Hellé Nice

Mariette Hélène Delangle (1900–1984), better known by her stage name Hellé Nice, was a French dancer and motor racing driver.

She danced in Paris at the Hôtel Ritz, Olympia Hall and Casino de Paris, before her career was ended by a skiing accident.

She then became a racing driver, using roadster cars built by companies such as Alfa Romeo, Bugatti, DKW, Ford, Hispano-Suiza, Renault and Rosengart.

She competed in various Grand Prix motor racing, hillclimbing and rally events at a time when it was rare for a woman to do so.

Mariette Hélène Delangle was born on 15 December 1901, to Alexandrine Estelle and Léon Aristide Delangle.

Her father worked as the postman in Aunay-sous-Auneau, a village 40 miles from Paris.

At three years old, she witnessed the 1903 Paris–Madrid race passing near to Aunay at Bourdinière.

In 1915, she moved to Sainte-Mesme with her mother and three years later, she moved to Paris, living in rented apartments near Avenue des Ternes in the 17th arrondissement for the next decade.

She worked as a nude model for artist René Carrère and also performed as a dancer.

Through Carrère, Delangle met Henri de Courcelles and Marcel Mongin who ran a car accessory business together and raced sportscars.

She passed her driving test in 1920 and decided to drive her Citroën car on a road trip around France.

She travelled to England with the two men in 1921; they were planning to race Grégoire cars at the Brooklands circuit but the cars were not delivered.

Delangle was disappointed that the race was for men only.

By 1927 she was well-known enough to accept a billing at the Casino de Paris, where she danced in a show headlined by Maurice Chevalier called Wings over Paris (Les Ailes de Paris).

Two years later, whilst skiing offpiste at Megève, she injured the cartilage in her knee.

Whilst she did perform again after taking a year to recover, she decided to switch to motor racing, taking morphine for the pain.

She also won the race at Le Touquet in a 1928 Rosengart.

She signed a sponsorship deal with Lucky Strike cigarettes and bought herself a yacht and a black Hispano-Suiza car.

Ettore Bugatti invited her to drive a Type 35 in speed trials at the Montlhéry circuit, advised by Bouriat and Divo.

In December, she recorded a speed of 196.871 km/h over 5 km (with a best lap at 197.7 km/h (123.56 mph)).

At the time she was having an affair with Bruno, Count of Harcourt who was married to Princess Isabelle of Orléans.

She bought one of the cars she had used in the time trials for 40,000 francs and travelled to the Moroccan Grand Prix in Casablanca where she hoped to spend time with the count.

He died after crashing in practice and she withdrew from the race.

She then raced in the Grand Prix Bugatti on the Le Mans Bugatti Circuit, coming third out of three behind Max Fourny and Juan Zanelli.

At the Stade Buffalo in Montrouge, Paris, she fell off a motorcycle then jumped up and took a bow.

She won the Grand Prix Féminin and the Actor's Championship in 1929.

Nice entered her first Women's Grand Prix motor racing event in June 1929 (the Grand Prix Féminin), racing against Aniela d'Elern, Dominique Ferrand, Violette Morris and Lucy O'Reilly Schell.

She was mentored by Mongin and trained hard, driving ten laps a day of the Autodrome de Linas-Montlhéry; at the wheel of an Oméga-Six car, she came first.

The next day, she was invited to the Bugatti showroom on Avenue Montaigne in order to discuss driving a Type 43A roadster in the Actor's Championship.

She met drivers Guy Bouriat and Albert Divo, and won the championship.

Already famous in Paris, she became a household name in France in the early 1930s and raced as an exhibition dirt track driver for a season in the United States.

Nice won the Rallye Paris – Saint-Raphaël Féminin in 1932 with Odette Siko.

Racing was a dangerous profession in which some of her friends and lovers died.

In 1949, the well-known racing driver Louis Chiron accused Nice without evidence of being a Gestapo agent in World War II.

The allegation ruined her planned comeback and her partner eventually left her.

She lived her last years in poverty and estranged from her family, supported by the charity La Roue Tourne.

She died in Nice in 1984.

A 2005 biography The Bugatti Queen: In search of a motor-racing legend by Miranda Seymour rehabilitated her reputation and her grave was marked by a plaque in 2010.

Delangle moved to rue Saint-Senoch, still in the 17th arrondissement and became a dance partner of Celéstin Eugène Vandevelde, taking the stage name Hellé Nice.

Their dance act became famous as they performed together at the Hôtel Ritz and the Olympia Hall.