Loni Anderson to be immortalized on Hennepin

by Jay Gabler, TC Daily Planet • July 17, 2008 • It’s heartening to know that despite the scads of money it’s losing, Northwest Airlines hasn’t forgotten the importance of investing in its community. Specifically, investing in the arts. More specifically, investing in a celebration of our proud artistic heritage. Most specifically, chopping a hole in the Hennepin Avenue sidewalk and planting a plaque bearing the name of Minnesota native Loni Anderson, star of WKRP in Cincinnati and 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain.

Northwest is a sponsor, along with the Hennepin Theatre Trust and the Carlson Companies, of one of the goofier initiatives even in a 150th birthday celebration that has already brought us the Minnesota Historical Society’s “Sesqui-Scouts.” Thanks to these organizations’ largesse—and the efforts of Robert Roessel, a film buff of Gopher State extraction who currently runs Mexico’s Puerto Vallarta Film Festival—Hennepin Avenue will soon be home to our very own “Walk of Fame,” wherein “artist-designed terrazo plaques” will remind downtown denizens of the several Minnesotans who have gone on to achieve at least a middling level of national name recognition. Loni Anderson isn’t even the first to be honored! She may be a former Miss Roseville, but she still has to wait her turn behind Albert Lea’s Marion Ross (Ritchie’s mom on Happy Days, and the voice of SpongeBob’s grandmother) and New Ulm’s Tippi Hedren, the Birds star turned animal rescuer.

Arts Orbit is a multisource blog about the local arts scene, featuring both original contributions by Daily Planet writers and entries reprinted from partner blogs and online publications.

Where things will go from here, only God and the Puerto Vallartans know. Confirmed future honorees include Peter Graves, Robert Vaughn, Steve Zahn, and—yes!—Hercules himself, Kevin Sorbo. The list of “proposed honorees” suggests that Northwest would like to fly Jessica Biel in as well one of these days (I’m sure she’d get down on those $5 cheese-slice-and-meat-finger snack boxes), but personally I’d like to see them throw down a little terrazo for the inimitable Mary Pat Gleason, the only Minnesotan—perhaps the only person in the world—to have appeared onscreen with Hillary Duff and to be depicted in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. That’s worth a little chunk of Hennepin, wouldn’t you think?