Cranky Lesbian

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Tag: Loni Anderson

The Price She Paid: Loni Anderson’s Bitter Custody Fight

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On June 15, 2023

In TV Movies

Loni Anderson prepares to perform “Batdance” while dressed as Prince.

If there’s anything more enjoyable than a terrible wig in a TV movie, it’s a terrible wig atop the head of beloved superstar Loni Anderson, who brought us both my favorite mother-daughter prostitution film, My Mother’s Secret Life, and my favorite unnecessary remake of a Barbara Stanwyck classic in Sorry, Wrong Number. In The Price She Paid, a 1992 CBS telefilm that found a second home on Lifetime, she wears a shaggier, peroxided version of Patrick Duffy’s Daddy ‘do that blinds you as it draws you in, as if to ensure your attention doesn’t wander.

Anderson fans can be forgiven for wondering whether The Price She Paid is a biopic about her many financial disputes with Burt Reynolds, whom she was soon to bitterly divorce. The answer, sadly, is no. It’s about the emotionally bruising and politically charged custody fight her Lacey Stewart, single mother to 12-year-old R.T. (Coleby Lombardo), is plunged into when the boy’s father, her rapist, is paroled. And I’m serious when I say that Anderson, typically faulted here for her vacant stares and robotic delivery, acquits herself nicely when the screenplay serves up something meaty.

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Sorry, Wrong Number Gets the Loni Anderson Treatment

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On January 17, 2023

In TV Movies

Loni Anderson could use some Anacin for her neuralgia and neuritis in Sorry, Wrong Number.

Was Barbara Stanwyck’s death in January of 1990 perhaps hastened by the premiere of Loni Anderson’s made-for-television remake of Sorry, Wrong Number in October of 1989? The coroner’s report contains nothing to support that irresponsible theory, but it’s difficult not to wonder how Stanwyck, arguably the greatest American film actress in the history of the medium, felt about this silly project, one of many ’80s TV remakes of classic films. What must she have made of Anderson’s performance in particular, beginning with the stilted delivery that’s reminiscent of Brenda Dickson welcoming you to her home? (The video will inevitably be scrubbed from YouTube, but the legend lives on in print.)

Dressed alternately as a stewardess and a Sea Org member, her strikingly unnatural wig brilliantly capturing the sunlight in flashbacks, Anderson—who we last enjoyed as a robotic and impeccably attired escort in My Mother’s Secret Life—plays Madeleine Coltrane, middle-aged heiress to the country’s fourth-largest pharmaceutical empire. Screenwriter Ann Louise Bardach and director Tony Wharmby don’t probe too deeply, but we understand that her tycoon father Jim (Hal Holbrook) has kept her in an overprotective bubble. However, her guilelessness is so pronounced that during the interminable scenes that Madeleine spends hanging on the telephone, my thoughts turned to how she’d react if Beverly Sutphin called.

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My Mother’s Secret Life … as an Escort

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On May 6, 2022

In TV Movies

Loni Anderson (un)dresses for success in My Mother’s Secret Life.

The big daughter-seeks-birth-mom TV event that everyone remembers from 1984 is, of course, the miniseries Lace. History has unfairly forgotten My Mother’s Secret Life, and I’ll be pleased if I can get even one person to revisit it. It’s an engaging (and unintentionally funny) telefilm that is perhaps best described as “Loni Anderson’s Charlene moment.” I encourage everyone to get in the mood right now by listening to the song of which I speak.

Now that we’ve taken the hand of a preacher man and made love in the sun, I think we can continue. My Mother’s Secret Life opens with Anderson’s Ellen Blake draped in about 30 lbs of designer clothes and furs. It’s all soon to be removed with artful precision in a demanding john’s penthouse suite. “I’m the buyer here,” he tells her aggressively. “I want to know what I’m buying. You do come at a premium rate.”

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Introducing the Review Index

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On March 24, 2022

In Housekeeping

Live footage of “Garbage Day!” guy taking a gander at this site.

While watching tennis earlier (it’s the opening days of the Miami Open), I created a new page that indexes all the reviews I’ve written under the Cranky Lesbian moniker. For this endeavor I created an accompanying graphic with the tagline “Garbage Day!”, a nod to one of the most ridiculous scenes in movie history. This perhaps cements that I’ll only ever write about trash here.

Just for kicks, when I was done with that I experimented with Canva and created this janky-looking graphic promoting a future post. Would it have looked better with tiny banjos on either side of the subheading? I was afraid of doing anything that might’ve made Burt and Loni look tacky.

Beloved Superstar Loni Anderson

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On February 5, 2022

In Books

Loni Anderson poses belovedly on the cover of her memoir.

You knew it was only a matter of time before I examined some Loni Anderson TV movie content here. It’s coming eventually and in the meantime I’m consulting her autobiography for relevant information about her non-WKRP work. Having tackled this very silly book several years ago (don’t ask), I hadn’t anticipated a full rereading of it. But could you resist this dust jacket?

She’s not only a superstar, she’s one of America’s most respected women.

My clearest memories of My Life in High Heels — the acrimonious Burt Reynolds split, a steamy night with John Gavin — aren’t safe for Sunday school. But perhaps there are other lessons I could learn from one of America’s most respected women, beloved superstar Loni Anderson. There’s only one way to find out.

RELATED: If your interest was piqued by the Hedy Lamarr book in the background, here’s an old post about it.

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