Star of the controversial Emmanuelle series of soft porn films, Sylvia Kristel, has died. She was 60. In the summer, she was hospitalised after suffering a stroke as a result of complications from the lung cancer she'd been fighting for several years.

Dutch Ms Kristel was a model and a singer, but became most famous around the world for starring in the 1974 French erotic movie about the adventures of a promiscuous housewife. The film - which was feted for taking soft porn out of a very underground scene into mainstream cinema - spawned a series of highly successful spin-off movies and TV shows right up to 1993. She appeared in over 40 films, including X-rated versions of Lady Chatterly's Lover and First World War spy drama Mata Hari.

Kristel's agent told the AFP news agency that the actress – who'd been admitted to a hospital in Amsterdam in the summer after her stroke - had died in the night during her sleep. The actress is survived by her son, Arthur, whom she had in 1975 with her then-husband, Belgian author Hugo Claus.

Written and Presented byMarverine Cole