Overview

• Loni Anderson died on August 3, 2025, at age 79, prompting a People magazine retrospective on August 4 that revisits her partnership with Burt Reynolds.
• Coverage underscores her steadfast presence during Reynolds’s 1984 City Heat stunt accident, which left him bedridden and battling chronic pain for two years.
• She supported his recovery through a year of medically supervised detox after he admitted taking up to 50 Halcion pills daily to manage excruciating pain.
• The retrospective also recounts their 1988 marriage, 1994 divorce marked by mutual cheating accusations and tabloid warfare, and their later reconciliation before Reynolds’s 2018 death.
• Anderson’s role in Reynolds’s life has renewed discussions about 1980s Hollywood stunt safety and the broader issue of prescription drug dependence.