Meet 60s Winter Olympics skier Charles Palmer-Tomkinson’s two famous daughters

This year’s Winter Olympics has been Team GB’s best-ever, with athletes scooping three gold medals, tripling the previous best result of a solitary gold. One of the Games that Britain scored a gold medal was in 1964, with Anthony Nash and Robin Dixon winning at the men’s two-man bobsleigh. 

However, one of the less fortunate participants in those Games was Charles Palmer-Tomkinson. Charles, who is now 86, competed in both the Downhill Skiing and the Giant Slalom events, finishing in 56th place in the former and being disqualified from the latter.

Charles was following in his late father, James Palmer-Tomkinson’s footsteps, with the Olympian having competed in both the 1936 and 1948 Winter Olympics. James’ best result came in the 1936 Games, when he finished in 14th place in the Men’s Combined Alpine Skiing event.

While Charles followed in his father’s footsteps, his three children have not ended up taking up the sport professionally, but both of the star’s daughters have gone on to become famous in their own right, while his son has opted to remain out of the spotlight.

Scroll down for all you need to know about the pair…

Tara Palmer-Tomkinson

Charles’ most notable child was his second daughter, Tara Palmer-Tomkinson. Tara rose to fame in the 1990s when she started providing columns for publications including The Sunday Times, GQ, Tatler and InStyle. The column’s documented the star’s previous week, and in 2007, she and Sharon Marshall published The Naughty Girl’s Guide to Life.

Tara also made several television appearances, including on the likes of The Frank Skinner Show, Would I Lie To You? and Popworld. She also competed on the inaugural series of I’m a Celebrity, finishing as a runner-up to Tony Blackburn.

Thanks to her father’s friendship with King Charles, Tara became close to the royal family, and she was a guest at both Charles and Queen Camilla’s 2005 wedding and for the wedding of Prince William and Princess Kate.

Despite a high-profile lifestyle, Tara eventually opted to start shying away from the spotlight, previously telling HELLO!: “I have been very, very blessed to have done the BAFTAS, Oscars events and so on – so many of them in so many years. I appreciate and remember every one.

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“I just like roast chicken with my mates around the kitchen table. Maybe that’s a sign of my age. People come to my house now. I don’t like to look too much into things. Hey, after the rain there’s always sunshine!”

Tara was sadly found dead at the age of 45 on 8 February 2017. Her cause of death was confirmed as a perforated ulcer and peritonitis.

Santa Montefiore

Charles’ eldest daughter is the author, Santa Montefiore. Santa initially worked in PR; however, she ended up sending a manuscript to several publishers, using a penname to distance herself from her family.

The star’s debut novel, Meet Me Under the Ombu Tree, was published in 2001, and she has been publishing books every year since then, including the likes of The Swallow and The Hummingbird, The Beekeeper’s Daughter and The Distant Shores.

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In 1998, Santa married historian and author Simon Sebag Montefiore, and she has previously credited her husband with her writing career. Speaking to The Daily Telegraph in 2001, she said: “Without Sebag I would never have plucked up courage to write.

“I had come from quite a sheltered, Sloaney background and he made me see life in a different way; besides introducing me to different kinds of literature – he gave me Anna Karenina to read on our honeymoon – he taught me to look beyond the surface.”

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Although as a youngster, she was irritated by her younger sister’s antics, Santa and Tara became incredibly close. Speaking to HELLO! in 2024, Santa revealed that her late sister’s spirit had previously visited her.

She told us: “The first time I saw her was in the night and that was really amazing. She was young, vibrant and happy and wearing a baby pink t shirt. In the morning when I called my mother to tell her, she said: ‘We buried her in a baby pink t-shirt,’ but nobody knew that, so it was really extraordinary.”