The woman who was catapulted into the spotlight after starring in an iconic erotic film led a life even more chaotic than the famous character she portrayed.
Sylvia Kristel was the star of the smash hit movie Emmanuelle, about a young woman who went to Bangkok to explore her sexuality.
It was so controversial when it was released in June 1974 that people in Spain were banned from seeing it. And 50 years on, it has now been remade in a “revised tale of Emmanuelle’s sexual awakening, with a feminist twist”.
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(Image: Studio Canal)
But the original Emmanuelle will not be around to see the remake after she died aged 60 back in 2012 – and below we look inside her tragic life.
Growing up
Syliva was born in Utrecht, Netherlands, to parents who were both alcoholics, and addiction issues would later damage her own life.
She had an unusual upbringing and lived alongside her sister in a hotel that her mum and dad owned. And in 2006, she revealed in her autobiography Neu that she was sexually assaulted by the hotel manager when she was just nine.
Her aunt walked in on the assault and the man, who she referred to as Uncle Hans, was fired. She wrote about feeling a “tinge of regret” and that she worried the punishment was “too harsh, more than I am worth?”
(Image: Roger Viollet via Getty Images)
As for substance abuse, Syliva once tried to total up how many glasses of beer her father was drinking in a day and stopped counting after 40.
And she herself was consuming booze (and cigarettes) at a young age, something she did not find strange until she went to boarding school at age 11.
Remembering, she told The Independent: “On my first night [of boarding school] I could not sleep so I asked Sister Assassia for a cognac. She said ‘You must be joking!’
“It was the first time I’d ever been refused. At the hotel, when I couldn’t sleep, I would always serve myself a cognac. Before I was weaned, my mother got me to sleep by putting a cognac-soaked cloth wrapped around a lump of sugar to my lips.”
Syliva’s life took an unexpected turn aged 14 when “the saddest thing that ever happened to me” occurred when her parents divorced.
Her shameless dad arrived at the hotel with his new mistress and ordered his wife and daughters to move out. She said: “It was as if we were staff and he had dismissed us.”
(Image: Getty Images)
She later tried to return to the hotel only for the mistress to refuse her entry. Despite being evicted from her own home, Sylvia took on waitressing and secretary jobs as a teenager before being crowned Miss TV Europe in London.
She reflected: “I want my father to see me – to see this exquisite bird he let escape.”
Romances
Syliva had her only child, Arthur, with Dutch writer Hugo Claus, who was 24 years older than her.
Discussing the age-gap, she said: “Was I looking for a father? Maybe in my subconscious I was, but Hugo was not a father figure, he was a great lover.”
But after her son was born, she started a relationship with British actor Ian McShane, who promised to take her to Hollywood after the success of Emmanuelle.
However, their relationship was violent and she told the Evening Standard: “We screamed, we cried, broke ornaments – we played a tragedy.”
Drugs
During her turbulent relationship with Ian, she was spending £400 a week on cocaine and was attending extravagant parties where she would “snort, drink, slip on my silk-lined Chanel clothes and fall over”.
(Image: AFP/Getty Images)
Speaking about her drug addiction, she said: “Cocaine seemed to be the opposite of a drug, 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.”
Her time with Ian ended shortly after she announced she was three months pregnant. She later lost the baby after a fall.
Then single, she later starred in sex-comedy Private Lessons, and was so desperate for cash she sold her interests in the film for $150,000. However, the independent film was a huge success and grossed £20 million, something she failed to profit from.
A doctor later warned her that her liver was failing and she decided to ditch cocaine so she could afford to keep living in her home.
Divorces and early death
In the 1980s, she had a brief marriage to American businessman Alan Turner before later getting hitched to film producer Philippe Blot.
But she was left bankrupt after financing one of her husband’s failed films before they separated.
(Image: EXPRESS NEWSPAPERS)
Sylvia then had a long-term relationship with Belgian radio DJ Fred De Vree but he died in 2004. Her career continued with making more movies in the Emmanuel franchise before she starred in other saucy flicks.
But she said her body was more interesting than her words and she added: “I thought Hollywood was waiting for me. It was not – and I had to fight to keep my clothes on.”
After starting smoking at age 11, she was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2001, something which later spread to her lungs.
She suffered a stroke in 2012 before dying four months later from esophageal and lung cancer. Sylvia took her final breath in a flat in Amsterdam with nobody by her side.
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
