Erotic Icon Sylvia Krystel, Star of 'Emmanuelle,' Dies At Age 60
Dutch actress Sylvia Kristel, famous for her starring role in the 1974 erotic French film "Emmanuelle," died Thursday at age 60 after a battle with cancer.
Kristel first rose to fame at age 22 with her debut film, "Emmanuelle," which told the story of the erotic adventures of a young woman in Asia.
"Emmanuelle," released two years after more hard-core film "Deep Throat," became one of the biggest French box-office hits ever and was one of the first erotic films to be shown in mainstream theaters — changing the censorship laws of the era.
The film was even shown in a cinema on the Champs-Elysees in Paris for 13 years.
Kristel went on to star in not quite as successful sequels of the film — "Emmanuelle 2" in 1975, "Goodbye Emmanuelle" in 1977 and "Emmanuelle 4" in 1984.
But the young actress had a hard time coping with her new-found fame and spent years fighting drug addiction.
"She soon became typecast in erotic roles, and admitted to taking acting jobs in the 1980s simply to make money to feed her expensive cocaine habit," reports the AFP.
"I was a silent actress, a body. I belonged to dreams, to those that can't be broken," Kristel wrote in her 2006 autobiography "Naked."
Kristel, a smoker, was first diagnosed with throat cancer in 2002 and underwent a number of chemotherapy treatments.
On Thursday, the actress' agent announced "She died during the night during her sleep." Kristel had a stroke following treatment for throat cancer, reports AFP. She was also suffering from liver cancer.
"I don't expect much from the afterlife, I think that I know very well what pain is," Kristel said in a 2005 interview with Dutch newspaper Volkskrant.
"When I think of the end of my life, I think mainly: I didn't do nothing, but I could have done more."
The famous Dutch actress is survived by a son, Arthur, who she had in 1975 with her then-husband, Belgian author Hugo Claus—a man 24 years her senior whom she described as a "father lover."
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