Tanya Roberts Biography
Tanya Roberts was an American actress who made her mark in Hollywood . Born Victoria Leigh Blum on October 15, 1949, in New York, she began her career as a model, featuring in TV ads for several renowned brands such as Excedrin, Ultra Brite, Clairol, and Cool Ray sunglasses.
Tanya Roberts was a versatile actress, taking on serious roles in off-Broadway productions such as Picnic and Antigone, and even worked as an Arthur Murray dance instructor to support herself. Her breakthrough film role was in The Last Victim (1975), followed by The Yum-Yum Girls (1976), and she later appeared in The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover (1977) and Fingers (1978).
In 1980, Tanya Roberts was selected from a pool of 2,000 candidates to replace Shelley Hack in the fifth season of the detective TV series Charlie’s Angels. Her role as Julie Rogers, a streetwise fighter who used her fists more than her gun, was highly anticipated, and her debut was featured on the cover of People magazine. However, despite her presence, the series continued to experience poor ratings and was eventually cancelled in 1981.
She gained a cult following for her roles in films such as The Beastmaster (1982), where she played Kiri, and Sheena: Queen of the Jungle (1984), where she played the main character. Roberts was also nominated for two Razzie Awards for her roles in Sheena and A View to a Kill (1985), where she was cast as Bond girl Stacey Sutton.
During the 1980s, Tanya Roberts appeared in several other films, including Night Eyes, an erotic thriller, Body Slam (1987), an action movie set in the professional wrestling world, and Purgatory, a movie about a woman wrongfully imprisoned in Africa. Roberts also recorded reference footage for The Legend of Zelda, which was used by producers during the creation of the animated adaptation.
In 1991, Tanya Roberts starred in the erotic thriller Inner Sanctum alongside Margaux Hemingway and played Kay Egan in Sins of Desire in 1992. She also appeared on the cable series Hot Line in 1995 and in the video game The Pandora Directive in 1996.
In 1998, Tanya Roberts took on the role of Midge Pinciotti on the television sitcom That ’70s Show. She left the series after the 3rd season in 2001 because her husband had become terminally ill, but returned for a few special guest appearances in the 6th and 7th seasons in 2004.
Tanya Roberts was married to Barry Roberts from 1974 until his death in 2006. She became the partner of Lance O’Brien. In December 2020, she fell ill while hiking and was hospitalized with a urinary tract infection that had advanced to sepsis. Her illness was complicated, and on January 3, 2021, she was taken off life support and died on January 4 at the age of 71.