Vanessa Howard

Vanessa Howard (born Vanessa Tolhurst, 10 October 1948, Shoreham-by-Sea, United Kingdom – 23 November 2010), later known as Vanessa Chartoff, was a British film actress and professional backup singer.

Howard was orphaned by the age of three, after which she and her older sister were adopted. Both girls were performers; Vanessa attended the Phildene Stage School, a co-educational independent school at Chiswick, west London, and her sister attended the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

After leaving school at fifteen, her first professional job was as a dancer and singer at the Welsh seaside resort of Llandudno, for Clarkson Rose' s Twinkle company, in a summer revue. Later engagements included the Players' Theatre, in their Old Time Music Hall, and one year with the George Mitchell Singers as a singer and dancer, leading to TV.

In 1966, Howard appeared in On the Level, a musical in the West End. After, she appeared in The Impossible Years, a play, with David Tomlinson.

Howard made her film debut in the “Swinging Sixties” sex comedy Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush (1967). In 1967, on Christmas Day, Howard she appeared in Aladdin, a musical, on British television with Cliff Richard.

Howard later starred in exploitation and horror films, including The Blood Beast Terror and Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny and Girly. The box-office failure of her later projects resulted in her decision to retire from acting.[citation needed ]

Howard married film producer Robert Chartoff in July 1970. At 25, they moved to USA, where they raised their son, Charley Chartoff, and 3 children from Robert's first marriage. The couple divorced some time prior to 1992. Following her divorce, she worked with California programs dedicated to helping recently divorced homemakers reintegrate into the workforce, including the Mission Valley Regional Occupation Center in Fremont, California.[citation needed ] She died in Los Angeles on 23 November 2010, of complications from COPD.

A retrospective on her life – assembled by horror journalist Preston Fassel with the cooperation of her family and the assistance of UK blogger Richard Halfhide – appeared in The Dark Side #169 and Spring 2014 issue of the horror journal Screem, addressing multiple rumours about her life, career, and the time in between her retirement and death.