Ursula Andress
Andress in her iconic Dr. No scene and famous white bikini
Born	(1936-03-19) 19 March 1936 (age 76) Ostermundigen, Switzerland
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1954–2005
Spouse	John Derek (m. 1957–1966) «start: (1957)–end+1: (1967)»"Marriage: John Derek to Ursula Andress" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Ursula_Andress)
Partner	Harry Hamlin 1 son (1978–1982) Lorenzo Rispoli (1983–present)

Ursula Andress (born 19 March 1936) is a Swiss actress and sex symbol of the 1960s.^[1] She is known for her role as Bond girl Honey Ryder in the first James Bond movie, Dr. No (1962), for which she won a Golden Globe. She later starred as Vesper Lynd in the Bond-parody Casino Royale (1967).

Early life[link]

Andress was born in Ostermundigen, Canton of Bern, Switzerland, the daughter of Anna, who was Swiss, and Rolf Andress, a German diplomat who was expelled from Switzerland for political reasons. He disappeared during World War II.^[2]

Career[link]

Andress became famous as Honey Ryder, a shell diver and James Bond's object of desire in Dr. No (1962), the first Bond movie.^[3] In a well-known scene, she rises out of the Caribbean Sea in a white bikini. The scene made Andress the "quintessential" Bond girl,^[4] and is now considered iconic.^[5] "My entrance in the film wearing the bikini on that beautiful beach made me world famous as 'the Bond girl'", she said, and the bikini from this "classic moment in cinema and Bond history" sold for £35,000 at auction in 2001.^[6] In 2003, in a UK Survey by Channel 4, her entrance in Dr. No was voted #1 in "the 100 Greatest Sexy Moments".^[7]

Andress won the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year in 1964 for her performance in Dr. No.^[8] Her voice was provided by Nikki van der Zyl, while the calypso was sung by Diana Coupland.^[9] In 1965, she posed nude for Playboy.^[10] When asked why she had agreed to do the Playboy shoot she replied coolly, "Because I'm beautiful."^[11]

Andress co-starred with Elvis Presley in the 1963 film, Fun in Acapulco, with Frank Sinatra in 4 for Texas (1963), opposite Marcello Mastroianni in The 10th Victim (1965), alongside John Richardson in She (1965), and as the countess in The Blue Max (1966). She also appeared in the Bond satire Casino Royale (1967) as Vesper Lynd, an occasional spy who persuades Evelyn Tremble, as played by Peter Sellers, to carry out a mission. Her heavy accent was dubbed over in Dr. No, but she used her own voice in Casino Royale.

In 1967, Andress turned down the role of Matilda in the British-thriller Berserk!, a role that eventually went to English actress, Diana Dors. In 1981's Clash of the Titans she co-starred with Laurence Olivier. In 1995, Andress was chosen by Empire magazine as one of the "100 Sexiest Stars in film history."

After the her son's birth, Andress scaled back her career, which focused mostly on European TV and films.

Personal life[link]

Andress surrounded by TV crews on board the Royal Yacht Britannia celebrating her 70th birthday in 2006

In 1957, Andress married actor/director, John Derek; they divorced in 1966. Andress dated many of Hollywood's leading men, including co-stars Marlon Brando, and James Dean. One of her longest affairs was with Jean-Paul Belmondo while he was still married to his first wife.^[12] In 1980, she had a son, Dimitri, with American actor Harry Hamlin, her co-star in the film Clash of the Titans.^[13]

On 18 May 2006, on the occasion of the inauguration of the Swiss Consulate General in Scotland, Ursula Andress celebrated her 70th birthday on board the Royal Yacht Britannia in Edinburgh in the presence of an international crowd of celebrities.

