Sylvia Kristel - Emmanuelle 1974

Kristel began modeling when she was 17. She entered the Miss TV Europe contest in 1973 and won. She speaks Dutch, English, French, German and Italian. She gained international attention in 1974 for playing the title character in the softcore film Emmanuelle which remains one of the most successful French films ever produced.

Kristel found herself typecast as Emmanuelle and often played roles that capitalised upon that image, most notably starring in an adaptation of Lady Chatterley's Lover (1981) and a nudity filled biopic of World War I spy Mata Hari in which she played the title role. Her Emmanuelle image followed her to the United States where she played Nicole Mallow, a maid who seduces a teenage boy, in the controversial 1981 sex comedy Private Lessons. One of her only other mainstream American film appearances was a brief comic turn in the Get Smart revival film The Nude Bomb in 1980.

Although Private Lessons was one of the highest grossing independent films of 1981 (ranking #28 in US Domestic Gross), Kristel saw none of the profits. She continues to appear in movies and last played Emmanuelle in the early 1990s. In May 2006, Kristel received an award at the Tribeca Film Festival, New York for directing the animated short film "Topor and Me", written by Ruud Den Dryver. The award was presented by Gayle King.

After not having filmed for eight years, Kristel played a part in the movie Two Sunny Days in 2010 and in the same year she played the mother of the Trio Lescano in the TV series The Swing Girls.