Iconic erotic film star Sylvia Kristel of ‘Emmanuelle’ dies of cancer at 60

Actress Sylvia Kristel died this week at 60 years of age. “She died during the night during her sleep,” her agent, Marieke Verharen, told the AFP news agency. The cause of her death was cancer. In recent years, she received treatment for throat and liver cancer, and suffered a stroke.

She is most famous for her role in the 1970s cult-erotic hit "Emmanuelle." Dangerous Minds has an obit, and the New York Times. Her memoir is a sad and illuminating read.

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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theophrastvs

RIP to the talented actress who ‘taught’ a young adolescent that the most erotic thing on earth is being the cause of a woman’s smile.
http://www.aarongilliland.com/ Aaron Gilliland

I remember seeing the Emmanuelle series in the early 90s. The guys in my class would stay up very late on Saturday nights to watch Bleu Nuit, a soft-core Cinemax-esque block on TQS in Québec.

If nothing else, those movies taught me that a woman could smoke with her vajayjay.
vance_tam

lordie, lord, did I ever lust after that woman.
vonbobo

Sylvia helped open my eyes to a world that couldn’t be explained by my single mother, during a quick and confusing conversation. I am sad that Sylvia has gone through rough times just like the rest of us suffering from humanism, but I hope she appreciated all of her contributions, and it is just the media and a publisher that is capitalizing on the negatives.
- http://www.xeni.net/ Xeni Jardin
  
  She wrote the book herself.
  - http://www.youtube.com/user/Freethinkersanon Christopher
    
    Proving that she was more than just a pretty face.
  - vonbobo
    
    The publisher of Sylvia’s book had an interest in the content- more dirt sells more copies. The cover and the title also convey this message. But my point is that I want to celebrate Sylvia’s accomplishments and her impact on the worldwide society, not give her pity for the typecasting or any of the other more common human conditions she found herself in.
    Of course I know this is serving my own selfish needs so anyone is welcome to shrug and roll eyes.
Petzl

How fondly I remember attending opening night of her first movie, tackily billed as “a young girl’s strange, erotic journey from Milan to Minsk.”
http://profile.yahoo.com/OMHO6ER5QJE3SIZ35VAXIRCLYM Stephan

There goes my puberty …
http://theladyfingers.blogspot.com/ Ladyfingers

Let’s all raise a crusty sock to the memory of Sylvia Kristel.
Amadan CBEB

Soon to be made the Patron Saint of Repetitive Strain Injury.