EXCLUSIVE: ‘I lost my soulmate.’ Tanya Roberts’ devastated partner shares poignant last photos of Bond girl with her beloved dogs Socks and Muttley and parrot Birdie, as it’s revealed she died from a UTI
- The actress died Monday night at L.A.’s Cedars-Sinai Hospital, her partner Lance O’Brien confirmed on Tuesday
- Her death, due to a previously undiagnosed urinary tract infection, was mistakenly announced on Sunday and she eventually died 24 hours later
- O’Brien was doing an interview with Inside Edition the next afternoon when he received a call from the hospital saying the 65-year-old Bond girl was still alive
- ‘You are telling me she’s alive?’ he says into the phone before erupting in tears
- Now, O’Brien has shared poignant last photos of Tanya with her beloved dogs and parrot
- Speaking to DailyMail.com, O’Brien said: ‘I’m beyond out of my mind. I lost my soulmate. It was unexpected. She was as healthy as a horse’
- He added: ‘She was talking when I called 911. Next thing I know, she’s in intensive care on oxygen and she’s extremely sick’
- He describes her final days as traumatic and said he is angry that he wasn’t allowed to be with her, apart from during their final visit
- He added: ‘The happy memories make it harder. The dogs are missing their mom – they’re heartsore. It’s been tough’
Smiling at her beloved pet dogs Socks and Muttley and posing in a mask with her African Grey parrot named Birdie perched on her head, these are the poignant final photos of Bond girl Tanya Roberts.
Tanya, 65, passed away at 9.30pm last night after being rushed to Cedars Sinai hospital in Beverly Hills after collapsing at her Laurel Canyon home in the early hours of Christmas Eve.
Her death, due to a previously undiagnosed urinary tract infection, was mistakenly announced on Sunday and she eventually died 24 hours later.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com, her civil partner Lance O’Brian, 62, told how ‘the love of my life’ had been ‘as healthy as a horse’ before her collapse and had only begun to feel ill on December 23.
Smiling at her beloved pet dogs Socks and Muttley and posing in a mask with her African Grey parrot perched on her head, these are the poignant final photos of Bond girl Tanya Roberts
Tanya, 65, passed away at 9.30pm last night after being rushed to Cedars Sinai hospital in Beverly Hills after collapsing at her Laurel Canyon home in the early hours of Christmas Eve
Her death, due to a previously undiagnosed urinary tract infection, was mistakenly announced on Sunday and she eventually died 24 hours later
Speaking in an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com, her civil partner Lance O’Brian (pictured together), 62, told how ‘the love of my life’ had been ‘as healthy as a horse’ before her collapse and had only begun to feel ill on December 23
O’Brien (pictured Tuesday) says he now hopes to take some time out to grieve and is beginning to plan a memorial service for her friends and family to attend. He said: ‘I’m planning a memorial but she just passed away – I’m trying to get hold of people but it’s hard. I’m not going to do it for the next 48 hours because I need time to grieve’
Suffering from shortness of breath and a mild cough, O’Brian said Tanya – who was best known for her role opposite the late Roger Moore in A View To A Kill – initially thought she might have Covid-19.
He booked her a test for the following day but she never made it: at four in the morning, she fell out of bed and was taken to hospital where a urinary tract infection was diagnosed.
Devastated O’Brian said she then began to deteriorate rapidly as the infection spread to her liver, kidneys and gallbladder, and finally, her blood.
By the time he was allowed into hospital to see her, Tanya was dying – able to blink once at him as he held her in his arms the day before she passed away.
He said: ‘I’m beyond out of my mind. I lost my soulmate. It was unexpected. She was as healthy as a horse.
‘She hikes four miles a day, five days a week in these hills. She takes care of herself physically and she’s gone. And I couldn’t see her.’
O’Brian and Tanya had been together for 18 years – first meeting when they both worked for Tahiti Village, a Las Vegas resort, she as a spokesmodel.
He said: ‘She was a spokesperson for a resort I worked for in Las Vegas. She would do our TV and radio promotions – it was her and Alan Cook.
‘Then we just got along and got along and got along and the business went out of business but we stayed in business.
‘I’ve lived in this house with her for the last 15 years. She was beyond the love of my life and I’m just so devastated right now.’
Tanya was best known for her role opposite the late Roger Moore in A View To A Kill
Devastated O’Brian said she then began to deteriorate rapidly as the infection spread to her liver, kidneys and gallbladder, and finally, her blood. By the time he was allowed into hospital to see her, Tanya was dying – able to blink once at him as he held her in his arms the day before she passed away
Video shows a look of shock washing over O’Brien’s face as he cries into the phone: ‘Now, you are telling me she’s alive?’ He then breaks down in tears and tells the interviewer: ‘The hospital is telling me she is alive. They are calling me from the ICU team’
https://youtube.com/watch?v=6OYd1iacvmo%3Frel%3D0%26showinfo%3D1
O’Brian said they have barely spent a night apart since he moved in and told how she would call and ask when he was coming home when he had to spend nights away on business trips.
He said: ‘We haven’t been apart for 15 years. Once in a blue moon, I’d go to Vegas for the night and she’d be on the phone at six in the morning asking if I was on the flight or if I was on the road back home yet.’
