It was recently announced in the New York Times that Zelda Rubinstein, died at the age of 76. Zelda is most remembered for her role in the paranormal poltergeist movies as Tangina Barrons, the clairvoyant medium that helps the Freelings family out with dealing with the paranormal activity that they are experiencing in the film. According to her agent, Eric Stevens, Zelda died in Los Angeles on January 27th due to complications that followed a heart attack that she had two months prior. She has no immediate family that survives her.
According to news reports, Zelda was in the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center for a month when her close friends and family decided to take her off of life support because of lung and kidney failure. A few days later it was reported that Zelda was doing quite well and was on the mend. Then on January 27th, she passed away.
While she may have been well known for her role in the Poltergeist films and the myriad other television and movie roles that she had, she was also a human rights activist. In the early 1980s, Zelda became very active in fighting AID/HIV and she had appeared in a number of advertisements specifically designed to target gay men in order to promote awareness and safe sex.
