By Steve Gorman
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -Actress Loni Anderson, who won acclaim for her U.S. television sitcom role as the brainy, glamorous radio station receptionist defying workplace sexual stereotypes on “WKRP in Cincinnati,” died on Sunday at age 79, according to her publicist.
Anderson, also remembered for her much-publicized storybook marriage to actor Burt Reynolds in 1988 and their tabloid-fixated divorce six years later, died at a Los Angeles hospital “following an acute prolonged illness,” her family said.
“We are heartbroken to announce the passing of our dear wife, mother and grandmother,” the family said in a statement, adding that she was surrounded by loved ones.
Anderson, a native of St. Paul, Minnesota, and natural brunette who competed in local beauty pageants and got her showbiz start in community theater, dyed her hair platinum blonde after moving to Los Angeles in the mid-1970s.
A flurry of television work followed, with appearances on such prime-time series as “The Bob Newhart Show,” “Police Story,” “The Incredible Hulk”, “The Love Boat” and “Three’s Company.”
She had auditioned for the role of one of the two female lead characters, Chrissie, on “Three’s Company,” but the part ultimately went to Suzanne Somers.
Anderson’s big break came soon after when she landed the co-starring role of Jennifer Marlowe on “WKRP in Cincinnati,” persuading the show’s producers to let her play the part against the stereotype of a bubble-headed blonde.
Instead, her character was written as the deceptively shrewd receptionist who refused to take dictation or fetch coffee but turns out to be the smartest person in the room, keeping the fictional Ohio radio station afloat despite the shortcomings of male bosses.
The show ran four seasons, 1978-1982, on the CBS network, and earned Anderson two prime-time Emmy nominations.
She also played two real-life, ill-fated sex sirens of earlier Hollywood eras in a pair of made-for-TV-movies – “The Jayne Mansfield Story,” co-starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as her bodybuilder husband during the 1950s, and “The Mysterious Murder of Thelma Todd,” set in the 1930s.
In all, Anderson starred in six television series, seven feature films, 19 television movies and two mini-series during a four-decade career she chronicled in her best-selling autobiography, “My Life in High Heels.”
She and Reynolds first met in 1981 as guests on a television talk show, began dating a year later and co-starred in the 1983 race car-themed romantic comedy film “Stroker Ace.” They wed in 1988, she for the third time, he for the second.
Anderson is survived by her adopted son, Quinton Anderson Reynolds, and her fourth husband, Bob Flick, a member of the 1950s-60s folk-singing group the Brothers Four.
(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
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