Loni Anderson — Movies & TV Shows

Biography

Loni Kaye Anderson (August 5, 1945 – August 3, 2025) was an American actress who played the role of Jennifer Marlowe on the television sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati. Anderson was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, August 5, 1945, the daughter of Maxine Hazel (née Kallin), a model, and Klaydon Carl "Andy" Anderson, 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 liable to be twisted into "Lay Loni." So it was changed to just plain "Loni." Anderson's most famous acting role came as receptionist Jennifer Marlowe on WKRP in Cincinnati. Her pinup photo in a bikini became one of the best-selling wall posters of the 1970s. She and husband Burt Reynolds made one film together, the 1983 stock-car racing comedy Stroker Ace, a huge box-office failure. Shortly after her divorce from Reynolds, she appeared as a regular in the fin…