Sylvia Christel, the actress with a tormented fate, who was haunted by the role of Emmanuel all her life.

The scandal it caused was as loud as its success. 1974: Sulfur feature film Emmanueladapted from the novel of the same name by Emmanuel Arsand, a pseudonym, attracted the French public. And his heroine, the young actress Sylvia Christel, takes her career skyrocketing. Fifty years later, the new adaptation, co-written by Audrey Dewan and Rebecca Zlotowski, opens in theaters on Wednesday, September 25. So Noemi Merlant succeeds Sylvia Christel as this woman who multiplies sensual experiences. With one difference, the former plays a quality controller in search of lost pleasures working for a luxury hotel chain. The second, in turn, slipped into the skin of an idle woman, whom her husband invited to satisfy his fantasies with complete strangers. A role that would haunt the Dutch actress for the rest of her life.

“I wanted to run away”

Born in Utrecht on September 28, 1952, Sylvia Christel seemed destined for a more ordinary fate. The eldest daughter of a hotelier couple, Jean-Nicolas Christel and Piete Hendricka Lamme, she grew up alongside her sister in this bourgeois family in the Netherlands. And remembers in his memories nakedFrom childhood released in 2007, which was dark to say the least. “A rigorous education,” he wrote. I wanted to run away.” A period that is also marked by the first trauma. He reveals in his autobiography that Daily Mail: recently included some excerpts about being sexually abused at the age of 9 by the manager of a facility run by her parents. Surprised by Sylvia Christel’s aunt, the employee will be fired immediately. But his victim will leave a painful memory.

Three years later, the little girl, who started smoking at the age of 11, entered a boarding school with nuns. The teenager then shines with his academic results and is fluent in English, French, Dutch and Italian. To the point of skipping several classes. An intellectual exercise that allows him to escape for a moment from the harsh atmosphere of Christel’s house. The young girl was 14 years old when her parents divorced. In his memoirs, the author remembers another trauma: the departure of his father. When he returns, Jean-Nicolas Christel appears on the arm of his mistress. And chases his wife and two daughters out of the hotel. “It was the saddest thing that ever happened to me,” Sylvia Christel wrote.

Movie love at first sight

After two years, he dropped out of school. And multiplies odd jobs, becoming a secretary, nurse or saleswoman. Soon, her porcelain face, delicate features and translucent eyes opened modeling doors for her. At the age of 21, she won the Miss TV Europe contest. Several shootings of commercials followed. It’s by pushing the wrong door that he gets the role of his life. At that time, Sylvia Christel was thinking about auditioning for a commercial for washing powder. But she quickly realizes her mistake when director Just Jackin asks her to strip in front of the camera.

“I did a video test for him,” the actress recalls in her memoirs. I just had to say, “I love you, I love you.” Instead, I say, “My name is Sylvia Christel, I live in Utrecht…”, detailing my life. He loved it and thought it was fresh and sensual.” The director chose him to play Emmanuel in his very first film. “I saw some very pretty girls and then I saw this young woman walk by with short blonde hair,” he said. I immediately fell in love with it in cinema.”

Curse

But the young woman refuses the role. The salary offered to him is only 18,000 francs. And then, the model fears her mother’s possible reaction to revealing this history of sexual initiation. Sylvia Christel, however, is trailing behind her companion Hugo Klaus, a Belgian novelist 23 years her senior, with whom she had a son, Arthur, in 1975. The fiction film. Emmanuel It arrived in Paris cinemas on June 26, 1974. The film may have been controversial, but its success was huge. So much so that the Triomphe cinema on the Champs-Élysées would continue to run twelve years in a row. Emmanuel will gather a total of 350 million viewers worldwide.

Sylvia Christel doesn’t know it yet, but Emmanuel’s character will never stop clinging to her. To the point of becoming a burden. “I was dressed, but people preferred me to be naked,” she laments in her work. I spoke, but they preferred that I be silent or that they go ahead of me. A curse he won’t be able to break. In the decades that followed, the Dutchwoman would no longer be as popular. The actress certainly works for great directors. He is especially officiating The veil has no pockets (1975), Jean-Pierre Mocky, Faithful wife (1976), by Roger Vadim, or even Alice or the last escape (1977), by Claude Chabrol. Francis Giraud even offered her a leading role in his film Rene cane (1977).

But nothing helps. Sylvia Kristel struggles to break away from her sultry persona. He also feels bound to honor his contract and will appear in various sequels of the filmEmmanuel. Then she appears in more modest productions, returning to the erotic register. And finds for Just Jaeckin Lady Chatterley’s lover, adaptation of the novel by D.H. by Lawrence. He also performs Mata Hari (1985), Dracula’s widow (1988), or even Warm blood (1990). Or even in such American productions as Airport 80 Concorde (1979), alongside Alain Delon. Looking back, the actress realizes that she made a number of bad choices in the 1980s, including emotional ones.

A destructive passion

In 1977, the actress left Hugo Klaus. Before having a brief affair with Michelle Polnareff, as the singer revealed in the column Paris game 2016 “Our story lasted one year, which was a record for me at that time,” says the artist. He was a wonderful person, overwhelmed by what was happening to him. She was not an easy girl, on the contrary, she was quite intellectual, she was also a very great artist. Sylvia Christel then met British actor Ian McShane on set The fifth musketeer (1979). He maintains a destructive passion with her that lasts until the early 1980s.

During this time, the couple broke up. Episodes of violence are increasing. in the interview given to Standard: the actress wakes up her companion’s crises, irritated by the fact that her acting career is not taking off. “This reality disappointed him and sometimes made him explode with anger,” he analyzed. Before proceeding. “After the cruelty, he treated me with feminine gentleness. He sometimes cried and regretted his excesses. Then, without any provocation, we found ourselves in the fight again.” That’s when Sylvia Christel started taking cocaine. “I was sniffing, running, falling, sniffing more and more,” he says. A vicious spiral that she struggles to escape despite her breakup with Ian McShane.

Health problems

In 1982, the actress sealed her union with American businessman Alan Turner. A marriage that will last five months. She then married Belgian producer Philippe Blot. The actress invested in her films at a loss, and then their relationship ended in a bitter divorce in 1991. A legal battle in which Sylvia Christel is losing properties in Los Angeles, Paris, the south of France and Holland that she acquired with her fees related to the saga. Emmanuel. This time it has been decided: Sylvia Christel returns to the Netherlands. There he went into rehab, but soon found himself with new health problems.

In 2001, doctors diagnosed him with throat cancer. The disease slowly spreads to the lungs. Sylvia Christel, however, can count on her latest companion, Belgian radio producer Fred de Vries, to support her in this ordeal. When it died in 2004, the actress continued the struggle alone. At the same time, he continues to play in small European productions. But in June 2012, fate struck again: Sylvia Christel suffered a stroke. Four months later, he died in his sleep of lung and esophageal cancer at the age of 60. The funeral of the actress will take place in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The very place where he was born and from which he longed to escape for some time.