Actress Tanya Roberts, perhaps best known for her role as Bond Girl Stacey Sutton in “A View to a Kill” and Julie Rogers in the final season of the TV series “Charlie’s Angels,” died Monday night. She was 65.
News of her death at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, was confirmed on Tuesday by her long-time partner Lance O’Brien, the New York Times reports. The news followed 24 hours of conflicting reports from Roberts’ longtime publicist Mike Pingel, who on Monday morning mistakingly announced the actress had died Sunday in a Los Angeles hospital following a fall at her home. Later in the day, Pingel told media outlets she was still alive, but in poor condition.
O’Brien, her companion of nearly two decades, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that Cedars-Sinai Medical Center reached out to him on Monday at 9:30 p.m. PST to inform him that Roberts had passed away.
Numerous outlets, including The Associated Press, reported Roberts’ death Monday, based on information Pingel received from O’Brien. O’Brien, who’d been unable to see Roberts in the hospital because of COVID-19 restrictions, was allowed to visit Sunday as her condition worsened. The actor did not have the virus, he said.
In another bizarre twist, O’Brien had been doing an interview about her death Monday afternoon on “Inside Edition” when he received a phone call telling him she was still alive. An emotionally overwhelmed O’Brien identified the call as coming from the hospital ICU.
The actress and model, born Victoria Leigh Blum, kicked off her film career in 1975, with a role in “The Last Victim.” She went on to star on the small screen in 1980 in the fifth and final season of “Charlie’s Angels,” which led to her role in the 1982 film “The Beastmaster,” and two years later to her lead role in the cult classic “Sheena, Queen of the Jungle.” She achieved a second wave of small-screen success for her role as mom-next-door Midge Pinciotti in the late 1990s hit sitcom “That ‘70s Show.”
It was her role as a geologist in “A View to a Kill” (Roger Moore’s final outing as 007), that brought her a new level of big-screen fame, but also disappointment. The actress famously revealed in a 2015 interview that she was hesitant to take on the role, fearing she would forever be pigeonholed by Hollywood.
“I’ve made a lot of good choices and a lot of bad choices and that’s part of life,” she said, noting her worst fears about the role ultimately came true. “Whether you’re really successful or moderately successful, I’m sure that to get there you have made some bad decisions and good decisions on some level, but that’s how I see life. You can’t go through life defeated, it’s just trial and error. ... I’ve got to believe that because it just seems like I should have got a million offers coming in the door after that, but it wasn’t the case.”
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“Bond” franchise producers had issued a statement Monday.
“We are saddened to hear of the passing of Tanya. She was a very lovely person,” Bond producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli wrote in tribute.
Britt Ekland, who starred opposite Moore in 1974′s “The Man with the Golden Gun,” tweeted: “Once a Bond Girl always a Bond Girl!”
On social media, Roberts most recently hosted a live chat Dec. 19 on her Facebook page, with subsequent posts for Christmas and New Year’s greetings to her fans.
Roberts was previously married to Barry Roberts from 1974 until his passing in 2006.
Contributing: Associated Press