Filmography[link]

References[link]

1. ^ Tom Lisanti, Louis Paul (2002). Film Fatales: Women in Espionage Films and Television, 1962–1973. McFarland. p.38. ISBN 0-7864-1194-5.
2. ^ Mark Anstead (7 December 2002). Bond girl who made a killing. The Guardian. Accessed 2008-06-30.
3. ^ Dr No bikini for sale (12 January 2001). BBC News. Accessed 2008-02-16.
4. ^ Rebecca Thomas (19 November 1999). One girl is not enough. BBC News. Accessed 2008-02-16.
5. ^ Kathryn Westcott (5 July 2006). The bikini: Not a brief affair. BBC News. Accessed 2008-02-16.
6. ^ Bond bikini sells for £35,000 (14 February 2001). BBC News. Accessed 2008-02-16.
7. ^ Andress scene voted 'most sexy' (30 November 2003). BBC News. Accessed 2008-02-16.
8. ^ Ursula Andress. GoldenGlobes.org. Accessed 2008-02-18.
9. ^ Actress Diana Coupland dies at 74 (10 November 2006). BBC News. Accessed 2008-02-16.
10. ^ Ursula Andress Playboy.co.uk.
11. ^ Julie Burchill (10 October 2011). Selling sex... why be coy about it?. The Independent. Accessed 2011-10-10.
12. ^ Elaine Sciolino (21 January 2009). French star as he is, stroke and all. NY Times. Accessed 2012-04-04.
13. ^ Logan Bentley (5 May 1980). Urged by Her 28-Year-Old Lover, Harry Hamlin, Ursula Andress Faces Motherhood at 44. People. Accessed 2010-12-14.

External links[link]

• Ursula Andress celebrates her 70th birthday on board the Royal Yacht Britannia in Edinburgh (Swiss TV: 18th May 2006)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Ursula Andress

• Ursula Andress at the Internet Movie Database

Sylvia Kristel
Kristel at Paris screening of documentary about her life, 25 September 2007
Born	(1952-09-28) 28 September 1952 (age 59) Utrecht, Netherlands

Sylvia Kristel (born 28 September 1952) is a Dutch actress, model and singer. Her most famous role is in the French film Emmanuelle.^[1]

Early life[link]

Kristel was born in Utrecht, Netherlands, as the daughter of Piet and Jean-Nicholas, who ran an inn in Utrecht.^[2][3] In her 2006 autobiography Nue she claims to have been sexually abused by an elderly guest at the hotel at the age of nine, an event which she has refused to discuss in detail. Her parents divorced when she was 14 years old after her father left home for another woman. "It was the saddest thing that ever happened to me", she says of the experience of her parents' separation. She has a younger sister, Marianne.

Career[link]

This biographical section of an article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (May 2011)

Kristel began modeling when she was 17. She entered the Miss TV Europe contest in 1973 and won. She speaks Dutch, English, French, German and Italian. She gained international attention in 1974 for playing the title character in the softcore film Emmanuelle which remains one of the most successful French films ever produced.

Kristel found herself typecast as Emmanuelle and often played roles that capitalised upon that image, most notably starring in an adaptation of Lady Chatterley's Lover (1981) and a nudity filled biopic of World War I spy Mata Hari in which she played the title role. Her Emmanuelle image followed her to the United States where she played Nicole Mallow, a maid who seduces a teenage boy, in the controversial 1981 sex comedy Private Lessons.^[4] One of her only other mainstream American film appearances was a brief comic turn in the Get Smart revival film The Nude Bomb in 1980.

Kristel at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival.

Although Private Lessons was one of the highest grossing independent films of 1981 (ranking #28 in US Domestic Gross),^[5] Kristel saw none of the profits. She continues to appear in movies and last played Emmanuelle in the early 1990s. In May 1990 she appeared in the television series My Riviera, filmed at her home in St Tropez and offering deep insights of her life and motivations in an interview with writer-director Michael Feeney Callan. In May 2006, Kristel received an award at the Tribeca Film Festival, New York for directing the animated short film "Topor and Me", written by Ruud Den Dryver. The award was presented by Gayle King.

After not having filmed for eight years, Kristel played a part in the movie Two Sunny Days in 2010 and in the same year she played the mother of the Trio Lescano in the TV series The Swing Girls.

