Early life

Anderson was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, the daughter of Maxine Hazel (née Kallin) (1924-1985), a model, and Klaydon Carl "Andy" Anderson (1922-1977), an environmental chemist, and grew up in suburban Roseville. As a senior at Alexander Ramsey Senior High School in Roseville in 1963, she was voted Valentine Queen of Valentine's Day Winter Formal. She attended the University of Minnesota. As she says in her autobiography, My Life in High Heels, her father was originally going to name her "Leiloni" but then realized to his horror that when she got to her teen years it was likely to be twisted into "Lay Loni." So it was changed to simply "Loni".

Career

Her acting debut came with a bit part in the 1966 film Nevada Smith, starring Steve McQueen. After that, she went virtually unemployed as an actress for nearly a decade, before she finally began achieving guest roles on episodic television shows in the mid-1970s. She appeared in two episodes of S.W.A.T., and later appeared on the sitcom Phyllis, as well as the detective shows Police Woman and Harry O. In 1978, she guest starred as Susan Walters on a season two episode of the popular sitcom Three's Company. Her appearance on the show brought her to the attention of the ABC network.

Anderson's most famous acting role came as the sultry receptionist Jennifer Marlowe on the sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati (1978-82). She was offered the role when producers saw the poster of her in a red swimsuit—a pose similar to Farrah Fawcett's famous 1976 pin-up. The sitcom's creator, Hugh Wilson, later admitted that Anderson got the part because her body resembled Jayne Mansfield and because she possessed the innocent sexuality of Marilyn Monroe. Although the series suffered in the Nielsen ratings throughout the majority of its four-year run, it had a strong and loyal following among teenagers, young adults, and disc jockeys. Owing to her rising popularity as the show's so-called "main attraction," Anderson walked out on the sitcom during the 1980 summer hiatus of the series, requesting a substantial salary increase. During her hiatus, at a time when she was renegotiating her contract, she starred as blonde bombshell Jayne Mansfield in the CBS made-for-television film The Jayne Mansfield Story (1980). After the network agreed to her meet her requests, Anderson returned to the show and remained with it until its cancellation in 1982. The series has since remained popular in syndication around the world.

Aside from her acting career, Anderson has become known for her colorful personal life, particularly her relationship and marriage to actor Burt Reynolds. They starred in the comedy film Stroker Ace (1983), which was a critical and box office failure. She later appeared as herself in the romantic comedy The Lonely Guy (1984), starring Steve Martin. She voiced Flo, a collie in the animated classic film All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989).

In the mid-to-late 1980s, Anderson's acting career gradually declined. She was teamed with Wonder Woman actress Lynda Carter in the critically panned television series, Partners in Crime in 1984. She appeared in television adaptations of classic Hollywood films, such as A Letter to Three Wives (1985) with Michele Lee, and Sorry, Wrong Number (1989) with Patrick Macnee and Hal Holbrook, both of which received little attention. After starring in Coins in the Fountain (1990), Anderson received considerable praise for her portrayal of comedian actress Thelma Todd in the television movie White Hot: The Mysterious Murder of Thelma Todd (1991). In the early 1990s, she attempted to co-star with her husband Burt Reynolds on his new CBS sitcom Evening Shade, but the network was not fond of the idea, thus replacing Anderson with Marilu Henner. After Delta Burke was fired from the CBS comedy Designing Women in 1991, producers offered Anderson a role as Burke's replacement, which eventually never came to pass because the network refused to pay Anderson the salary she had requested. She did, however, agree to return as Jennifer Marlowe on two episodes of The New WKRP in Cincinnati, a sequel to the original series. In 1993, Anderson was added to the third season of the NBC sitcom Nurses, playing hospital administrator Casey MacAffee. Although her entering the series was an attempt to boost the show's ratings, the series was cancelled shortly thereafter. Anderson has since returned to guest starring on several popular television shows, such as playing the "witch-trash" cousin on Sabrina, the Teenage Witch and as Vallery Irons' mother on V.I.P. She also starred in A Night at the Roxbury (1998).

