Actress Stars as Inventor

MELANIE CHARTOFF, who plays the domineering high school principal Grace Musso on Fox’s Sunday night sitcom “Parker Lewis,” has patents pending here and abroad on a water-saving device that she invented after seeing a need for it in a Los Angeles house that she bought last year during the severe Southern California drought.

The gadget, which she developed with actor Michael Bell, uses sink, shower and bath waste water to flush toilets.

Chartoff, the voice of Didi in the Emmy-winning Nickelodeon animated series “Rugrats,” performed last May in the L.A. Theatre Works’ KCRW Radio production of “Mastergate” with Walter Matthau and Ed Asner. She co-stars with Randy Travis in an upcoming TV movie for The Nashville Network.

After appearing on- and off-Broadway, Chartoff created a one-woman musical revue at New York’s Improv Comedy Club and later performed on ABC’s “Fridays” and co-hosted KTLA’s “What’s Hot! What’s Not?”

Her invention, a “gray-water valve” that re-routes leftover water to the toilet for flushing, will be featured with other ecological products in November at an exhibit for water agency officials. Chartoff is hoping to get a manufacturer to start producing the gadget this month.

“We’re putting the recycling system in my shower now as a pilot project,” she said. “I don’t know about you, but I take a 15-gallon shower, and that 15 gallons can flush my toilet six or seven times.”

She and Bell designed the device after she and producer James Brooke, who is developing the Randy Travis project, bought a 69-year-old, 2,000-square-foot home in Rancho Park, near 20th Century Fox studios.

“I was wearing myself and my boyfriend out, carrying buckets of water to the garden and the toilet, as a way to save water,” she said. “A recycling system had already been developed, but nobody had invented this valve to use water for a second time. . . . All it requires (besides the valve) is one more pipe, a pump and a holding tank.”

She described the valve as a welded part that could be manufactured for $18 and sold for $35, to be put in new homes. She figures that it would cost about $600 to put in an older home but would save 35% to 50% on the water bill.

Singer ENGELBERT HUMPERDINCK has put his Holmby Hills home, once owned by the late movie star Jayne Mansfield, on the market again--this time at $7.2 million.

It was last listed in December, 1991, but the singer first put it on the market in January, 1990, at $8 million.

“He’s moving because he wants to find a tennis court property,” said a spokesman for Fred Sands Realtors. Edith Winston of Sands’ Beverly Hills Estates office has the listing.

The Las Vegas headliner has owned the home, known as the “Pink Palace,” since 1976. It was built in the 1930s and was owned by late crooner Rudy Vallee before it was purchased by Mansfield, who lived there with her husband, Hollywood muscleman Mickey Hargitay.

The eight-bedroom, nearly 10,000-square-foot home has meandering walkways, ponds, fountains, statues, a pool house and a heart-shaped swimming pool--all on 1.25 acres.

Singer/songwriter HARRY NILSSON--late Beatle John Lennon’s “favorite American singer,” who wrote the 1970 hit “I Guess the Lord Must Be in New York City” has sold the Bel-Air home he built in 1976.

The five-bedroom, seven-bath home--with a poolroom and canyon and ocean views--was originally listed at more than $5 million. The most recent asking price was $3.45 million. It sold, according to public records, for about $2.5 million.

Nilsson, his wife and six children moved some time ago to their seven-bedroom, Hidden Hills home, once owned by bandleader Harry James and his actress wife Betty Grable.

Andrea Best and Takashi Misawa represented the Nilssons, and Michael Sahakian represented the buyer. All of the realtors are with Prudential Rodeo Realty’s Beverly Hills office.

Three multimillion-dollar estates next to the Huntington Library in San Marino can be seen today by appointment in a special open house from 2-5 p.m.

Among the homes is a Monterey Colonial on 2.39 acres, owned for the past 30 years by Virginia and Henry Braun, retired vice chairman of the CF Braun Co., an international engineering company that was based in Alhambra. The home, which was built in 1930, is listed at $4.65 million with Kim Atkinson-Melin of Rodeo Realty/San Marino.

Other estates in the open house are the home used in TV’s “Dynasty”--listed at $4.95 million with Carol Thomson of Podley, Caughey & Doan--and a newly built, 7,000-square-foot Mediterranean, with a basement, listed at $3.95 million with independent broker Michael Synn. Atkinson-Melin is coordinating the appointments.