Loni Anderson dead at 79

Actor Loni Anderson died on Sunday, according to the Associated Press. She was 79.

Her publicist confirmed she had died at a hospital in Los Angeles after a battle with a "prolonged illness".

Anderson was best known for playing the shrewd, high-heeled, radio station receptionist Jennifer Marlowe on hit TV show WKRP in Cincinnati.

She received Emmy nominations after the second and third years of the series in 1980 and 1981, but lost out to Loretta Swit of M*A*S*H and Eileen Brennan of Private Benjamin, respectively.

Anderson was also well known for her fairy-tale marriage to and subsequent acrimonious divorce from screen star Burt Reynolds.

She and Reynolds met for the first time in 1981 on The Merv Griffin Show when she was still married to actor Ross Bickell, and he was involved with actor Sally Field.

They began dating a year later, married in 1988, and adopted a son. Reynolds filed for divorce in 1993. The divorce proceedings were lengthy and acrimonious, with Reynolds later calling the marriage "a really dumb move".

Anderson portrayed doomed Hollywood sex sirens in two telefilms: 1980's The Jayne Mansfield Story - alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger, and 1991's White Hot: The Mysterious Murder of Thelma Todd.

In 1998 she starred with Will Ferrell in A Night at the Roxbury.