Picture: JC Olivera/Getty Pictures
Loni Anderson, the bombshell of WKRP in Cincinnati, has died after a “extended sickness.” She was 79. Her publicist, Cheryl J. Kagan, confirmed the actor’s passing to the Related Press. “We’re heartbroken to announce the passing of our pricey spouse, mom and grandmother,” her household stated in an announcement.
Loni Anderson was born in 1945 in St. Paul, Minnesota. In response to her memoir, My Life in Excessive Heels, her father initially needed to call her Leilani, however anxious kids would make enjoyable of her. So he settled for “Loni.” Anderson started appearing within the 60s. Her profession took off in 1978, when a visitor spot on Three’s Firm finally led to a starring position on WKRP in Cincinnati. The present was a workcom set at a struggling AM radio station. It additionally starred Gary Sandy, Gordon Bounce, and Howard Hesseman. Anderson was nominated for 3 Golden Globes and a pair of Emmys for her position of receptionist Jennifer Marlow.
Anderson turned a leisure information fixture by her relationship with Burt Reynolds. The 2 met on the field workplace bomb Stoker Ace in 1983. They married in 1988 and divorced in 1994. They’d a son, Quentin Anderson Reynolds, in 1988. “I feel again to the start of our relationship, it was so, oh, gosh, tabloidy. We have been only a spectacle on a regular basis,” Anderson advised AP in 2021. “And it was arduous to have a relationship in that ambiance. And in some way, we did it by many ups and downs.” She was married three different instances in her life, and was married to people singer Bob Flick on the time of her demise.
After WKRP, Anderson continued working into the 2020’s. She voiced Flo in All Canine Go to Heaven, co-starred in Bridget Everett’s Amazon pilot Love You Extra, and in 2023 starred in Lifetime’s Girls Of The 80s: A Divas Christmas with Linda Grey, Donna Mills, Morgan Fairchild and Nicollette Sheridan. She was mourned by her fellow diva Morgan Fairchild, who wrote on Twitter “I’m heartbroken to listen to of the passing of the great Loni Anderson! We did Bob Hope specials collectively & a Christmas film 2 years in the past. The sweetest, most gracious girl! I’m simply devastated to listen to this. Love & condolences to Bob (who was on set daily w her) & her children and grandkids, who she adored.”