Glamour model-turned-artist Suzanne Mizzi has died aged 43 after losing a year-long battle to ovarian cancer. She died on Sunday afternoon at St Joseph’s Hospice near her home in Hackney.

Her husband Frank Camilleri said: “Suzanne was a beautiful person inside and out. She had an amazing life. We were together for 30 years.”

The mother-of-two was discovered by a photographer while working at a Bethnal Green clothes shop she opened after leaving school aged 15. She made her page-three debut aged 17 and quickly became one of the biggest glamour models of the 1980s.

At the height of her fame the Maltese-born blonde had her 34-24-34 figure insured for �11 million.

In 1988 she quit glamour modelling and succeeded where many failed in crossing over into catwalk modelling, and later became the face of fashion label Vivienne Westwood.

In the past ten years Suzanne was a successful artist and interior designer known as Mizzy. Her abstract paintings sold for up to �10,000.