Personal life[link]

In September 2006 Sylvia Kristel's autobiography Nue (Nude) was published in France. It was translated into English as Undressing Emmanuelle: A Memoir, by Fourth Estate, 2 July 2007 (ISBN 978-0007256952). In it she tells of a turbulent personal life blighted by addictions to drugs, alcohol, and her quest for a father figure which resulted in some harmful relationships with older men. The book has received very good reviews.^[6][7]

Her first major relationship was with Hugo Claus, a Belgian author twenty-seven years her senior with whom she had a son, Arthur, born in 1975. She left him for Ian McShane, ten years her senior, whom she met on the set of the 1979 film The Fifth Musketeer. They moved in together in Los Angeles where he had promised to help her launch her American career. However their five year affair would lead to no significant career break for Kristel but a relationship she describes in her autobiography as "awful - he was witty and charming but we were too much alike." About two years into the relationship she began using cocaine. This proved to be her downfall, though at the time she thought of it as a "supervitamin, a very fashionable substance, without danger, but expensive, far more exciting than drowning in alcohol - a fuel necessary to stay in the swing."

Interviewed in 2006 for the documentary Hunting Emmanuelle, she describes how, nurturing an expensive cocaine habit, she made a number of poor decisions, including agreeing to sell her interest in Private Lessons to her agent on a whim for $150,000. With a domestic gross of over $26 million, she laughs at how much of her agent's mansion her percentage probably paid for.^{[citation needed]}

Since McShane, she has been married twice, first to an American businessman which ended after five months and then to film producer Phillippe Blot. She spent a decade with Belgian radio producer Fred De Vree before he died.

A heavy smoker of unfiltered cigarettes from the age of eleven, Kristel was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2001 and underwent three courses of chemotherapy, and surgery after it spread to her lung.^[8]

Filmography[link]

1. The Swing Girls (2010) (TV) .... Eva de Leeuw
2. Two Sunny Days (2010) .... Angela
3. Bank (2002) .... Wife
4. Sexy Boys (2001) .... La sexologue
5. De vriendschap (2001) .... Sylvia
6. Vergeef me (2001) .... Chiquita (on stage)
7. Die Unbesiegbaren (2000) (TV)
8. Lijmen/Het been (2000) .... Jeanne
9. An Amsterdam Tale (1999) .... Alma
10. Film 1 (1999) .... Patron
11. Harry Rents a Room (1999) .... Miss Pinky
12. Gaston's War (1997) .... Miep Visser
13. Die Sexfalle (1997) (TV) .... Nicole Fuchs
14. "Onderweg naar morgen" (1994) Serie TV .... Trix Odijk (1996)
15. "De eenzame oorlog van Koos Tak" (1996) - Tante Heintje (1996) Episodio TV
16. Emmanuelle au 7ème ciel (1993) .... Emmanuelle
17. Le secret d'Emmanuelle (1993) (TV)
18. Beauty School (1993) .... Sylvia
19. Le parfum d'Emmanuelle (1993) (TV) .... Emmanuelle
20. Magique Emmanuelle (1993) (TV) .... Emmanuelle
21. L'amour d'Emmanuelle (1993) (TV) .... Old Emmanuelle
22. Emmanuelle à Venise (1993) (TV) .... Old Emmanuelle
23. La revanche d'Emmanuelle (1993) (TV) .... Old Emmanuelle
24. Éternelle Emmanuelle (1993) (TV) .... Old Emmanuelle
25. Seong-ae-ui chimmuk (1992)
26. Hot Blood (1990) .... Sylvia
27. In the Shadow of the Sandcastle (1990) .... Angel
28. Dracula's Widow (1988) .... Vanessa
29. The Arrogant (1988) .... Julie
30. Casanova (1987) (TV) .... Maddalena
31. Red Heat (1985) .... Sofia
32. Mata Hari (1985) .... Mata Hari
33. The Big Bet (1985) .... Michelle
34. Emmanuelle IV (1984) .... Sylvia / Emmanuelle
35. Private School (1983) .... Ms. Regina Copoletta
36. Private Lessons (1981) .... Nicole Mallow
37. Lady Chatterley's Lover (1981) .... Lady Constance Chatterley
38. The Million Dollar Face (1981) (TV) .... Brett Devereaux
39. Un amore in prima classe (1980) .... Beatrice
40. The Nude Bomb (1980) .... Agent 34
41. The Concorde ... Airport '79 (1979) .... Isabelle
42. The Fifth Musketeer (1979) .... Maria Theresa
43. Letti selvaggi (1979) .... The Lady on the Bed/The Unhappy Wife
44. Mysteries (1978) .... Dany Kielland
45. Pastorale 1943 (1978) .... Miep Algera
46. Goodbye Emmanuelle (1977) .... Emmanuelle
47. René la canne (1977) .... Krista
48. Alice ou la dernière fugue (1977) .... Alice Caroll
49. La marge (1976) .... Diana
50. Une femme fidèle (1976) .... Mathilde Leroy
51. Emmanuelle: L'antivierge (1975) .... Emmanuelle
52. Le jeu avec le feu (1975) .... Diana Van Den Berg
53. Un linceul n'a pas de poches (1974) .... Avril
54. Der Liebesschüler (1974) .... Andrea
55. Emmanuelle (1974) .... Emmanuelle
56. Naakt over de schutting (1973) .... Lilly Marischka
57. Because of the Cats (1973) .... Hannie Troost
58. Frank en Eva (1973) .... Sylvia

