Sylvia Kristel

Sylvia Maria Kristel was born in the Netherlands on 28 September 1952. She became a model before moving into acting, where she landed the title role in Emmanuelle in 1974 — a performance that made her internationally recognizable and typecast her for years. She reprised the character in four of the six sequels that followed, while appearing in more than 50 films total across her career. She continued working in cinema through the decades that followed, never fully escaping the shadow of that first role. Kristel died on 17 October 2012.