Undressing Emmanuelle : Harper Perennial : 9780007256969 : 0007256965 : 24 Apr 2010 : In 1974, after a year of wrangling with the censors, Emmanuelle was a blockbuster sensation on release in France and a box office triumph around the world, from Japan to the U.S. The image that adorned cinemas across the world was of an unknown 20 year-old posing naked, innocent, and vulnerable on a wicker chair. Overnight Sylvia Kristel was propelled into international superstardom and became an icon of sexual liberation. Sylvia Kristel was born of a dysfunctional family and suffered an impossibly strict religious education. But having won the Miss TV Europe competition in 1973 she was driven by her own ambition to be an actress on the world stage, and auditioned for the part of the innocent seductress in Emmanuelle. Through the phenomenal success of the three Emmanuelle films she starred in she became the darling of Hollywood, as she seduced and was seduced by the rich and the beautiful of the golde