Tanya Roberts Bio
Tanya Roberts Bio
 Tanya Roberts Pictures |
Victoria Leigh Blum (born October 15, 1955), professionally recognized as Tanya Roberts, is an American actress best known for her role as Julie Rogers on the fifth and final season of Charlie's Angels (1980-1981) and as Midge Pinciotti on That '70s Show (1998-2001).
She later headlined the films: The Beastmaster, A View to a Kill, and Sheena. Roberts was groomed as a Hollywood sex symbol during the early 1980s.
Tanya Roberts: Early life
Blum was born in The Bronx of Irish and Jewish descent. Her father was an ink pen salesman. Her parents divorced when she was a teenager. She lived with her mother in Toronto for several years, where she started formulating a photo portfolio and laying plans for a career. At age 15, she abandoned her studies to marry and lived for a while hitch-hiking across the United States, until her mother-in-law annulled the union.
She returned to New York City and became a fashion and cover model. After meeting a 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.
Tanya Roberts: Acting career
Tanya Roberts - 1970s
Her career began as a model in TV ads for Ultra Brite, Clairol and Cool Ray sunglasses. She played serious roles in the Off-Broadway productions, Picnic and Antigone. She also supported herself as an Arthur Murray dance instructor. Her film debut was the 1975 thriller, Forced Entry. This was followed in 1976 by The Yum-Yum Girls, a comedy.
In 1977, as her husband was securing his own screenwriting career, the couple moved to Hollywood. The following year, Roberts participated in the drama, Fingers. Roles in the 1979 cult-movie, Tourist Trap, Racket and California Dreaming followed. Roberts was featured in several television pilots that were never picked up: Zuma Beach (a 1978 comedy); Pleasure Cove (1979); and Waikiki (1980).
Tanya Roberts - 1980s
In 1980, Roberts was chosen from some 2,000 candidates to replace Shelley Hack in the television series, Charlie's Angels (in what would be the last season of the series). She was featured on the February 9, 1981 cover of People magazine and afterward was offered more ambitious projects. In 1982, Roberts played Kiri in The Beastmaster. 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, and little-known adventure, Paladini-storia d'armi e d'amori (Paladins-the story of love and arms; also released as Hearts and Armour), based on the medieval novel, Orlando Furioso. She played the role of Velda, a buxom secretary to private detective, Mike Hammer, in the television movie, Murder Me, Murder You. The two-part pilot spawned the syndicated television series, Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer. She declined to continue the role in the Mike Hammer series so she could work on her next project, Sheena: Queen of the Jungle. The movie was a box office and critical disaster, garnering her a nomination for "Worst Actress" at the Razzie Awards.
Her subsequent appearance as Bond girl, Stacey Sutton, a well-educated and articulate geologist, in A View to a Kill (1985), which provided her a number of scenes with Roger Moore's James Bond. She again found herself nominated by the critics for a Razzie Award. Later films in the 1980s included Night Eyes, an erotic thriller; Body Slam (1987), an action movie set in the professional wrestling world; and Purgatory, a movie about a woman wrongfully imprisoned in Africa.
Tanya Roberts - 1990s - present
In 1991, 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 TV series, Hot Line, in 1994; and in the video game, The Pandora Directive, in 1996.
In 1998, she took the role of Midge Pinciotti on the successful, long-running television sitcom, That '70s Show. Roberts claimed to E! True Hollywood Story that she left the series in 2001 because her husband, Barry Roberts, had become terminally ill. Barry Roberts died in 2006. In 2008, Tanya Roberts wrote the foreword to the book, The Q Guide to Charlie's Angels.
