Charismatic British actor Kevin Howarth was born Kevin Mark Smith in Keresley, a village and civil parish of the city of Coventry in the county of Warwickshire, to his mother Betty Jeanetta Smith (née Gridley) and his father Peter William Walton Smith. The youngest of six children his mother died of cancer when Kevin was just one year old, leaving him and his five older siblings to be raised on the home front by their paternal grandmother, Ada Smith (née Medforth), while their father brought in the money by working permanent night shifts as a machine shop inspector at the famous Jaguar Cars engineering factory.
He first attended the Hill Farm Primary Schools in Coventry where, at the tender age of 6, his first acting role was playing a Chinaman in a school production. He went on to be educated at the President Kennedy Comprehensive School. From the age of 14, he was also a very keen and active member of the Air Training Corps (2286 Arden Squadron), where he excelled in all aspects of its training and rigorous outdoor pursuits. Before leaving school his first thoughts were to join either the Navy or Fleet Air Arm, but his father discouraged him from that idea and instead he studied mechanical engineering and technology as an apprentice at Jaguar Cars. A year after completing this apprenticeship, and feeling disillusioned, he took the timely offer of a small financial redundancy package and left to seek new pastures. He then spent a number of years drifting from job to job, traveling around, hitchhiking a lot and "partaking in much revelry", until he found himself working as a taxi driver in Stratford-upon-Avon. It was here that a defining moment on an empty stage at the Royal Shakespeare Company's Swan Theatre spurred him on to become an actor. In the six months following this revelation he auditioned for two drama colleges and was offered a place at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in London. It was only thanks to an extremely generous scholarship from the Warwickshire County Council that he was able to accept this offer. He graduated with distinction and was a contemporary of the actress Minnie Driver.
He is best known for playing complex and dangerous leading roles; such as Max, the "smooth talking psychopath", in The Last Horror Movie (2003); Peter, the mentally disturbed drifter in Summer Scars (2007); and Viktor, the brutal and calculating brothel keeper in The Seasoning House (2012).
