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Sylvia Kristel

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Sylvia Kristel
Height5 ft 9 in (1.75 m)

Sylvia Kristel (September 28, 1952 in Utrecht), pronounced "kri-STELL", is a Dutch actress, model and singer. She is the daughter of a Skeet shooting champion. Her parents ran a hotel in Utrecht. In her new autobiography Nue she claims to have been sexually abused by an elderly guest at the age of nine, an event which she still refuses to discuss in detail. Her parents divorced when she was 14 and her sister Marianne 12 after their father left home for another woman. 'It was the saddest thing that ever happened to me', she says of it.

When she was 17 she began modeling. She entered the Miss TV Europe contest in 1973 and won. She speaks Dutch, English, French, German and Italian. She gained international attention in 1974 for playing the title character in the soft core film Emmanuelle which remains one of the most successful French films ever produced.

Kristel found herself typecast as Emmanuelle and often played roles that capitalised upon that image, most notably starring in an adaptation of Lady Chatterley's Lover and a nudity filled biopic of World War I spy Mata Hari in which she played the title role. Her Emmanuelle image followed her to the United States where she played Nicole Mallow, a maid who seduces a teenage boy, in the controversial 1981 sex comedy Private Lessons. One of her only other mainstream American film appearances was a brief comic turn in the Get Smart revival film The Nude Bomb in 1980.

Although Private Lessons was one of the highest grossing independent films of 1981 (ranking #28 in US Domestic Gross [1]), Kristel saw none of the profits. She continues to appear in movies and last played Emmanuelle in the early 1990s. In May 2006, Kristel received an award at the Tribeca Film Festival, New York for directing the animated short film "Topor and Me", written by Ruud Den Dryver. The award was presented by Gayle King.

Personal Life

In September 2006 Sylvia Kristel's autobiography Nue (Naked) was published in France. In it she tells of a turbulent personal life blighted by addictions to drugs, alcohol, and her quest for a father figure which resulted in some harmful relationships with older men. Her first major relationship was with Hugo Claus, a Belgian author 27 years her senior with whom she had a son Arthur born in 1975. She left him for Ian McShane, 10 years her senior, whom she met on the set of the 1977 film Man Behind the Mask. They moved in together in Los Angeles where he had promised to help her launch her American career. However their five year affair would lead 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.' About two years into the relationship she began taking cocaine. This proved to be her downfall, though 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.'

Interviewed in 2006 for Firecracker Films'[2] Documentary "Hunting Emmanuelle"[3], she describes how, nurturing an expensive cocaine habit, she made a number of poor decisions, including agreeing to sell her interest in the film to her agent on a whim for $150,000. With a domestic gross of over $26 million, she laughs at how much of her agent's mansion her percentage probably paid for.

Her relationship with McShane continued to be turbulent. One night before a gala event in Malibu they were to attend together he walked in on her after she'd had her make-up and hair done and was surveying the results before departing. He gave her a hostile look and then threw a champagne bucket at her head. They fought furiously and neither attended the gala. The following morning Kristel fled back to Utrecht. But the relationship wasn't over and soon they were living together again in London where McShane was working on a film. Here she fell pregnant, much to McShane's chagrin. He continued drinking, encouraging her to do likewise. Their arguments continued and after a fall Kristel was admitted to hospital where she had a miscarriage. McShane sent word he was unable to attend as he was at a wrap party that night. This proved to be the final straw for Sylvia. After checking out of hospital a couple days later she flew to Paris, her partnership with McShane over for good.

Since McShane, she has been married twice, first to an American businessman which ended after five months and then to film producer Phillippe Blot. She spent a decade with Belgian radio producer Fred De Vree but he died suddenly. With much of her Emmanuelle earnings flittered away on poor investments, she herself now lives a comparatively simple life back in Amsterdam, presently remaining single whilst mourning the death of De Vree from cancer. Sylvia Kristel has also spoken of relationships with women and says she considers herself bisexual.

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