Toby Robins

Toby Robins (March 13, 1931 – March 21, 1986) was a Canadian actress of film, stage and television.

Toby Robins
Born(1931-03-13)March 13, 1931
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
DiedMarch 21, 1986(1986-03-21) (aged 55)
London, England, UK
OccupationActress
Years active1950–1984

Robins starred in hundreds of radio and stage productions in Canada from the late 1940s through the 1960s, working with such performers as Jane Mallett, Barry Morse, John Drainie, Ruth Springford, and James Doohan among others. She appeared in a number of television and film roles beginning in the mid-1950s, and hosted the first-ever CBC Television series, The Big Revue in 1952. In Toronto she played in repertory with Lorne Greene, Mavor Moore, and Don Harron. At the Crest Theatre she played the leading parts in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Dream Girl and many others.

Robins became a popular television personality as an original member of the cast of the long-running CBC television series Front Page Challenge in 1957, remaining with the program until 1961. Originally hosted by Alex Barris and later Fred Davis, Front Page Challenge was a current events series disguised as a panel-style game show in a similar format to the American What's My Line?. Panelists had to guess the news story or person behind a news story by asking questions of the guest; after the game portion, the guest was then interviewed informally by the panel.

Although Robins was initially criticized for asking simple and sometimes unintelligent questions,[1] she soon found her journalistic sea legs and before long was holding her own alongside the more experienced journalists, including her co-panellists Gordon Sinclair and Pierre Berton. She left the series in a salary dispute in 1961 and was replaced by future senator Betty Kennedy (who remained with the show until its demise in the 1990s). Robins returned to the show from time to time as a guest panelist.

In 1964, Robins relocated to London and she appeared in a number of film and television productions, including Space: 1999 (the two-parter "The Bringers of Wonder", which was later re-issued as the television film Destination Moonbase Alpha) and in 1981 she played Melina Havelock's ill-fated mother in the James Bond film For Your Eyes Only (1981).[2] She appeared in an episode of Minder entitled "The Willesden Suite", broadcast in February 1984.[3] On London's West End stage, she appeared in such dramas as The Relapse, The Latent Heterosexual, The Flip Side, and The Aspern Papers.[4]

Death

Toby Robins died from breast cancer in 1986, one week after her 55th birthday. In 1991, her family founded the Breakthrough Toby Robins Breast Cancer Centre in London, which was opened in 1999 by HRH The Prince of Wales, with the aim of producing a coordinated program of research to tackle breast cancer.[5] It is the first dedicated breast cancer research centre in the United Kingdom, and directly linked to one of the most renowned cancer facilities in the world, the Royal Marsden Hospital.[6]

Filmography
Year Title Role Notes
1950Parking on This SideThe Girl
1952The Big RevueCo-host
1965Game for Three LosersFrances Challinor
1967The Naked RunnerRuth
1969Department SSelina Trenton
1972The ProtectorsMadame RueEpisode: "Ceremony for the Dead"
1974Paul and MichelleJane
1976Spy StoryHelen Schlegel
1979Space: 1999Diana MorrisTwo-part Episode:

"The Bringers of Wonder, Part One" & "The Bringers of Wonder, Part Two"

1979HazellJean CurzonEpisode: "Hazell Gets the Part"
1979Licensed to Love and KillScarlet Star
1981For Your Eyes OnlyIona Havelock
1983Princess DaisyEleanour Kavanaugh
1984ScandalousPamella Reynolds

References
  1. Barris, Alex. Front Page Challenge: The 25th Anniversary (Toronto: CBC Books, 1981).
  2. "Toby Robins". BFI.
  3. Profile, radiotimes.com; accessed January 26, 2014.
  4. "Toby Robins | Theatricalia". theatricalia.com.
  5. "Breast Cancer Now Toby Robins Research Centre - The Institute of Cancer Research, London". www.icr.ac.uk.
  6. "Our research centre". Breast Cancer Now. June 2, 2015.
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