Tanya Roberts, That '70s Show star and former Bond girl, dies aged 65

Tanya Roberts, best known for playing Bond girl Stacey Sutton in A View to a Kill and Midge Pinciotti on the sitcom That '70's Show, has died aged 65.

Roberts collapsed while walking her dogs on Christmas Eve and passed away in Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles on Sunday, her friend and representative Mike Pingel told The Hollywood Reporter.

"I'm devastated," he said. "She was brilliant and beautiful and I feel like a light has been taken away.

"To say she was an angel would be at the top of the list. She was the sweetest person you'd ever meet and had a huge heart. She loved her fans, and I don't think she realised how much she meant to them."

The New Yorker was born Victoria Leigh Blum in 1955, and worked as a model before earning a role in the 1970s horror Forced Entry (also known as The Last Victim).

Roberts' big break came when she replaced Shelly Hack in Charlie's Angels, joining Jaclyn Smith and Cheryl Ladd as third 'Angel' Julie.

Her other credits included the cult films The Beastmaster and Sheena: Queen of the Jungle.

She went on to play Midge Pinciotti in more than 80 episodes of That '70s Show, made between 1998 and 2004.

Don Coscarelli, who directed Roberts in The Beastmaster, remembered her as being "a beautiful person, inside and out".

"I will always remember Tanya for being incredibly sweet and for her genuine love of animals," he wrote on Twitter.

Britt Ekland, who starred opposite Roger Moore in 1974's The Man with the Golden Gun, was among those to pay tribute.

"RIP Tanya Roberts," the Swedish actress wrote on Twitter. "Once a Bond Girl always a Bond Girl!"

She is survived by her longtime partner Lance O'Brien and her sister Barbara.