Wednesday, December 13, 2023

I always liked Bailey (Jan) better than Jennifer (Loni).


Karin "Jan" Smithers, best known for playing Bailey Quarters on WKRP in Cincinnati, was discovered when a Newsweek photographer was taking photos for the 1965 Pacific Palisades high school graduating class.
This was the photo that started it all for Karin Jan Smithers, in Woodland Hills, CA in 1966.


It took the assistance of half a dozen people and months of dead ends to track down "Jan" Smithers, by far the most famous of the six teenagers Newsweek profiled in 1966. She chose Jan as her Hollywood fame name.
After appearing on the cover of Newsweek's teen issue, blond, sun-kissed, seated on a motorcycle and flashing a killer smile, Smithers and her mother soon got all kinds of calls from "many, many" Hollywood agents hoping to represent her, and she decided it might be interesting to do acting. Jan and her mother went to meet some Hollywood agents but Jan was always interested in Art. She opted for Choinard Art Institute. A little later on she decided to pursue acting.
She then was on the back page of Hot Rod Magazine of March 1967.


The same ad ran in Motor Trend Aug 67.
Here is one more from early in Jan's modeling career. Here she sits inside a Triumph TR-4 roadster. The car most likely belonged to one of the photographers she'd met at the beach that day. Jan relates that she was playing hooky from school watching her boyfriend surf as she sat on the beach.


And from there, Jan’s family was contacted by Hollywood agents and modeling reps. Work in TV began in 1973 and continued until 1987, with stops on The Love Boat, Starsky & Hutch, Murder, She Wrote, and Mike Hammer. She spent ten years married to James Brolin from ‘86 to 1995.


But most of my memories are from her playing Bailey Quarters on WKRP in Cincinnati from 1978 - 1982.

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