Actress Loni Anderson made her mark playing the sassy Jennifer Marlowe on the television series "WKRP in Cincinnati". In the process, she proved that audiences would respond to a female character whose humor, smarts and strength were as prominent as her curves.

You might say that Loni Anderson was slotted into ultra-femal roles right from the start. Born on August 5, 1945, she grew up in a small town in Minnesota, where her first taste of fame was participating in a series of beauty pageants, culminating with the Miss Minnesota competition. That's where Anderson met Bruce Hasselberg, her first husband. They wed when she was still a teenager.

The marriage was short lived, and Anderson moved back with her parents and became a single mother to a daughter, Deidra. For the next few years, Anderson concentrated on motherhood and on studying to become a teacher. But the show business bug bit her again, and she began working in regional theater and TV commercials. After tying the knot with a fellow actor, Ross Bickell, Anderson moved west to Los Angeles to try her luck in Hollywood.

She guest-starred in shows such as "Three's Company" before landing a permanent role on "WKRP," a comedy about a radio station in Cincinnati, in 1978. Anderson agreed to play the role of secretary Jennifer Marlowe under one condition — that she be allowed to reshape the character beyond the confines of a dumb blonde stereotype.

Her funny, sharp-tongued portrayal helped make the show a big hit, and it won her nominations for both an Emmy and a Golden Globe in 1981. After "WKRP" was canceled in 1982, Anderson continued working steadily on various projects, including a TV movie, "The Jayne Mansfield Story," in which she starred opposite then-newcomer Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Off screen, things were not as rosy: Anderson's second marriage broke down and her father, the man she called "my hero," died. It was at this juncture that Anderson began her most famous relationship — with Hollywood stud Burt Reynolds. Their whirlwind courtship was straight out of a romance novel, replete with flowers, jewelry and gushing interviews with the press. Behind the scenes, however, things weren't picture-perfect. At the same time that her mother was succumbing to breast cancer, Anderson was shouldering the burden of helping Reynolds overcome an addiction to painkillers. He eventually kicked the habit, and, at 42, Anderson became a bride for the third time. Soon after, the couple adopted a baby boy, Quinton. After Reynolds served her divorce papers a few years later, Anderson endured a bitter and very public divorce, and she withdrew from the limelight. In fact, she stayed completely mum about the painful break-up until the 1995 publication of her book, "My Life in High Heels."

After a roller-coaster life of love and heartbreak, success and failure, Anderson, 54, has found peace. She now shares her life with attorney Geoff Brown, and son, Quinton; she is also a grandmother to two girls, Megan and McKenzie.