Sylvia Kristel est Décédée
The star of Emmanuelle has died.
October 18, 2012 - 8:23 am
She wasn’t the world’s greatest actress, she was never nominated for an Oscar, but for males of my generation she was the embodiment of a thousand fantasies. Born in Utrecht in 1952, she moved to Amsterdam where she worked as a waitress, then a model, before becoming an actress. She was cast as the title character in Emmanuelle, based on the novels of Emmanuelle Arsan, one of the first purposefully erotic mainstream films. It was a hit, spawned several sequels with Kristel and a cottage industry of “hard R” erotic films with Emmanuelle in the title and essentially no other connection to the original. She had fought cancer since 2000, and was hospitalized in July following a stroke. She died in her sleep.
Really appreciate the post and the coverage, Charlie. I know we’ve tangled on sex some but now, in memory of Kristel, seems like a good opportunity to clarify something: I’ve got zero problem with erotic art and sexy pictures.
My problem is with the literal definition of pornography — “writing about prostitutes.” Erotic photos or movies depicting healthy sexual activity (where everybody’s legitimately having a good time) have a place and adults should legally have access to them. Explicit photos or movies that are not erotic and that depict the unhealthy sexual lifestyle of pimps and prostitutes is a whole other beast — and not one that can be dealt with through government censors but through honest cultural talk about what the media depict.
Rigid moralists only have one legitimate choice: to convert everyone to their beliefs. Since that’s never going to happen, then they will have to deal with the fact that “smut” is here to stay.
Thanks for adding the picture. What a face.
Now, now: What about Irma la Douce?
Good grief, some generalizations do fall flat.
One of the greatest romantic sound tracks of all time. It recently made the cut of old vinyl albums I’ve selected to download to my laptop as a winter project.
What a shame–so young. May she rest in peace.
I recognized the name immediately. Very sad. She was luscious, wasn’t she?
But the movie? I literally fell asleep about 3/4 of the way through it! My date had fun with that for months!
Now I’m sad again . . . .
Really? I haven’t seen it for years, but I thought the first one was pretty good and the second one amazingly hot.
Those were the days; you actually could take a date to a “dirty” movie. We were innocent once, and young.
RIP. Did enjoy Emmanuel.
that ruined my day.. indeed she was part of my fantasies as a young guy, RIP sylvia
Watched it because of all the great reviews it had, and all the people who told me how much they liked it.
It sucked. As do 90% of all critically acclaimed movies and books.
She was all right looking, but watching the movie just to see her wasn’t worth it.