It’s a pisser that Tanya passed with some embarrassment, first she’s dead, then she’s and oh wait, she’s dead. Well, I want to give Tanya some dignity via my site even if it borders on minuscule in the grand scheme of the universe.
I do recall clearly Tanya was on Charlie’s Angels but it wasn’t a show I watched on a regular basis despite being a young boy starting to get interested in girls. It wasn’t due to my mother’s objections, I had caught on how low-brow and stupid it was. I did see a few episodes over the years and truthfully, it was just formulaic. The only difference between Angels and say Hart to Hart or Mission:Impossible (a stretch to compare against, yet similar plot ideas), was the casting and origins. For a “jiggle show,” the exposition did bring up a valid point in the Seventies, here were three, very skilled, competent women who became cops and got saddled with bullshit duties. Today, we know through Abu Ghraib and the daily news reports of police abuses, women have proven, they too, can be members of the silent, corrupt blue line.
I agree with Tanya’s complaint about the Bond Girl label because it was incorrect. A Bond Girl is one of the women with a brief appearance in the movie to provide cheesecake and/or publicity for the film. Tanya had a role in assisting Roger Moore’s Bond defeat the villain, making her not just a co-star, at least a sidekick yet I would say, the hero’s partner in the story. It’s a bummer Tanya had such a great opportunity wasted in Moore’s horrible farewell performance and crappiest Bond flick until Pierce’s Die Another Day. A View to a Kill was my first time seeing Bond in a theater and not HBO, it had one of the best theme songs by Duran Duran (a-ha repeated this two years later, the songs are a separate debate) and she wasn’t alone: Christopher Walken and Grace Jones were two fantastic villains squandered in this implausible conspiracy.
Her recurring role in the hit SitCom That Seventies Show was cool. I wasn’t onboard with all the Seventies nostalgia, it’s a gross, crappy decade. However, Tanya gave the show a boost in the same vein the movie Grease had Eve Arden and Sid Caesar play teachers. I don’t know what to call it other than a mental callback and/or legitimacy maker.
Lastly, she did plugs with Alan Thicke for my time share in Las Vegas. Sure, people can crap on that all the want. I bet Tanya just laughed it off since I’m betting she got a free place at Tahiti Village in exchange. Not a bad deal, and work is work when it comes to show business.
Thanks for everything Tanya. I regret you passed a relatively early age. My only hope is you died happily, remembering you did get to live your dream.