Sylvia Kristel, Boxing Day and why I never met her.

Boxing Day is a British institution. It follows Christmas Day and dates from the time, ‘Boxes’ or gifts were handed to staff. That may not be the case these days but the British enjoy the day to overcome any excesses of the previous day's celebrations. Nowadays though it’s the first day of the ‘Sales’ and for bargain hunters – another celebration. 

So knowing my American business partner Norman was in town we invited him for dinner. He was single, very much into arm-candy with a vast address book of page 3 girls (so-called nubile young ladies who would bare (most) to be featured on a page 3 tabloid; starlets, playboy bunnies – you get the picture. He wanted to impress us at our thatched cottage in the country and asked if he might bring a special lady. We were happy to add one more for dinner.

He set about convincing her to fly from Rome where she was filming and he would meet her at London’s Heathrow airport. She agreed. He was ecstatic. We would be entertaining Sylvia Kristel – the Dutch born soft porn queen star of Emmanuelle France’s highest-grossing film of all time, (which played at a Paris cinema continuously for 13  years) who had just split from Ian McShane.

 I mentioned her name to my wife. Unsuspectingly, she asked if Sylvia made family films. I concurred, my son and daughter overheard and snickered. As teenagers they knew the name even if my wife didn’t. The stage was set.

 Come Boxing Day, I drove into London to collect Norman and Sylvia. He answered the door and hurriedly blurted ‘It’s not Sylvia, it’s a Playboy bunny, I’ll explain later.” I drove us home wondering when I’d hear the story – how the Playboy Bunny replaced Sylvia in Norman’s affections. When we reached home I hurriedly repeated Norman’s words to my wife and she graciously received our visitors.

 At the sound of our arrival my son and daughter broke records rushing downstairs. Seeing a girlfriend, clearly not Sylvia Kristel they stomped back upstairs until dinner was ready. I thought I detected “Dad’s a liar” but I could have been wrong.

Dinner passed off without incident. After dinner we watched TV, one entertaining program hosted by Barry Norman, film buff/compére featured a visual questionnaire which ironically showed a female’s breast – none of us could imagine whose it was. When it transpired it was Sylvia’s I glanced at Norman quizzically, thinking at least he should know. He looked steadfastly at the screen and wouldn’t return my gaze.

 Not until the next day did I get the full story. Sylvia Kristel did take time out from her filming. She did catch the plane from Rome to London. And Norman did meet her at Heathrow. But she was so ‘out of it’ with drugs and alcohol, Norman was understandably upset and said so. Whereupon Sylvia took umbrage and took off. She headed immediately for Holland where her parents lived. That necessitated Norman hurriedly searching his book of ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’ list of ‘charmers’ to make up for Sylvia’s absence.

To this day I think my son thinks it was just a story to impress.

---