4.1.2021

Tanya Roberts

Victoria Leigh Blum (October 15, 1955 – January 4, 2021), known professionally as Tanya Roberts, was an American actress, producer, and model. She was best known for playing Julie Rogers in the final season of the 1970s television series Charlie’s Angels, Stacey Sutton in the James Bond film A View to a Kill, and Midge Pinciotti in 81 episodes of That ’70s Show from 1998 to 2004.

Early life

Roberts was born Victoria Leigh Blum in 1955 in the Bronx, New York City, the second child of a father of Irish descent and a Jewish mother. She had one older sister, Barbara. Roberts’s father supported their family on a modest income, working as a fountain pen salesman in Manhattan. Roberts and her sister were raised in the central Bronx.

She relocated from New York with her mother to live in Mississauga, Ontario, for several years, where she started forming a photo portfolio and laying plans for a modeling career. At age 15, she left high school and lived hitchhiking across the United States for a while. She eventually returned to New York City and became a fashion and cover model. After meeting psychology student Barry Roberts (while waiting in line for a movie), she proposed to him in a subway station, and they were soon married. While Barry pursued a career as a screenwriter, she began to study at the Actors Studio with Lee Strasberg and Uta Hagen under the name Tanya Roberts. As a result, she appeared in off-Broadway productions such as Picnic and Antigone.

Career

Roberts began her career as a model in TV ads for Excedrin, Ultra Brite, Clairol, and Cool Ray sunglasses. She played profound roles in the off-Broadway productions Picnic and Antigone. She also supported herself as an Arthur Murray dance instructor. Her film debut was the horror film Forced Entry (1975). This was followed by the comedy film The Yum-Yum Girls (1976).

In 1976 she was cast in The Last Victim, her screen debut.

In 1977, as her husband was securing his screenwriting career, the couple moved to Hollywood. The following year, Roberts participated in the drama Fingers. In 1979 Roberts appeared in the cult movie Tourist Trap, Racquet, and California Dreaming. Roberts was featured in several television pilots that were not picked up; Zuma Beach (a 1978 comedy), Pleasure Cove (1979), and Waikiki (1980).

Roberts was chosen in the summer of 1980 from some 2,000 candidates to replace Shelley Hack in the fifth season of the detective television series Charlie’s Angels. Roberts played Julie Rogers, a streetwise fighter who used her fists more than her gun. Producers hoped Roberts’s presence would revitalize the series’s declining ratings and regenerate media interest. Before the season’s premiere, Roberts was featured on the cover of People magazine with a headline asking if Roberts could save the declining series from cancellation. Despite the hype of Roberts’s debut in November 1980, the series continually drew dismal ratings and was canceled in June 1981.

Roberts played Kiri, a slave rescued by protagonist Dar (Marc Singer) in the adventure fantasy film The Beastmaster (1982), which became a cult film that included a topless swimming scene. She was featured in a nude pictorial in Playboy to help promote the movie, appearing on that issue’s October 1982 cover. In 1983, Roberts filmed the Italian-made adventure fantasy film Hearts and Armour (also known as Paladini-storia d’armi e d’amori and Paladins — The Story of Love and Arms), based on the medieval novel Orlando Furioso.

 She portrayed Velda, the secretary to private detective Mike Hammer, in the television movie Murder Me, Murder You (1983), based on crime novelist Mickey Spillane’s iconic Mike Hammer private detective series. The two-part pilot spawned the syndicated television series Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer. She declined to continue the Mike Hammer series’s role to work on her next project, the 1984 fantasy movie Sheena: Queen of the Jungle, in which she played the main character. The film was a box office and critical disaster, garnering her a nomination for “Worst Actress” at the Razzie Awards.

Roberts appeared as Bond girl Stacey Sutton, a geologist, in A View to a Kill (1985). After this performance, she was again nominated for a Razzie Award. Roberts’s other 1980s films include Night Eyes, an erotic thriller; Body Slam (1987), an action movie set in the professional wrestling world (another cult favorite); and Purgatory, a film about a woman wrongfully imprisoned in Africa.

Roberts starred in the erotic thriller Inner Sanctum (1991) alongside Margaux Hemingway. In 1992, she played Kay Egan in Sins of Desire. She appeared on the cable series Hot Line 1995 and the video game The Pandora Directive in 1996.

In 1998, Roberts took the role of Midge Pinciotti on the television sitcom That ’70s Show. Roberts revealed on E! True Hollywood Story that she left the series in 2001 because her husband had become terminally ill. She departed from the show following its 3rd season (with her character’s absence explained during the following season) and returned for a few special guest appearances in the 6th and 7th seasons in 2004. She retired from acting in 2005. She wrote the foreword to the book The Q Guide to Charlie’s Angels (2008). She maintained an active social media presence by hosting video chats on Facebook and Zoom during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Personal life

Roberts was married to Barry Roberts from 1974 until he died in 2006. They had no children. Roberts lived in Hollywood Hills, California. Her sister, Barbara Chase, was married to Timothy Leary.

After her death, her publicist, Mike Pingel, noted that she was an animal rights activist and suggested that her memorial donations be made to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in her name.

Death

On December 24, 2020, Roberts fell out of bed and could not get up, following intestinal pain and breathing difficulties that began on a previous hike. She was taken to Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles and was later placed on a ventilator. It was initially reported that Roberts died on January 3, 2021, after her partner, Lance O’Brien, told her manager that he had visited her in the hospital and “said goodbye.” O’Brien later clarified that this was an end-of-life visit; he had not been permitted to see her during her hospitalization due to the COVID-19 pandemic but was invited to return when Roberts was taken off life support. She was critically ill from a urinary tract infection that entered her organs and bloodstream. These later worsen a blood infection due to Roberts’s hepatitis C. After the premature reports. The hospital informed O’Brien that she died on January 4 and confirmed this to the media on January 5.