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Tanya Roberts (born Victoria Leigh Blum on October 15, 1954) is an American actress best known for her roles in Charlie's Angels, The Beastmaster, Sheena , A View to a Kill and That '70s Show.

Reportedly 5' 8" (1.73 m) tall and with measurements of 36-21-34, Roberts was regarded as one of Hollywood's most popular sex symbols during the early 1980s.

Biography

Early life and career

Tanya Roberts grew up in the Bronx, New York City. The daughter of an Irish American pen seller and a Jewish American woman, her parents divorced before she reached high school. Sister of Barbara Chase.

At age 15, she abandoned her studies to get married and lived for a while as hitchhiker, traveling across the United States until her mother-in-law annulled the union. Tanya continued to live in New York City, modelling and working as a dance teacher with Arthur Murray.

After meeting psychology student Barry Roberts while waiting in line for a movie, she soon married again, having proposed to him in a subway station. While Barry started a career as a screenwriter, Tanya began to study at the Actors' Studio with Lee Strasberg and Uta Hagen.

Starting out, Roberts landed several television commercials for Ultra Brite, Clairol and Cool Ray sunglasses and played serious roles in the off-Broadway productions Picnic and Antigone. She continued to support herself as an Arthur Murray dance instructor. Her film debut was the thriller Forced Entry (1975, Jim Sotos) together with Nancy Allen. This was followed by the comedy The Yum-Yum Girls (1976, Narry Rosen).

In 1977, as her husband was securing his own screenwriting career, the couple moved to Hollywood. In 1978, Tanya filmed the drama Fingers (by James Toback) co-starring Harvey Keitel, Tisa Farrow, Jim Brown and Danny Aiello. A role in the 1979 cult-movie Tourist Trap (by David Schmoeller) with Chuck Connors followed. She also appeared in the movies Racket (1979, by David Winters) with Bjron Borg, and California Dreaming (1979, by John Hancock).

Roberts also featured in several television pilots that were never picked up: Pleasure Cove, the comedy Zuma Beach (1978, by Lee H. Katzin, co-written by Halloween director John Carpenter) and Waikiki (1980).

The 1980s

In 1980, Roberts was chosen among other 2,000 candidates to replace Shelley Hack in Charlie's Angels in what later turned out to be the last season of the series. In the show, Roberts interpreted her character Julie Rogers as a streetwise fighter who used her fists more than her gun.

After this, her popularity exploded. She was the cover of People magazine (September 9, 1981) and was offered more ambitious projects, though it could be argued that this was due to her good looks rather than her acting talent.

In 1982, she played Kiri in the sword and sorcery movie The Beastmaster (by Don Coscarelli, creator of the Phantasm franchise) with Marc Singer. She also appeared in Playboy to help promote the movie, appearing on that issue's cover (November 1982).

In 1983, Tanya filmed the little-known adventure Paladini-storia d'armi e d'amori (Guns and Love Story) in Italy. She also appeared in an episode of Murder Me, Murder You (by Gary Nelson) as Velda, the secretary of the classic detective Mike Hammer (played by Stacy Keach). She declined to remain in the series (where she was replaced by Lindsay Bloom) in order to film her next film, 1984's Sheena: Queen of the Jungle (by John Guillermin), based on a character adapted from a Will Eisner's comic book. Dressed in scantily clad costumes, Sheena also introduced a new blonde hairstyle that Roberts would keep for the rest of her career. (The movie was a box office disaster and was mauled by the critics.)

The next year she appeared as a Bond girl the James Bond film A View to a Kill (1985, by John Glen) alongside Roger Moore as the superspy. Roberts played Stacey Sutton, the daughter of an oil baron, opposing the evil plans of villain Max Zorin (Christopher Walken) to destroy Silicon Valley. Although the film was Moore's last turn at playing Bond, the film was only marginally successful and is thought by fans to be one of the lesser films in the series.

After a brief break she appeared in Body Slam (1987, by Hal Needham), an action movie set in the professional wrestling world. Roberts closed out the decade with Purgatory (1989, by Ami Artzi), film about the life of imprisoned women.

The 1990s

By 1990 satisfying roles began to dry up and Roberts started to film erotic thrillers for cable television, often competing with then-current star of the genre Shannon Tweed.

In Night Eyes (1990, by Jag Mundhra) she was zealously watched over by her husband, but she ends up having an affair with the detective (Andrew Stevens) who was following her. Her 1991 film Inner Sanctum (by Fred Olen Ray) became one of the biggest hits of the genre and was successful on video rental shelves. In 1992, she played Kay Egan in Sins of Desire (by Jim Wynorsky).

Roberts also appeared on the Hot Line television series (1994) and the video game The Pandora Directive (1996).

In 1998 her career had a resurgence, and she became familiar to younger audiences, when she took on the role of Midge Pinciotti on That '70s Show until she left the series in 2001. In a recent interview on E! True Hollywood Story discussing That '70s Show, Roberts said she left the show because her husband had become ill, but gave no details of his condition. The Internet Movie Database, however, reports that Barry Roberts died in June 2006, after a four year battle with encephalitis. He and Tanya had been married for 32 years.

The 2000s

After leaving That '70s Show in 2001, Roberts was heard on radio as the spokesperson for several Las Vegas timeshare companies, notably Soleil and Tahiti Village.

External links

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