Sylvia Kristel

Biography

In May 2006, at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York, the award for directing went to the woman the whole world knew as Emmanuelle. It was a short animated film, “Topor and Me”, written by Ruud Den Dryver. The award was presented by Gayle King.

Sylvia Maria Kristel was born on 28 September 1952 in Utrecht, the daughter of an innkeeper, Jean-Nicholas (by other accounts, John Nicolaas) Kristel, and Pietje Hendrika Lamme. With her younger sister Marianne she received a Catholic upbringing and finished secondary school. When she was fourteen, her parents divorced. For a time she worked as an office secretary, then decided to become a fashion model. By some accounts she entered modelling at seventeen. Her first fame came from an advertisement, and in January 1973 (by some accounts, on 4 January) she won the contest “Miss TV Europe”; the judges were Peter Wyngarde, Rolf Harris and Katie Boyle. Her command of several languages helped: Dutch, English, German and Italian.

In 1971, still unknown, she auditioned for the female lead in Bernardo Bertolucci’s “Last Tango in Paris”; the role eventually went to Maria Schneider.

In 1973 Kristel appeared in the Dutch films “Frank and Eva” and “Naked over the Fence”, and in the latter she also sang a song, “A Letter Came Today”. Then the French director Just Jaeckin offered her the title role in “Emmanuelle” (1974). The film was a huge success worldwide. Kristel played Emmanuelle again in “Emmanuelle: The Joys of a Woman” (1975), “Good-bye, Emmanuelle” (1977), “Emmanuelle IV” (1984) and “Emmanuelle 7” (1993): five of the seven films in the series in all. The success spawned a whole wave of imitations, the best known of them made without her. In France her surname came to be pronounced with the stress on the last syllable.

After “Emmanuelle” she was often offered roles in the same vein, but she also worked in other kinds of film. In France she worked with Roger Vadim and Claude Chabrol; her part in Chabrol’s “Alice or the Last Escapade” (1977) is regarded as her most valued serious role. She appeared in Walerian Borowczyk’s “La Marge” (1976). In 1979 she was in “The Fifth Musketeer” and in the Hollywood “Airport ’79”, then in the comedy “The Nude Bomb” (1980) and in “Private Lessons” (1981), one of the highest-grossing independent films of that year. Then came “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” (1981) and “Mata Hari” (1985), in which she played the title character.

She was often considered for roles that went to others. In Roman Polanski’s “The Tenant” (1976) she worked for one day of shooting, after which she was replaced by Isabelle Adjani. Sergio Leone, with whom she was friends, wanted her for “Once Upon a Time in America”, but the producers did not agree. Details of such stories come mostly from the actress’s own retelling, and they are hard to verify.

In 1990 a film crew shot the television series “My Riviera” at her home in Saint-Tropez, with an interview by the writer and director Michael Feeney Callan. In the 1990s she took up painting, which brought her success, and in her last years she sold her paintings. In 2001 she played a small part in Cyrus Frisch’s debut film “Forgive Me”, and in 2002 she recorded the song “Changes” for the project EDC, which became a lounge classic. In 2006, with the composer Stephen Emmer, she took part in “Recitement”, a project devoted to poetry and music, and performed at the Crossing Border festival in The Hague.

In September 2006 her autobiography “Nue” (“Nude”) was published in France, and in February 2007 it appeared in the Netherlands; in English the book is called “Undressing Emmanuelle”. After appearing in 2009 in the stage production “Wie weet overleeft de begeerte me”, Kristel returned to the screen after an eight-year break: in 2010 she was in the film “Two Sunny Days” and in the Italian television film “The Swing Girls”, in which she played Eva de Leeuw. It was her last role.

Sylvia Kristel died on 17 October 2012, aged sixty. She was buried on 26 October at the Sint Barbara cemetery in Utrecht. From 2014 to 2018 the Film by the Sea festival presented an annual award in her name.