Tova Borgnine, QVC Personality, Dead at 80

Tova Borgnine, a cosmetics entrepreneur and an early QVC star, has died. She was 80. Borgnine, the widow of actor Ernest Borgnine, died on Feb. 26, Tova Beverly Hills President Michele Uram said, reports the New York Times. She did not reveal a cause of death.

Borgnine was born Tove Traesnaes on Nov. 17, 1941, in Oslo, Norway. After her parents divorced when she was 7, Borgnine and her mother moved to New York City. She hoped to break into acting or modeling but instead found herself in the makeup world. She opened her first store on the Jersey Shore and moved to Las Vegas after two marriages ended in divorce. Once in Las Vegas, she ran makeup concessions at casinos and hotels and changed her first name to Tova.

Las Vegas’ climate inspired Borgnine’s success in the 1970s. She was concerned that showgirls’ skin would look older thanks to the dry desert air. So, she asked Merle Oberon what she did to make her skin look good. Oberon’s regimen was based on an Aztec formula that involved cactus and was made by a family in Mexico. The family agreed to sell Borgnine the formula. 

In 1976, a gossip columnist wrote about Ernest’s dewy complexion, which he said was the result of Borgnine’s cactus face mask. Suddenly, there was so much interest in the mask that the Borninges established a company called Tova 9. Ernest joked that he was his wife’s “guinea pig No. 1.” Cristofer Borgnine, Ernest’s son with Donna Rancourt, told the Times the stories about the mask’s origin were true. He would often see his father using the face mask.

In the early 1990s, Borgnine became a star on QVC, where she sold her Tova Signature perfume. She also sold jewelry on the channel. Before the pandemic, the company’s sales reached between $15 million and $20 million annually, Uram told the Times.

Ernest’s marriage to Borgnine was his most successful. They married in 1973 and they remained together until his death in 2012. In 1997, Borgnine wrote about their relationship in the book Being Married Happily Forever: 22 Secrets, 12 Strategies, and 8 Compromises. She was Ernest’s fifth wife, following Rhona Kemins, actresses Katy Jurado and Ethel Merman, and Rancourt. Aside from her stepson Cristofer, Borgnine is also survived by son David Johnson; stepdaughters Sharon and Naznee Borgnine; and six grandchildren.