Because Tanya wasn’t close to her older sister Barbara, 68, the couple spent most of their time living a quiet life together that revolved around their pet dogs and her fans.
Over the last year, Tanya had been conducting Saturday Zoom calls with her fans, which O’Brian says was something she would look forward to all week.
Much of the rest of the time was spent hiking: four miles a day, five days a week in the striking Hollywood Hills close to her Laurel Canyon home.
O’Brian said: ‘She was the epitome of health. She would hike the Hollywood Hills five days a week.
‘She was talking when I called 911. Next thing I know, she’s in intensive care on oxygen and she’s extremely sick.’
Roberts appeared to be looking healthy and in good spirits late last year. She is pictured with her rep Mark Pingel in a recent photo
But early in the morning at around 4am she collapsed on her way to the bathroom and as Lance tried to pick her up she was unable to control her legs or her arms. An ambulance was called and she was admitted but O’Brien was not allowed to visit. Pictured: View of Tanya’s home
Tanya was incredibly fit and would hike four miles a day, five days a week in the striking Hollywood Hills close to her Laurel Canyon home. Pictured: The hiking trail Tanya usually walked
TIMELINE OF ROBERTS’ DEATH CONFUSION
CHRISTMAS EVE:
Roberts goes out to walk the dogs and returns home, complaining that she’s feeling unwell and says she wants O’Brien to take her for a covid test the next day.
CHRISTMAS DAY:
At around 4am Roberts collapses on the way to the bathroom and O’Brien rushes to her aid. She is unable to control her limbs and he phones an ambulance.
She tests negative for covid but is rushed into ICU for kidney and liver failure. Doctors say she has a blood infection with an ITU suspected as the cause.
O’Brien says he is unable to visit her because of the hospital’s covid rules.
In the next few days, he receives a call from Roberts who tells him she has been placed on 50 percent oxygen. Down from 90 percent.
He is later informed by medics that they should be able to discharge her soon but that she will need a colostomy bag for several weeks.
But confusion ensues, he is later informed that she is going to die and is invited to say goodbye to her.
SUNDAY, JAN. 3:
O’Brien visits her and holds her in his arms as he says goodbye. Roberts is unable to speak but O’Brien claims he sees her eyes open. Doctors tell him it’s a muscle spasm.
He leaves her distraught and calls her agent Mike Pingel to say: ‘I just said goodbye to Tanya.’
On the same day, he appeared to claim he had watched Roberts’ ‘last moments’ and hours later news of her ‘death’ was being reported.
MONDAY, JAN. 4:
The next afternoon, while giving an interview, O’Brien receives a phone call from the hospital informing him that Roberts is alive.
He breaks down in tears of joy but later informs the media that Roberts’ condition is still believed to be fatal.
TUESDAY, JAN 5:
O’Brien confirms Roberts died Monday night at L.A.’s Cedars-Sinai Hospital
He describes her final days as traumatic and said he is angry that he wasn’t allowed to be with her, apart from during their final visit.
He said: ‘After she left here [their home], I never saw her again apart from saying goodbye to her at the hospital.
‘I wasn’t allowed to talk with her. The doctors, the nurses are overwhelmed and they work 12 hour shifts so you never get to speak to the same person. You don’t have a reference point.’
He added: ‘She’s waking up not in her own bed, not around her animals, around strangers who are calling her Victoria [her birth name].
‘People don’t realize how full up these hospitals are. I’m convinced, if I was there talking to Tanya, she’d still be here.
‘She had tubes up her nose and throat and they kept calling her Victoria – she hasn’t been called that since she was a teenager. You can’t get anything past these people – it’s so busy, I can’t begin to tell you what an awful, terrible experience it was.’
O’Brian says he sympathizes with the pressure medical staff are under due to the pandemic but is convinced it played a role in Tanya’s death.
He said: ‘I think Covid played a big part in it – if you called the hospital, it sounded like something out of [sitcom] M.A.S.H.
‘The operating scenes, ‘need more plasma, need more blood’. It’s horrifying. And now I’ve lost the woman I love and I wasn’t able to see her and spend time with her every day. I couldn’t even talk to her because she had tubes down her throat.
‘Seeing her eyes and seeing her struggle to open them for me, that last time I saw her – it was the most terrible thing in the world.’
He says he now hopes to take some time out to grieve and is beginning to plan a memorial service for her friends and family to attend.
‘I’m planning a memorial but she just passed away – I’m trying to get hold of people but it’s hard. I’m not going to do it for the next 48 hours because I need time to grieve.’
O’Brian added: ‘The happy memories make it harder. The dogs are missing their mom – they’re heartsore. It’s been tough. I’ve had a lot of wellwishers and that’s been welcome.’
In addition to being a Bond Girl, Roberts starred in the fifth and final season of Charlie’s Angels between 1980 and 1981.
She is also famous for playing Midge Pinciotti in the hit sitcom, That 70s Show, appearing alongside Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis.
Roberts was born Victoria Leigh Blum in October 1955 in New York City, before starting her career as a fashion model in her late teens.
She married Barry Roberts when she was just 19 in 1974, and started studying to become an actress at The Actors Studio with Lee Strasberg and Uta Hagen.
The leggy blonde made her film debut in 1975’s Forced Entry.
Source: Read Full Article
