I’m a Real Woman With a Real Heart: Loni Anderson, 1945-2025

What did Jennifer do on WKRP in Cincinnati? She didn’t take dictation. She didn’t get coffee. Mostly we’d see her filing her nails or otherwise taking care of her appearance. She was clearly smart, but she didn’t use it and didn’t have to. She was putting people in their places when they needed it. She was a major reason people watched the show, because she looked like Loni Anderson. And she knew it, and she got a salary increase because of it. She kept working, but she would never have a role like that again.

Her father was an environmental chemist and her mother was a model, which feels like the set-up to a joke but also feels right for a smart, beautiful woman. Her father wanted to name her Leilani but didn’t trust what she’d be called in high school, so it just became Loni. She married her first husband right out of high school, by the looks of it, but then she went to Hollywood to make a career for herself. She had one role in 1966, and from there she wasn’t in anything for a decade.

Starting in the ‘70s, she began the one-episode circuit. She auditioned for Three’s Company and didn’t get the part of Chrissy. She did, however, have a single episode. She also had a Love Boat before stardom, with Steve Allen, Polly Bergen, and Sandy Duncan. After only a couple of years, she landed the role of Jennifer, and that was it. From that point on, she was one of the biggest stars of her era. She was nominated for Emmys in 1980 and 1981, losing to Loretta Swit and Eileen Brennan.

Unfortunately, by the time WKRP ended, the tabloids had her; allegedly, Princess Diana once sent Burt Reynolds a card thanking him for keeping her off the cover of People. He accused her of spending a lot, and she accused him of physical and emotional abuse. So, you know, those are equal. She said it was his drug use that made him threaten her with a gun, but the fact remains, the details of their divorce were a bigger splash than her actual career at the time.

In the years since then, Anderson didn’t make an enormous splash in much. She apparently priced herself out of Designing Women. I haven’t seen much she’s done other than WKRP, but even that is enough to know that she was capable of acting, though I suspect she was a stay-in-her-lane actress. But as Jennifer, she was luminous. Her delivery of every line in “Turkeys Away,” the episode I watch most often, is perfect. She was a fine actress and a lovely woman.