Bailey Quarters (Jan Smithers)
WKRP in Cincinnati (1978-82)
''Wouldn't this be a great world,'' asked Albert Brooks in Broadcast News, ''if insecurity and desperation made us more attractive? If 'needy' were a turn-on?'' Bailey, the Waspily winsome junior radio-station staffer played by Jan Smithers on WKRP in Cincinnati, lived in that world. The character was probably eighth banana in the cast; the rare episodes in which she drove the action usually involved her trying to prove she deserved a promotion, screwing up big time, and convincing me that she needed my shoulder to cry on. As a bonus, I (like every other guy watching) could tell myself that I was the only viewer who was sensitive enough to prefer Bailey to the show's purported sex symbol, Loni Anderson. If you've ever wondered, wondered whatever became of Smithers, prepare for something of a romantic buzz kill: She stopped acting in 1987, when she married James Brolin. — Tom Conroy, senior editor