Last picture of Emmanuelle star Sylvia Kristel - the queen of erotic movies - who has died at 60 after long battle with cancer...

The last picture: Sylvia Kristel pictured here in March during her fight with cancer, has died at the age of 60.

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Sylvia Kristel, star of the 1970s soft porn Emmanuelle movies, has died of cancer at the age of 60.

The Dutch-born actress died in her sleep last night after a ten-year battle with the disease, her agent said.

She had recently been released from hospital in Amsterdam after suffering a massive heart failure in July.

International star: The actress as she looked last year (left) and in Goodbye Emmanuelle in 1977 (right).

Breakthrough role: Kristel shot to fame after starring in the French soft porn film Emmanuelle (pictured) in 1974.

Marieke Verharen, of the Features Creative Management agency, said today: 'She died during the night during her sleep.' Kristel's breakthrough came in Emmanuelle, a 1974 erotic tale directed by Frenchman Just Jaeckin, about the sexual adventures of a man and his beautiful young wife, played by Kristel, in Thailand.

She went on to star in four sequels and another six TV spin-offs, as well as in Hollywood movies including Private Lessons in 1981

The series of French-made Emmanuelle movies are famed for bringing soft-core pornography to mainstream cinema.

Kristel also became famous for her steamy nude scenes in another 40 films, including lead roles in X-rated versions of Lady Chatterley's Lover and World War One spy drama Mata Hari.

Her career began as a 17-year-old model after brief stints as a secretary and a waitress, and she began to make a name for herself in 1973 when, aged 21, she won the Miss TV Europe contest.

Romance: Kristel lived in Los Angeles with Lovejoy star Ian McShane at the turn of the 1980s. The couple separated after four years together.

Cockpit: Kristel and Alain Delon in the poorly-received sequel The Concorde... Airport '79, released as Airport '80: The Concorde in the UK.

It opened the door to acting and, after appearing naked in one film, she accidentally went for an audition for Emmanuelle, having intended to try out for a television commercial next door.

SEXY SIREN REPUTATION FOLLOWED HER THROUGHOUT HER CAREER

Emmanuelle (1974)

The wife of an older diplomat follows her husband to Thailand where she fills her time having sex with various people. The movie made Sylvia Kristel a household name and would forever be associated with the young actress.

The Fifth Musketeer (1979)

Kristel played Spanish royal Maria Theresa in this adaptation of The Man In The Iron Mask. During filming she met Ian McShane, who she would go on to have a four-year relationship with. Beau Bridges and Ursula Andress also starred.

The Concorde... Airport '79 (1979)

The last of the Airport disaster movies, the film sees an American company take ownership of a Concorde jet which then has to be destroyed during its inaugural flight in a bid to destroy evidence of illegal arms deals on board, Released a year later in the UK as Airport '80: The Concorde.

The Nude Bomb (1980)

Kristel plays Agent 34, who helps master spy Maxwell Smart save the world from a terrorist who threatens to detonate a weapon that destroys clothes. The title of Leslie Nielsen's 1988 movie The Naked Gun was a reference to this earlier comedy.

Lady Chatterley's Lover (1981)

Sylvia Kristel plays the title character in the 18-rated adaptation of D H Lawrence's novel about a wife who is forced to look for love after her husband is left impotent by an injury.

Private Lessons (1981)

A 15-year-old boy develops a crush on his father's French housekeeper, played by Sylvia Kristel. A blackmailer gets the housekeeper to seduce the boy as part of a plot to steal the teenager's trust find.

She was asked to remove her dress and, after slipping it off and letting it fall to the floor, was told she had the part.

The movie told the story of a bored housewife living with a diplomat in Asia who fills her time having sex with various people.

It was banned in Paris, where it was due to have its premier, for six months.

It was not released in the UK until it had been heavily edited - and even then only with an X rating. The full length version was not legally available in Britain until 2007.

Kristel told Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant, 'love dictated what I did', saying her former partner, Belgian author Hugo Claus, persuaded her to star in Emmanuelle.

'He said, "Thailand, that's nice, we've never been there and anyway the film will never come out in the Netherlands so you won't put your mother to shame,"' Kristel said. 'In the end, 350million people saw it worldwide..

Jaeckin, the director who is also a sculptor and has a gallery in Paris, said by telephone that he and Kristel maintained contact, calling each other every three to four months.

But he hadn't spoken with her since February.

He said: 'I am very sad... She was like a little sister. We started together. Emmanuelle brought us big problems. We were a bit marked.

'It was a highly contested film then and now it is a cult film.' He said that he knew immediately that Kristel was destined for the leading role.

'When I saw her face, I was thunderstruck,' he said. Kristel - a heavy smoker since the age of 11 - was 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 in Los Angeles with Lovejoy star Ian McShane in the 1980s, who was ten years her senior.

They met on the set of the 1979 film The Fifth Musketeer. They moved in together after he promised to help her launch her American career but the couple split up after four years and she moved to St Tropez on the French Riviera.

Kristel described the relationship with McShane in her autobiography as 'awful', adding: 'He was witty and charming but we were too much alike.'

Dreamy: Kristel starred in more than 50 films after becoming a household name in the mid-70s.

Winning beauty: Kristel's career took off after winning Miss TV Europe (left) and she headed to America (right).

Central attraction: Emmanuelle fever hits the Cannes Film Festival in the mid-70s.

Silver screen recognition did not come until May 2006 when Kristel received an award at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York for directing the animated short film Topor And Me.

She had been diagnosed with throat cancer five years earlier and underwent three courses of chemotherapy, as well as surgery, after it spread to her lungs.

She had one son Arthur with Belgian author Claus, 27 years her senior.

Kristel is survived by her partner Peter Brul and her son. She is to be buried at a private funeral. Further details were not released.

Culled from The Daily Mail UK.

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Simply Cheska...