Sylvia Kristel,60, star of the erotic movie "Emmanuelle" from the 1970s has passed away. The dutch actress died a battle with cancer, The Los Angeles Times reported. Her agent said in a statement that she died in her sleep Wednesday night.
The stunning actress' breakthrough role was in the erotic 1974 flick Emmanuelle which she played Emmanuelle. The movie featured the sexual adventures of her and her husband together in Thailand and was directed by Just Jaeckin.
The Dutch actress starred in sequels to "Emmaneulle" and many other movies including "Lady Chatterley's Lover" and Mata Hari" the Los Angeles Times reported.
The actress was an iconic figure and the AFP reports the role of "Emmanuelle" was a symbol of the sexual revolution in the 1970s.
Kristel reportedly battled with drug and alcohol addictions and the AFP reported that she admitted to taking rolls simply to feed her drug addiction. "I was a silent actress, a body. I belonged to dreams, to those that can't be broken," she wrote in her autobiography, "Naked" according to the AFP.
Jaeckin who directed "Emmanuelle" said to the AFP that Kristel was "a wonderful woman, very pure, very innocent. But the mark that Emmanuelle left on her was very hard for her."
"Unfortunately, I was expecting it," he said of her death to AFP. "I'm also relieved that she no longer has to suffer."
Kristel is survived by her son, Arthur, 24, whose father is her ex husband, Hugo Claus, a Belgian author. She had described him as "the father that I would have liked to have had and the lover that I had dreamt of," the AFP reported.
The AFP reported that she said of her life in 2005 to the Dutch newspaper, Volksrant, "When I think of the end of my life, I think mainly: I didn't do nothing, but I could have done more."
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