Actress
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Born Victoria Leigh Blum on 15 October 1955 in the Bronx, she was the daughter of a pen salesman (Irish) and a Jewish mother.
She dropped out of high school at age 15, got married, and hitchhiked around the country until her husband's mother had the marriage annulled. She met psychology student, Barry Roberts, in a New York movie line. A few months later she proposed to him in a subway station, and they were married. She studied acting under Lee Strasberg and Uta Hagen.
In her early years in New York she supported herself as an Arthur Murray dance instructor and then modeling.
After this and as an off-Broadway actress, the curvaceous Roberts began appearing in film roles that relied almost exclusively on his physical attributes (she was 5' 8" (1.73 m)). In 1979's Tourist Trap, for example, the camera took a near-fetishist interest in her long and well-toned legs.
Even in her big-budget movie appearances, her acting was not her strong suit, nor was it expected to be, especially in such escapist fare as Beastmaster (1982) and Sheena, Queen of the Jungle (1984).
In 1980, Roberts was hired to play streetwise Julie Rogers, the last of a long line of replacement actresses in TV's Charlie's Angels (she was replacing the recently departed Shelley Hack).
After her single Angels season, Roberts went back to movies, primarily horror films and high-class, soft-focus erotica.
Tanya Roberts exhibited an engaging flair for self-parody as luscious secretary Velda in the made-for-TV Mike Hammer: Murder Me, Murder You (1983); but when time came to develop the film into a series, Roberts had other commitments, and was replaced by Lindsay Bloom.
She continues to appear in films, which primarily go directly to video and cable release. Most recently she is featured in the CD computer game The Pandora Directive (1996).
Tanya Roberts
tanya roberts gallery
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