wife, mother and grandmother with a broken heart,” said Anderson's family in a explanation.
“WKRP in Cincinnati” was broadcast from 1978 to 1982 and was in a flagging radio station in Ohio and tried to reinvent itself with rock music. The line -up included Gary Sandy, Tim Reid, Howard Hesseman, Frank Bonner and Jan Smithers, alongside Anderson as a sexy and intelligent Jennifer Marlowe.
As a receptionist of the station, the blonde and high-heeled Jennifer used her sex appell to distract unwanted business according to her boss, Mr. Carlson. The station often kept their efficiency before the incompetence of others.
Anderson brought the role of two Emmy Award nominations and three Golden Globe nominations.
Anderson played on the big screen in addition to Burt Reynolds in the comedy “Stroker Ace” from 1983. Before their chaotic separation in 1994, the two married boulevard newspapers.
Her son Quinton Reynolds was “the best decision we have ever made in our entire relationship,” she said during the unveiling of a bronze bust on Reynolds' Hollywood Grave Site 2021.
“I think of the beginning of our relationship, it was like that, oh, god, boulevardy. We were just a spectacle all the time. And it was difficult to have a relationship in this atmosphere. And somehow we did it through many ups and downs,” Anderson told the Associated Press.
Anderson detailed her turbulent marriage in the 1995 autobiography, “My life in high heels”, which she said, about the growth of a woman, a woman who survives.
“I think if you want to write about yourself, you have to do it and do everything,” Anderson told the AP while he advertises the book. “They may not even tell the nicest things about themselves because they say the truth.”
She married four times, most recently in 2008 with Bob Flick.
Anderson was born on August 5, 1945 in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Her father was an environmental chemist and her mother was a model.
Her first role as an actress was a small role in the film “Nevada Smith” from 1966 with Steve McQueen. Most of her career was spent in the 1970s on the small screen with early hospitals on “Swat” and “police woman”. After “WKRP”, Anderson played in the short-lived comedy series “Easy Street” and played in films for TV films, including “A Letter to Three Wives” and “White Hot: The Mysterious Mord of Thelma Todd”.
In 2023 she played in Lifetime's “Women of the 80s: A Divas Christmas” with Linda Gray, Donna Mills, Morgan Fairchild and Nicollette Sheridan.
“I am broken with the death of the wonderful Loni Anderson!” Fairchild wrote about X. “The sweetest, most lovely woman! I'm only on the ground to hear that.”
Anderson is survived by Flick, her daughter Deidra and the son-in-law Charlie Hoffman, the son Quinton Anderson Reynolds, the grandchildren McKenzie and Megan Hoffman, the stepson Adam Flick and his wife Helene and step-cooler Felix and Maximilian.
A private family service is planned at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, said Kagan.
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Associated press journalist Itzel Luna in Los Angeles contributed.