Sylvia Kristel

Sylvia Maria Kristel (28 September 1952 – 17 October 2012) was a Dutch actress and model who appeared in over 50 films. She was the eponymous character in five of the seven Emmanuelle films, including originating the role with Emmanuelle (1974).

Kristel was born in Utrecht, the Netherlands; she was the elder daughter of an innkeeper, Jean-Nicholas Kristel, and his wife Pietje Hendrika Lamme. In her 2006 autobiography, Nue, she stated that she was sexually abused by an elderly hotel guest when she was nine years old, an experience she otherwise refused to discuss. Her parents divorced when she was 14 years old, after her father abandoned the family for another woman. "It was the saddest thing that ever happened to me," she said of the experience of her parents' separation.

Kristel began modeling when she was 17 years old. In 1971, before becoming famous, she took part in auditions for the female lead (a role ultimately played by Maria Schneider) in Bernardo Bertolucci's 1972 film Last Tango in Paris.

In January 1973, Kristel won a television contest called "Miss TV Europe", which was judged by Peter Wyngarde, Rolf Harris, and Katie Boyle. She was helped by speaking Dutch, English, German, and Italian fluently, and several other languages to a lesser extent.

Kristel gained international attention in 1974 for playing the title character in the softcore film Emmanuelle, which remains one of the most successful French films ever produced.

After the success of Emmanuelle, Kristel was often cast in films capitalizing on a similar sexually provocative image and in roles involving nudity. Notably, she starred in

a 1981 film adaptation of Lady Chatterley's Lover; and in the title role of Mata Hari (1985), a biographical film about the World War I spy. She also appeared in lesser-known art house films by prominent French directors Claude Chabrol and Roger Vadim during the 1970s; and starred in

In September 2006, Kristel's autobiography Nue (Nude) was published in France. The writing was translated into English as Undressing Emmanuelle: A Memoir, by Fourth Estate, 2 July 2007, in which she described a turbulent personal life that was blighted by addictions to drugs and alcohol, and her quest for a father figure, which resulted in some destructive relationships with older men. The book received some positive reviews.

She had her first major relationship with Belgian author Hugo Claus, who was more than two decades her senior. Their union from 1973 to 1977 produced her only child, a son named Arthur, who was born in 1975. She left her husband for British actor Ian McShane, whom she had met in 1976 on the set of the film The Fifth Musketeer (1979). They moved in together in Los Angeles, where he had promised to help launch her American career. However, their five-year affair led to no significant career break for Kristel, but a relationship she describes in her autobiography as "awful – he was witty and charming, but we were too much alike." She began using cocaine about two years into their relationship. This proved her downfall, although at the time she thought of it as a "supervitamin, a very fashionable substance, without danger, but expensive, far more exciting than drowning in alcohol – a fuel necessary to stay in the swing." Sylvia Kristel also had a year-long relationship with French singer Michel Polnareff.

Kristel was a heavy cigarette smoker from the age of 11. She was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2001, and underwent three courses of chemotherapy and surgery after the disease spread to her lungs. On 12 June 2012, she suffered a stroke and was hospitalized in critical condition. Four months later, she died in her sleep at age 60 from esophageal and lung cancer. Kristel is buried at her place of birth in Utrecht, the Netherlands.