The Dutch star of the hit 1974 erotic film Emmanuelle has died of cancer aged 60.

Dutch actress Sylvia Kristel, whose iconic Emmanuelle role symbolised the sexual revolution during the 1970s and who spent years fighting drug addiction, has died aged 60 after a battle with cancer.

'She died during the night during her sleep,' agent Marieke Verharen of Features Creative Management said of Kristel, who had been admitted to an Amsterdam hospital in July following a stroke.

Kristel (60) was catapulted to fame by her first movie, Emmanuelle, in 1974, which described the erotic adventures of a young woman in Asia. A worldwide success, it was shown in a cinema on the Champs-Elysees in Paris for 13 years.

The first Emmanuelle film was seen by at least 350 million people at the cinema, Dutch media reported, saying she lured movie-goers with her 'natural erotic attraction' and had made 'soft-core pornography acceptable'.

A series of sequels followed, also starring Kristel, with Emmanuelle 2 in 1975, Goodbye Emmanuelle in 1977 and Emmanuelle 4 in 1984. Kristel went on to play in a string of other risqué films including a nudity-filled 1985 portrayal of first World War spy Mata Hari.

Kristel was born on September 28th, 1952 in Utrecht, where her parents ran a hotel near the train station. In her 2006 autobiography, Naked, she wrote of having been sexually abused at age .