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Kristel, Sylvia (2007-07-02) [2006 (French publication)]. Undressing Emmanuelle: A Memoir [Nue]. Fourth Estate. ISBN 978-0-00-725695-2. 

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Sylvia Kristel

• Sylvia Kristel at the Internet Movie Database
• Interview in Dutch magazine
• Interview with Sylvia Kristel, The Daily Telegraph, June 16, 2007.
• Interview: Sylvia Kristel, the world's most famous porn star (interview with The Independent, July 2, 2007.

Sir Stanley Baker (28 February 1928 – 28 June 1976) was a Welsh actor and film producer.

Early career[link]

Early Life[link]

William Stanley Baker was born in Ferndale, Rhondda Valley, Wales, the youngest of three children. His father was a coal miner who lost a leg in an accident and got work as a truck driver. Baker grew up a self-proclaimed a "wild kid" only interested in "football and boxing"^[1] but his artistic ability was spotted at an early age by a local teacher, Glynne Morse, who encouraged Baker to act. When he was 14 he was performing in a school play when seen by a casting director from Ealing Studios, who recommended him for a role in Undercover (1943), a war film about the Yugoslav guerrillas in Serbia. He was paid £20 a week and caught the acting bug, deciding to become a professional actor.^[2] Six months later Banker appeared with Emlyn Williams in a play on the West End called The Druid's Rest, appearing alongside a young Richard Burton.

Baker worked for a time as an apprentice electrician then through Morse's influence he managed to secure a position with the Birmingham Repertory Theatre in 1944. He stayed there for three years, until called up to do his National Service in 1946. He served in the Royal Army Service Corps until 1948, achieving the rank of sergeant.^[3] After demobilisation he moved to London determined to resume hie acting career. He was eventually cast at Richard Burton's recommendation in a small role in a play on the West End, Adventure Story by Terrence Rattigan. He began appearing in films and on television, as well performing on stage for the Middlesex Repertory Company. He impressed when cast as the bosun's mate in the Hollywood-financed Captain Horatio Hornblower (1951).

Rise to Stardom[link]

Baker was in New York appearing in a play by Christopher Fry, A Sleep of Prisoners, when he read the novel The Cruel Sea. Attracted to the idea of playing the unpleasant and somewhat cowardly Bennett was one, he lobbied successfully for the role in the 1953 film version.^[4] The success of this really established Baker in films, and led to a Hollywood offer when George Sanders fell ill and was unable to play Sir Mordred in the expensive epic Knights of the Round Table (1953).^[5] Baker's performance was received favourably and he soon developed a niche playing villains in films such as Hell Below Zero (1954).