Loni Anderson Subverted Dumb Blonde Stereotypes on ‘WKRP in Cincinnati’

Loni Anderson wasn’t the first comic actress to turn stereotypes about blonde bombshells on their head. Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield and Mamie Van Doren entertained a generation of moviegoers with flirty, “not as dumb as she looks” performances. The idea that a sexy woman could also be smart shouldn’t have been a revelation, but it seemed to fool a lot of comedy lunks. 

Anderson, who passed away Sunday just a few days shy of her 80th birthday, subverted those comic conventions on the sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati. The harried executive’s buxom blonde secretary had been a staple of Playboy magazine cartoons and dirty jokes for decades, but WKRP receptionist Jennifer Marlowe ignored the old punchlines. While she may have looked the part of the ditzy blonde, Marlowe was anything but. If Marilyn Monroe occasionally played dumb to trick others into getting her way, Marlowe played smart. Her receptionist title conveyed low status, but there was never any question who was running the joint.

Ask Jennifer to get coffee? Get it yourself. Type a letter? Let’s get something straight — she wasn’t a secretary. “I am a receptionist. Receptionists receive,” she explained on one episode. “They offer comfort, provide support, answer a few telephone calls. But they do not type, unless it’s for a very good cause.”

That’s the central joke of Jennifer Marlowe: What’s a brilliant girl like you doing in a place like this? In the WKRP in Cincinnati mythology, Ronald Reagan offered her the job as Secretary of the Treasury — she turned him down. We never saw the character on the arms of pretty boys. She preferred the company of the world’s most successful men, who competed for her affections in a contest no one ever won. 

Step back, Dr. Johnny Fever — Jennifer was WKRP’s highest-paid employee. And no one questioned that she deserved every penny. 

None of this works if Marlowe is made of ice, a cool, calculating beauty manipulating everyone from behind the scenes. What made Anderson’s performance remarkable was the warmth she brought to Marlowe, a character determined to “offer comfort, provide support.” She somehow managed to make the character sexy without being a flirt — Jennifer understood the power of her beauty, but chose to wield intelligence as her sword instead. 

Anderson didn’t luck into the role — she created it. She initially turned down the part because the original character was “just here to deliver messages and is window dressing,” she told Studio Ten. So producer Hugh Wilson asked her how she’d do it. Together, they conspired to “make her look like Lana Turner and be the smartest person in the room.”

It’s easy to lump Anderson in with ‘70s TV contemporaries who found themselves posing in swimsuits for teenage wall posters — Daisy Duke, Wonder Woman, the ladies of Charlie’s Angels. But Anderson’s Jennifer Marlowe was funnier than any of them, a sly, sophisticated take on beautiful comic characters that laid the foundation for Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde and many others who followed.