THE STAR OF a number of Whitesnake videos has died at the age of 59. American actress Tawny Kitaen came to prominence during the hair-metal boom while in a relationship with (and later married) David Coverdale, appearing in the MTV-rotated promos for Still Of The Night, Is This Love, the re-recorded version of Here I Go Again and The Deeper The Love. Her appearance in those popular clips helped Whitesnake’s 1987 album to sell eight million copies in the US alone. Julie Ellen ‘Tawny’ Kitaen was born in San Diego, California. Her first brush with fame in the music world came after her legs adorned the cover of Ratt’s debut EP, Ratt. Kitaen was dating the band’s guitarist Robbin Crosby at the time, and subsequently starred on the cover of Ratt’s first album, Out Of The Cellar, as well as in the video for Back For More, where she appeared alongside comedian Milton Berle. Kitaen married Coverdale in 1989 and they divorced two years later. Her part in Still Of The Night had originally been intended for a pre-fame Claudia Schiffer, until the couple dropped by the house of its director Marty Callner on the night before filming. Callner told them: “That’s her! She’s the Whitesnake woman!” Kitaen had previously appeared in films including the supernatural horror Witchboard, and alongside Tom Hanks in Bachelor Party. Most recently she’d started a YouTube series, Tawny’s Takes, and released videos on TikTok.