The star of the 1970s soft porn Emmanuelle movies is fighting for her life in hospital after a massive heart failure.
Dutch-born actress Sylvia Kristel, 59, was found unconscious at her home in Amsterdam on Saturday.
Kristel starred in five Emmanuelle films between 1974 and 1993 and another six TV spin-offs.
The series of French-made erotic movies are famed for bringing soft-core pornography to mainstream cinema.
Kristel also became famous for her steamy nude scenes in another 40 films, starring in the lead roles in X-rated versions of Lady Chatterly’s Lover and World War One spy drama Mata Hari.
The Dutch-born actress was found unconscious at her home in Amsterdam on Saturday. She is pictured in one of the five Emmanuelle films which she starred in.
Kristel – a heavy smoker since the age of 11 – was also treated for lung cancer ten years ago but managed to make a partial recovery.
In her 2006 autobiography Undressing Emmanuelle, she told of a personal life blighted by her battle with drugs and alcohol, and a series of destructive relationships with older men.
She lived with Lovejoy star Ian McShane in the 1980s in Los Angeles, but the couple split up after four years and she moved to St Tropez on the French Riviera.
She described the relationship with McShane in her autobiography as ‘awful’, adding: ‘He was witty and charming but we were too much alike.’
She had one son Arthur with Belgian author Hugo Claus, 27 years her senior.
Arthur, 37, said today that he did not hold out hope that his mother – now in hospital in Amsterdam – would make a full recovery.
He told the Netherlands’ Het Laatste Nieuws daily paper: ‘I would like to be able to say she will soon be well again, but we have to remain realistic.’
Source: DailyMail
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