'James Bond' actress Tanya Roberts dies at 65

CALIFORNIA: US actress Victoria Leigh Blum, best known by her stage name Tanya Roberts, has passed away at a hospital at age of 65.

Tanya Roberts died days after she reportedly collapsed after walking with her dogs on Christmas Eve. She was taken to the hospital when she collapsed after returning home from a walk with her dogs. She was put on a ventilator but never got better and died at a California hospital. Born Victoria Leigh Blum in New York in 1955, Roberts began her career as a model.

She had a number of roles in films that would later have a cult following including the 1977 comedy Racquet and the 1982 fantasy epic The Beastmaster. She was also the lead in Columbia Pictures’ 1984 adventure movie Sheena: Queen of the Jungle, a female version of the Tarzan story that despite its reported $25 million budget was a huge flop at the box office, though it went on to gain cult status.

Roberts’ most notable major film role was in the 1985 Bond film A View to a Kill. The film, which was to be Roger Moore’s last outing as 007, saw her play Stacey Sutton, an American geologist who becomes a target of villain Max Zorin played by Christopher Walken.