Saskia Holleman

Saskia Holleman (20 May 1945 – 10 June 2013) was a Dutch actress, lawyer and model. She became widely known in the Netherlands when a picture in which she was naked in a meadow was used by the left-wing, pacifist political party Pacifist Socialist Party for its electoral campaign during the 1971 Dutch general election. Holleman trained as a lawyer in the 1970s and she specialised in petty crime for law firms and later as an independent.

Early life On 20 May 1945, Holleman was born in Leeuwarden. She was the oldest daughter of the classicist at the and theatre founder Aloysius Wilhelmus Jozef Holleman and Frederika Catharina Johanna Jozefina Maria Jansen. Holleman had two other siblings and was raised as a Catholic. She moved around the Netherlands during her childhood and attended , a school that she disliked. Hollemann was later educated at and did stage performances while being a fan of ballet.

Career She made her on-screen debut in 1967, being cast as the Girl in Dream of Harvey Keitel in the film directed by the American actor Martin Scorsese, Who's That Knocking at My Door. The shoot, which saw 150 photographs taken within the space of half an hour, saw one of the black-and-white images used as a poster by George Noordanus on a commission for the left-wing, pacifist political party Pacifist Socialist Party (PSP).

Holleman decided to not do any more work in theatre and television. In 1972, she had the role of the reserve female lead of Sheila in the musical Hair. Holleman came into conflict with the producer of the musical over finances. She had a role in the 1974 erotic film compilation Wet Dreams by Lasse Braun, and went on to study law at the University of Amsterdam from 1973 to 1978. Holleman studied law on the advice of the translator when theatre work dried up upon her sustaining a leg injury; she was told by Verstegen that "the court is also a kind of theatre". After completing her studies, Holleman specialised in petty crime for the next 31 years. She first worked at the law firm Worst & Van Haersholte, then at Peter Ingelse and final as an independent lawyer in the basement of a canal house in Amsterdam. Holleman was a board member of the Netherlands of Women's World Banking organisation in the 1980s.

Personal life In mid-1972, she met Verstegen and the two married on 30 November 1989. There were no children of the marriage. In 2010, Holleman was diagnosed with the skin cancer squamous cell carcinoma. She died in Amsterdam on 10 June 2013.

Reputation Piet Koster of Het vrije volk described her as "the world's first naked political propagandist". Jan de Roos noted that the PSP poster made her recognisable to the Dutch public.