Tanya Roberts

The younger daughter of a Jewish American pen salesman (Oscar Blum) and an English mother (Dorothy Smith), Tanya Roberts was born 1949 in Manhattan and grew up in the Westchester County suburbs Scarsdale and Greenburgh. Tanya dropped out of high school, got married and hitchhiked around the country until her mother-in-law had the marriage annulled. She met psychology student Barry Roberts while waiting in line to see a movie. 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 by modeling. She appeared in off-Broadway productions of "Picnic" and "Antigone", and in television commercials for Ultra Brite, Clairol and Cool Ray sunglasses.In 1977, Tanya and her husband -- by then a scriptwriter -- moved to Hollywood. She began appearing in made-for-TV films including Pleasure Cove (1979), Zuma Beach (197... [Details Intro]