Jennifer Marlowe

Jennifer Marlowe
WKRP in Cincinnati character
Johnny Fever (Howard Hesseman) and Jennifer Marlowe
Portrayed by	Loni Anderson
Information
Gender	Female
Occupation	Receptionist
Nationality	American

Jennifer Elizabeth Marlowe is a character on the television situation comedy WKRP in Cincinnati (1978–82). She was played by actress Loni Anderson, who received two Emmy nominations and four Golden Globe nominations for playing the character.

Jennifer is a beautiful blonde parody of blonde bombshell actresses such as Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield. However, in an inversion of the "dumb blonde" stereotype, Jennifer is wise, sophisticated, intelligent, and well spoken. She became the receptionist at WKRP after moving to Cincinnati, succeeding Joyce Armor (Rosemary Forsyth), who is introduced in a later episode.

Jennifer comes from the fictional town of Rock Throw, West Virginia. She rarely talks about her family or childhood, but some details about her background did emerge over the course of the show. She comes from a large and apparently poor family. She was once "engaged" to her old elementary school sweetheart T.J. Watson (played as an adult by Hoyt Axton), but they never became a serious couple. She has been on her own since the age of seventeen when she left West Virginia to move to Cincinnati. She largely left her rural roots behind taking on the persona of an urbane modern woman, but her rural Southern upbringing does occasionally show through. For example, when speaking to her mother on the phone, she slips out of her adopted Standard American English accent and reverts into her native Appalachian accent. Although not overtly religious, on at least one occasion (Episode 35: God Talks to Johnny) she shows a remarkable ability to recite chapter and verse of the Bible from memory. Although she now eschews her poor upbringing she shows no sign of shame in it and once became offended when Mrs. Carlson mistakenly referred to her hometown as "Rock Pile".

After moving to Cincinnati, she soon attracted the attention of various wealthy older men. She rarely dates younger men, claiming "I like older men better. They're so mature and kind, and they tire easily." Her dates, most of whom are never seen, shower her with expensive gifts, allowing her to live in a huge penthouse apartment with a piano and a doorbell that plays the song "Fly Me to the Moon" (in the original network run) or "Beautiful Dreamer" (in subsequent syndication and the original Fox Season 1 DVD release. Shout! Factory restored the original doorbell chime for their subsequent DVD releases.). Also through her wealthy boyfriends, she has made friends with a number of wealthy high-society people, including Ronald Reagan; she implies in one episode that the president offered her the job of Secretary of the Treasury, but she turned it down. Her most frequently mentioned boyfriend is someone referred to only as "The Admiral," who in one episode, flies her to Bethlehem for Christmas. The episode "Jennifer and the Will" introduces another: Colonel Buchanan (Pat O'Brien), who dies and makes Jennifer executrix of his will. Though the papers portray Jennifer as a gold-digging floozy, it turns out that Jennifer has asked the Colonel not to leave her any money; he accedes to her request, leaving her only one dollar, the symbolic first dollar he ever made. Furthermore, when the video will recording of Buchanan specifies that the bulk of his estate be used to fund a celebration and parade for the veterans who served under him, Jennifer immediately began preparing to fulfill his wishes while his greedy family protested this bequest.