Erotic Eva

Sitting on a polished antique table in front of an ornately gilded mirror, with only a glass of wine for company as she recreates erotic photographer Helmut Newton’s iconic 1973 image of British actress Charlotte Rampling.

The actress, 29, shows no inhibitions as she poses naked for the December edition of style bible Tatler, in homage to the classic Seventies portrait

Newton’s 1973 photograph of Rampling for Vogue magazine was taken at the Hotel Nord Pinus II in Arles, not far from my present home in the Luberon.

The original photo was entitled The Sexiest Woman In The World - a title that also seems to suit the current French actress rather well.

Eva Green is her real name. Her father Walter is a Swedish dentist, and her mother is Marlene Jobert, a French actress of the sixties and seventies, a favorite of Godard and Malle. One film of hers I remember well is Le Passager de la Pluie – in which she was raped early on. Marlene is a pied noir, having been born in Algiers and moved to France as a child.

The family lived in an apartment in Paris 17th arrondissement - an area which includes the streets of Batignolles, one of my old haunts.

Eva was born in July 1980, only a few weeks before me, in the same city, Paris. She reminds me so much of the late Sandrine. The same wild beauty, the sensuality, that look. Wow.

I've visited the Hotel Nord Pinus once before, a few years ago. It's a hotel which oozes history - Picasso, Hemingway, Cocteau, all stayed here. It has cool leather armchairs and the massive mirrors, enormous black-and-white photographs of Africa by Peter Beard, and an incredible collection of giant posters advertising the ferias of Spain.A copy of one of Helmut Newton's famous nude portraits of Charlotte Rampling is in suite 10.

So once again, I sit on the enormous bed, staring into one of the massive mirrors, sipping from a glass of cool wine. I'm desperately trying to recreate the pose struck by Charlotte and Eva, but my photographer, Lucien just makes me laugh. Later on he'll make me come, and we'll roll together on the bed, dreaming of the old days of Arles. Van Gogh, Gauguin, Picasso, Fitzgerald, Cocteau, Henry James......

Lucien and Sandrine, from Batignolles, where Eva lived, trying to live up to her beauty. Failing miserably, but enjoying it nonetheless.