Tanya Roberts, the breathless voice actress who found fame in the 1980s as a detective on “Charlie’s Angels” and as a courageous earth scientist in the James Bond film “A View to a Kill”, died Monday night in Los Angeles. She was 65 years old.
His death at Cedars-Sinai Hospital was confirmed on Tuesday by his partner, Lance O’Brien. Her aide, who received erroneous information, announced her death to the media on Monday, and some news organizations published obituaries about her prematurely.
Advertiser Mike Pingel said Roberts passed out on Dec. 24 after walking his dogs near his Hollywood Hills home and was placed on a ventilator at the hospital. He did not say the cause of death, but said it was not related to Covid-19. He said that she had not been visibly ill before passing out.
Roberts’ big acting chance came in her early 20s, when she was cast for the fifth and final season of “Charlie’s Angels”, the ABC drama series that, negotiating with the sex appeal of its stars, followed the exploits of three ex-attractive police officers who often fight crime wearing short shorts, low-cut blouses and even bikinis.
The show was an immediate success in 1976, but Farrah Fawcett, its emerging star, left after one season, replaced by Cheryl Ladd. Kate Jackson left in 1979, and her replacement, Shelley Hack, left after just one season. Mrs. Roberts has replaced Mrs. Hack. Jaclyn Smith appeared throughout the series.
There were high hopes for Mrs. Roberts when she joined the cast. Her character, Julie, had some of Mrs. Jackson’s streetwise attitude; Julie was known for snatching a gun from the hand of a tough criminal. Her part failed to save the show’s declining audience, but it did lead her to an active decade in Hollywood.
Most notably, she was a “Bond girl”, playing a geologist threatened by a crazy microchip monopolist (Christopher Walken) in “A View to a Kill” (1985), Roger Moore’s last appearance as Agent 007.
Roberts also appeared in “The Beastmaster” (1982), a fantasy film. And she played the title role in “Sheena” (1984), a highly publicized adventure film inspired by a comic book character from the jungle queen. Sheena, a female Tarzan type, wore tiny fur clothes with a neckline, rode a zebra, talked to animals and changed shape. The film failed at the box office and Roberts began to disappear from public view.
She returned to the spotlight in 1998 on the sitcom “That ’70s Show” as the glamorous young mother of a midwestern teenager (Laura Prepon). In that role she was beautiful, slim and sexy – and deliciously stupid. The comic mystery, year after year, was how her short, stocky husband, played by Don Stark with frighteningly grown chops, had won her heart. Ms. Roberts appeared on the show for three seasons and then made special visits.
She was born Victoria Leigh Blum in the Bronx on October 15, 1955, the second of two daughters to Oscar Maximilian Blum, a fountain pen salesman, and Dorothy Leigh (Smith) Blum. According to some sources, Tanya was his nickname. She spent her childhood in the Bronx and lived briefly in Canada after her parents’ divorce. She started her career by running away from home to become a model at the age of 15.
Back in New York, she studied acting, appeared in some off-Broadway productions and worked as a model and dance instructor to survive. Her modeling career included working for Clairol and Ultra-Brite toothpaste. She made her on-screen debut in the horror thriller “The Last Victim” (1976), about a serial rapist-killer.
After “Charlie’s Angels”, Ms. Roberts acted on television and in the cinema. Her roles included private investigator Mike Hammer’s secretary in the television movie “Murder Me, Murder You” (1983), a detective working undercover at a sex clinic in “Sins of Desire” (1993) and a radio host on the erotic series of anthologies “Hot Line” (1994-96). His last appearance on the screens was in Showtime’s “Barbershop” series, in 2005.
Even in her prime, Mrs. Roberts did not seem to like being interviewed. Talking to Johnny Carson on “The Tonight Show” in 1981, she laughed nervously, gave short answers and flirted with her fellow guest Michael Landon. At one point, Mr. Carson mentioned a cover article about her in People magazine, prompting Ed McMahon, the host’s assistant, to suggest, “Maybe there is something in the magazine that is interesting.”
Mrs. Roberts was a teenager when she married in 1971, but the union was quickly canceled at the insistence of her new mother-in-law. In 1974, she met Barry Roberts, a psychology student, while the two were in line at a movie theater. They were married that year. Roberts became a screenwriter and died in 2006 at the age of 60.
In addition to O’Brien, she leaves a sister, Barbara Chase, who was the fourth wife of Timothy Leary.
Mrs. Roberts always insisted that she was a New Yorker at heart, and not just because she hated driving.
“LA drives you crazy,” she said in the 1981 People magazine article. “I’m used to the weather, the walks and the people who say what they mean.”