Tanya Roberts

Tanya Roberts came from modest beginnings in the Bronx, New York, the younger daughter of a Jewish American pen salesman (Oscar Blum) and an English mother (Dorothy Smith), who divorced before she reached high school. Tanya dropped out of high school, got married and hitchhiked around the country until her mother-in-law had the marriage annulled. She met psychology student Barry Roberts in New York while waiting in line to see a movie. A few months later, she proposed to him in a subway station, and they were married. She studied acting under Lee Strasberg and Uta Hagen. In her early years in New York, she supported herself as an Arthur Murray dance instructor and by modeling. She appeared in off-Broadway productions of “Picnic” and “Antigone,” and in television commercials for Ultra Brite, Clairol and Cool Ray sunglasses.

In 1977, Tanya and her husband — by then a scriptwriter — moved to Hollywood. She began appearing in made-for-TV films including Pleasure Cove (1979), Zuma Beach (1978), and Waikiki (1980). Her film debut was in The Last Victim (1976). After appearing in several minor films, her first big break came when she was selected as the last “Angel” on Charlie’s Angels (1976)’s final season, and was featured on the cover of “People Magazine” (02/09/1981). The attention she garnered helped secure her most significant film parts: The Beastmaster (1982) (and posed for the cover and an inside spread in “Playboy” to promote the film), the title role in Sheena (1984) and as a Bond Girl in A View to a Kill (1985). She continued to appear in films, though mainly direct-to-video and direct-to-cable features. She was featured in the CD computer game The Pandora Directive (1996) and had a recurring lead role in the television series That ’70s Show (1998). Widowed in 2006, Tanya Roberts died of sepsis from a urinary tract infection in 2021.