Tanya Roberts

Tanya has had a quite controversial love life. She fell in love with a ‘bohemian’ guy at the age of 15, and started living with him. Her mother had strong objections over her husband and the marriage ended eventually.

Tanya married Barry Roberts in 1974 and they remained together until he eventually passed away in 2006. Tanya resides in Hollywood Hills, California.

Tanya Roberts was born Victoria Leigh Blum on October 15, 1955 in Bronx, New York City. She has an older sister Barbara and the entire family lived in quite humble conditions. The family settled in Central Bronx, and her father supported the family by selling pens in Manhattan. After her parents divorced, Tanya said goodbye to Bronx and shifted with her mother to Canada.

Tanya realised the potential to become an actress in her early teens. She was a beautiful young girl and she started getting her portfolios done along with making plans for her future career. At a tender age of 15, she got married and embarked on a trip with her husband across the United States. Her mother tracked her down and had the marriage annulled.

This massive blow hit Tanya hard and she returned to the USA to pursue a career as a model and appeared on several fashion magazines’ cover. She then started training as an actor and honed her skills. Tanya said in an interview that she doesn’t take her troubled childhood as a curse, and those experiences made her a humble person and she is grateful for that.

In early 70s, Tanya Robert’s career started with small time ad films for brands such as Excedrin, Clairol and Cool ray sunglasses. What followed were some meaty roles in off-Broadway productions, but Tanya wasn’t satisfied with the work she was doing, due to low pay and exposure. In order to make the ends meet, she also worked as a dance instructor for a brief period of time.

A talent agency spotted her and offered her a role in a sleazy horror film ‘Forced Entry’ in 1975. More such roles followed; one of the most memorable ones was the role in film ‘Fingers’, a highly erotic cheesy production. Even after doing a few more such films, Tanya remained unknown for the most part, even after she got hired for ‘Charlie’s Angels’, the TV series.

Tanya was a replacement actor therein, and the show was cancelled just after a dozen episodes. Tanya spent a few more years in total anonymity and kept doing adult films in order to support herself. In 1982, ‘The Beastmaster’, a fantasy adventure film, came her way. It was, to some extent, way different than what she was being offered constantly at that time.

1980s turned out a bit different for her as she finally felt free from the clutches of low production B movies. She continued working in low budget films though, but they did have some content and offered opportunities for Tanya to show her skills. She featured in ‘Heart and Armour’ in 1983, which was an Italian hardcore adventure fantasy film.

In 1983, she appeared in ‘Murder You, Murder Me’ a television movie. She got the offer to star in a TV series pilot, but instead, she decided to go with ‘Sheena: Queen of the Jungle’, which turned out to be a colossal critical and commercial disaster. However, 1985 turned out to be a big year as she got the chance to play the Bond girl in ‘A View to Kill’. Her acting was criticized heavily.