Personal life

Anderson has been married four times; her first three marriages were to: Bruce Hasselberg (1964-66), Ross Bickell (1973-81), and actor (and one-time co-star) Burt Reynolds (1988-93). On May 17, 2008, Anderson married musician Bob Flick, one of the founding members of the folk band The Brothers Four. The couple had first met at a movie premiere in Minneapolis in 1963. In 2003, while Anderson was in Seattle on her COPD education campaign, she was reunited with Flick at a dinner and the romance was reignited.

She has two children: a daughter, Deidre Hoffman (fathered by Hasselberg), who is a school administrator in California; and a son, Quinton Anderson Reynolds (born August 31, 1988), whom she and Reynolds adopted. Her autobiography, My Life in High Heels, was published in 1997.

Growing up with parents of the World War II generation, who both smoked, Loni witnessed the effects of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a lung disease often caused by smoking. In 1999, Ruane Communications contacted and secured Anderson as the first spokesperson for COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease), leading a national COPD education campaign, sponsored by Boehringer Ingelheim, maker of Combivent, an inhalation treatment for COPD. Over the course of the next six years, Anderson and medical spokesperson, Dr. Dennis Doherty, a nationally renowned pulmonologist from the University of Kentucky, led a national COPD education campaign with Ruane Communications, visiting 26 cities and generating more media coverage than any other COPD campaign to date.

For the past six years, Anderson has focused on a new health issue. In 2009, her daughter Deidre was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and stepped away from her position as a high school principal. Together, they have completed multiple select media interviews to help draw attention to the issues of this debilitating autoimmune disorder affecting the central nervous system.

Anderson was raised Lutheran and taught Sunday school.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1966	Nevada Smith	Brunette Saloon Girl	Uncredited
1976	Vigilante Force	Peaches	Uncredited
1983	Stroker Ace	Pembrook Femley
1989	All Dogs Go to Heaven	Flo	Voice
1992	Munchie	Cathy
1998	3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain	Medusa
1998	A Night at the Roxbury	Barbara Butabi

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1975	S.W.A.T.	Art Teacher / Miss Texas	Episode: "The Steel Security Blanket"
1978-82	WKRP in Cincinnati	Jennifer Marlowe	89 episodes
1978	The Incredible Hulk	Sheila Cantrell	Episode: "Of Guilt, Models and Murder"
1978	Three's Company	Susan Walters	Episode: "Coffee, Tea, or Jack"
1980	The Love Boat	Passenger	Episode: "The Kinfolk / Sis and the Slicker / Moonlight and Moonshine / Affair"
1980	The Jayne Mansfield Story	Jayne Mansfield	Movie
1981	Sizzle	Julie Davis	Movie
1984	Partners in Crime	Sydney Kovak	13 episodes
1985	A Letter to Three Wives	Lora Mae Holloway	Movie
1985	Amazing Stories	Love	Episode: "The Guilt Trip"
1986-87	Easy Street	L.K. McGuire	22 episodes
1987	Blondie and Dagwood	Blondie Bumstead (voice)	Movie
1988	Whisper Kill	Liz Bartlett	Movie
1988	Too Good to Be True	Ellen Berent	Movie
1989	Sorry, Wrong Number	Madeleine Stevenson	Movie
1990	B.L. Stryker	Dawn St. Claire	Episode: "Grand Theft Hotel"
1991	White Hot: The Mysterious Murder of Thelma Todd	Thelma Todd	Movie
1993-94	Nurses	Casey MacAfee	22 episodes
1994	Without Warning	Actress in opening movie segment	Movie Uncredited
1996	Melrose Place	Teri Carson	3 episodes
1997	Sabrina the Teenage Witch	Racine	Episode: "Witch Trash"
2003-04	The Mullets	Mandi Mullet-Heidecker	11 episodes
2006	So NoTORIous	Kiki Spelling	8 episodes

Further reading

• Her autobiography My life in high heels New York : Morrow (1995) OCLC 32703710

Charities

Loni Anderson supports the following charitable cause: Animals.

[ Source: Wikipedia ]