Burt Reynolds files for divorce from Loni Anderson (from the archives - 1993)
David Holmberg, The Palm Beach Post
Originally published in print on June 11, 1993\u00a0  \n Burt Reynolds and Loni Anderson, whose marriage in Jupiter five years ago was a pop culture extravaganza complete with media helicopters hovering ov…
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Palm Beach Post
Originally published in print on June 11, 1993

Burt Reynolds and Loni Anderson, whose marriage in Jupiter five years ago was a pop culture extravaganza complete with media helicopters hovering overhead, reached another milestone Thursday: They’re splitting up.

Reynolds, who conquered the big screen in Deliverance and the small screen in Evening Shade, filed for divorce in Martin County in Stuart. Both of the highly visible stars of screen, stage and television – dealing with the bad news through spokesmen – said the breakup was amicable.

An attorney for Reynolds, Noel Bobko, said the couple are going their separate ways because of irreconcilable differences” but that the divorce would be “handled with the highest dignity and decorum.”

Anderson said through a spokesman that “the decision to divorce was amicable and we’re still friends. We felt it was the best thing to do at this time.”

“This will not be a typical across-the-headlines Hollywood divorce. They’re just two nice people who’ve decided to go their separate ways. It just happens.”

Noting that Reynolds, 57, and Anderson, 42, have been together 11 years, Jackson said that’s “a long time by Hollywood standards.” But, referring to the couple’s 5-year-old adopted son, Quinton, Jackson said “they will remain friends. They will both be loving parents to their child and they will raise him together. They just won’t be living together.”

The divorce papers call for an equitable distribution of property.

Bobko declined to comment on custody beyond saying that Reynolds and Anderson would “take the high road and keep in mind the best interests of their son.”

Late Thursday afternoon, within hours of the suit’s filing, Anderson and Quinton left for Los Angeles.

Alighting from a limousine, they hurried through the concourse at Palm Beach International Airport, but Quinton began crying after they passed through a metal detector, raising his hands to shield himself from the flash of photographers’ cameras.

“It’s OK, baby,” Anderson told her son. “Look over here at mommy.”

The former star of WKRP in Cincinnati, wearing dark sunglasses and a black cowboy hat, was headed for the West Coast to shoot a new television series. She did not respond to questions.

She and her son and several other people ducked into a lounge to wait for a 5:55 p.m. flight. They were the last to board the Atlanta-bound connection, delaying its departure until after 6 p.m.

Earlier, neither Anderson nor Reynolds showed up at the courthouse for the filing, handled by Reynolds’ staff. Bobko denied the suit was filed there in hopes of cutting down on publicity. “It was filed there because the parties reside in Martin County,” Bobko said. The couple have a home in Hobe Sound.

At the courthouse, though, the filing was anything but under wraps.

>>RELATED: Burt and Loni stories revived from the historical archives

Court clerk Marsha Stiller said shortly before the office closed at 5 p.m. that she received calls from Los Angeles and New York and from radio stations from Orlando to Miami.

The office manager of the Indiantown Chamber of Commerce, who worked with Reynolds and his production crew while they filmed a made-for-TV movie there last month, said she was “shocked.”

“She (Anderson) was here on the set with their son several times,” Connie Whitaker said. “If they were having any trouble, you’d never know it to see them here.”

But in California, a few of the cognoscenti indicated there were hints of trouble in the marriage, billed as “idyllic” back in 1988.

Sources said Reynolds’ behavior on the Evening Shade set has been erratic of late, with a publicized feud with producer Linda Bloodworth-Thomason the most visible sign of trouble. They speculated that his behavior may have been caused by domestic problems.

The sources could not pinpoint the basis for those alleged problems, but they said they did not think infidelity was involved.

Jackson, Reynolds’ production assistant, would not comment on the reasons for the breakup.

“It’s a private matter between two public people,” he said. “We’ve gotta let ‘em have a little privacy, especially with the child involved.”

Reynolds just finished shooting a television film in Indiantown, The Man From Left Field. Jackson said post-production work will continue for a couple more weeks. He said Reynolds then might go to Europe and Hawaii to promote Evening Shade.

Reynolds spent his childhood in Palm Beach County, where his father was Riviera Beach police chief. He opened the Burt Reynolds Dinner Theater in Jupiter in 1979.

The marriage was the third for Anderson, the second for Reynolds. Anderson has a daughter from a previous marriage. She said not long after the nuptials with Reynolds: “Did I want to end up an old lady living alone and surrounded by statues, scrapbooks and memories? Or is it more important to have some fine man with whom to share a life . . . . I opted for the latter.”

Their wedding on April 29, 1988 on the actor’s 160-acre ranch west of Jupiter attracted 65 guests, including celebrities Perro Como, Ann-Margaret and Jim Nabors.

The simple ceremony took place in a cream-colored chapel.

The couple then rode a motorized stage-coach to a reception in an airplane hanger bedecked with flowers. They drank Dom Perignon. They dined on seafood and salmon. They danced to a five-piece orchestra. They looked forward to a five-day honeymoon in the Bahamas, aboard a yacht.

And Reynolds, then 52, said: “I love to be a newlywed at my age.”

>>RELATED: Reynolds, Anderson battle over site of divorce case (1993)