Actor who starred as the smart receptionist in WKRP in Cincinnati and was married to Burt Reynolds for six years
The actor Loni Anderson, who has died aged 79, after a long illness, gained her greatest recognition on screen in the American sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati, playing Jennifer Marlowe, the intelligent, cool and collected receptionist at a flagging Ohio radio station. Hugh Wilson, the former Atlanta advertising executive who created the programme, which ran for four series between 1978 and 1982, said he picked Anderson for her looks. But, he added, she insisted she would not portray Jennifer as a “dumb blonde”.
“I don’t want to play this part because I think she’s just here to deliver messages and is window dressing,” she told Wilson. “Let’s make her look like Lana Turner and be the smartest person in the room.” Wilson also made the receptionist the station’s highest-paid employee, who refuses to make coffee, take dictation or type letters.
“I think women loved the fact I was sexy and smart,” Anderson said in 2011. “I know it sounds crazy to people today, but in 1978, when we came on, not many women were doing both in comedy.”
Jennifer, a model of calm and efficiency surrounded by incompetence, was most often seen deflecting unwanted business calls for Arthur “Big Guy” Carlson (played by Gordon Jump), the station’s bumbling general manager, and the attentions of Herb Tarlek (Frank Bonner), the boorish sales manager. Anderson’s performance earned her nominations for two Emmy awards and three Golden Globes.
