Tanya Roberts: Bond girl and That 70's Show star, dies at 65
Actor Tanya Roberts, best known for James Bond movie "A View to a Kill" and TV series "That '70s Show", has died at the age of 65 after it was prematurely reported by many publications that she had died on Sunday night. Roberts' representative, Mike Pingel, on Tuesday confirmed to Variety that she died Monday night due to a urinary tract infection that spread to her kidney, gallbladder, liver and bloodstream.
Pingle, however, had mistakenly told many outlets the actor, who was undergoing treatment at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, had passed on Sunday after Roberts' partner Lance O'Brien presumed she had died.
The representative later retracted his statement while adding her condition was "not looking good".
The actor took her dogs for a walk on Christmas Eve and collapsed upon returning home. She was put on a ventilator after being hospitalised, but never recovered. Roberts was not ill in the days leading up to her death, the publication further stated.
Born as Victoria Leigh Blum, Roberts had a career modelling and appearing in television advertisements before turning to acting in 1975 with the horror movie "Forced Entry".
In 1980, she was chosen to replace actor Shelley Hack in the fifth season of the detective show "Charlie's Angels". Roberts played Julie Rogers, a streetwise fighter who used her fists more than her gun on the ABC series.
Her "Charlie's Angels" co-star Jaclyn Smith remembered Roberts with a throwback photo of herself with the late actor and co-actor Cheryl Ladd on Instagram.
"Tanya joined #CharliesAngels for the final season, closing it out as it was initially intended with a redhead, a brunette and a blonde.
"She brought joy to so many people and had a career spanning decades. Goodbye angel, Rest In Peace," Smith, who Smith starred as Kelly Garrett in all five seasons of "Charlie's Angels," wrote.
Roberts also starred in films like "Racquet" (1977), "The Beastmaster" (1982), and "Sheena: Queen of the Jungle" (1984).
"The Beastmaster" director Don Coscarelli said the actor was "a beautiful person, inside and out".
"I will always remember Tanya for being incredibly sweet and for her genuine love of animals. She was beloved by 'Beastmaster' fans everywhere.
RIP," Coscarelli tweeted.
Roberts later landed her most memorable role in the 1985 James Bond film "A View to a Kill". The film, which was Roger Moore's last outing as Agent 007 James Bond, saw Roberts play Stacey Sutton, an American geologist who becomes a target of villain Max Zorin (Christopher Walken).
From 1998 to 2004, Roberts played Midge Pinciotti, the lovable but dim-witted mother of the red-haired tomboy Donna Pinciotti (Laura Prepon) on the television sitcom "That '70s Show". She left the show in 2001 to care for her terminally ill husband but briefly reprised her role in 2004. Her last on-screen appearance was in 2005 in the TV series "Barbershop".
