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Tanya Roberts' rep confirms former Bond Girl is still alive following initial death reports

By Benjamin Bullard
Tanya Roberts

To the relief and delight of James Bond fans and, well, everyone, widespread reports that former Bond Girl Tanya Roberts had passed away may have been (thankfully) premature.

On Sunday, TMZ first reported that Roberts, who played Stacey Sutton opposite Roger Moore in the 1985 James Bond thriller A View to a Kill, had passed away following brief health complications that occurred at home on Christmas Eve. A slew of mainstream media outlets, including USA Today, The Hollywood Reporter and CNN, also noted that the actress had died Sunday. Those outlets independently sourced confirmation of Roberts’ death from her publicist, Mike Pingel, who said she had passed away Sunday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

But on Monday, Variety reported (citing Pingel as the source) that Roberts is in fact still alive, though hospitalized and in "dire" condition. TMZ was first to report Monday on its earlier story, updating to clarify that Roberts had not passed away. SYFY WIRE has reached out to Roberts' management for comment.

Inside Edition also reported that Pingel now claims that the hospital had contacted the actor’s boyfriend, Lance O’Brien, Monday morning with news that Roberts was still alive. That report was followed by a dramatic on-camera encounter O’Brien appeared to have while Inside Edition was interviewing him, which appears in the video below:

Roberts’ James Bond role was that of geologist and 007 romantic interest Stacey Sutton, whom she portrayed alongside Roger Moore in 1985’s A View to a Kill. Her earlier career included genre-adjacent roles on both the big and small screens, beginning with horror movie Forced Entry in 1975, the Charlie’s Angels TV series in 1980, and, more recently, as Midge — the matron of the Pinciotti family — on That '70s Show.

Roberts also starred in the 1982 fantasy film The Beastmaster as Kiri, a slave rescued by protagonist Dar (Marc Singer); as well as the 1984 fantasy movie Sheena: Queen of the Jungle, in which she played the main character. Roberts also appeared in Murder Me, Murder You, a 1983 made-for-TV movie themed around crime novelist Mickey Spillane’s iconic Mike Hammer private detective.

This story was originally published on Jan. 3 and was updated on Jan. 4 at 5:55 p.m. ET.

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