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.
