Rest in peace Tanya Roberts: A look at the Bond Girl’s monumental career
Actress Tanya Roberts, known for her roles as a Bond girl in A View to a Kill and Midge Pinciotti on That ‘70s Show, died on Sunday at the age of sixty-five.
Officials haven’t released a cause of death. Her publicist, Mike Pingel, told The Hollywood Reporter it wasn’t related to COVID-19. She collapsed on December 24th while walking her dogs near her home. She was then taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Pingel told CNN.
“I’m devastated. She was brilliant and beautiful and I feel like a light has been taken away. To say she was an angel would be at the top of the list. She was the sweetest person you’d ever meet and had a huge heart. She loved her fans, and I don’t think she realized how much she meant to them,” Pingel told The Hollywood Reporter.
Rest In Peace #TanyaRoberts 😔 #AViewToAKill #Sheena pic.twitter.com/iy2EyKdlM6
— Jon Donahue (@JonDonahue) January 4, 2021
Tributes on social media
Celebrities and other people who worked with Roberts wrote their condolences & tributes to her on social media. Actor Jon Donahue was one of them. He tweeted two 1980s movie posters of movies Roberts starred in. He captioned the post with “Rest In Peace” and a sad emoji.
Jonathan Sothcott, a writer for British GQ, also tweeted a photo of Roberts. “A View To A Kill has always been the 007 film I enjoyed the most and I’m awfully sad to hear leading lady #TanyaRoberts has died at just 65 – she was the consummate 80s Bond girl and had a lovely chemistry with Roger. A Hollywood star from another, more glamorous age gone. RIP,” Sothcott wrote.
Britt Ekland, another Bond girl actress, also posted on Twitter. “Rip Tanya Roberts, once a Bond Girl always a Bond Girl,” Ekland wrote. Ekland played Bond girl Mary Goodnight in the 1974 Bond movie The Man with the Golden Gun.
Early life and film career
Roberts was born Victoria Leigh Bloom. Before Roberts started her acting career, she was a model and was featured in some television commercials. However, she became best known for her time on screen. She spent thirty years in the film and television industry. She got her foot in the door with acting during her role in the 1975 horror film Forced Entry.
Other films that led to her cult following include Racquet & The Beastmaster. She also starred in the 1984 Tarzan spinoff Sheena: Queen of the Jungle. The movie flopped at the box office despite a $25 million budget, according to The Hollywood Reporter. However, that film also gained cult status and became one of the actress’s most beloved films.
She also had roles in some TV shows, including Fantasy Island, The Love Boat, and Charlie’s Angels. She also played Donna’s mom in That 70’s Show. Her most recent film credit was in 2005 with her role in Barbershop: The Series.
Becoming a Bond girl
In 1985, Roberts played geologist Stacey Sutton in the Bond movie A View to a Kill. She starred alongside Roger Moore in his last movie as the Bond character. From this point on, Roberts became known as a Bond girl. In the film, her character is a target for villain Max Zorin, who was played by Christopher Walken.
Despite Roberts’s legacy as a Bond girl, she once told the Daily Mail she didn’t want to take the role at first.
“I sort of felt like every girl who’d ever been a Bond girl had seen their career go nowhere, so I was a little cautious,” she said. I remember I said to my agent, ‘No one ever works after they get a Bond movie’ and they said to me, ‘Are you kidding? Glen Close would do it if she could.”
However, we’re glad Roberts took on the role. She became an icon of the 80s and 90s and her legacy will undoubtedly continue on. She always showed appreciation to her fans who will dearly miss her.
