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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 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. She won the Grand Prix Féminin and the Actor's Championship in 1929. 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 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.
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 performed as a dancer.
Through Carrère, Delangle met Gérard de Courcelles and Marcel Mongin who ran a car accessory business together and raced sports cars. 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. 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. 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 (French: Les Ailes de Paris). Two years later, whilst skiing offpiste at Megève, she injured the cartilage in her knee. She did perform again after taking a year to recover, but she decided to switch to motor racing, taking morphine for the pain.
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. 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 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.
Nice had become a household name in France and capitalising on her fame, she toured the United States in 1930. She practiced dirt track racing at Harrington Park, New Jersey and was paid $200 per event as an exhibition driver. Her first appearance was in Woodbridge and she was nicknamed the "Speedbowl Queen", gaining a sponsorship deal with Esso. Promoters told her she was the first woman to race cars in the US; Joan la Costa and Elfreida Mais had done it previously, although no woman had raced on dirt tracks. Nice drove at dangerous circuits such as Langhorne Speedway where deaths frequently occurred: Bill Albertson shared tips with her and died on the Orange County Fair Speedway in 1930; her friend Herman Schurch died on a practice run at the Legion Ascot Speedway the following year. After eight weeks, she was offered a contract extension. She drove cars borrowed from other drivers, such as an American-made Miller. In Winston-Salem, North Carolina she hit a pothole and crashed; her last ride was at Spartanburg, South Carolina and she holidayed in Florida before returning to Europe.
Nice appeared at the 1931 Mi-Carême carnival in Nantes and continued to race cars. She broke time records in a hillclimb on Mont Ventoux in Provence and competed in the Women's Championship at Montlhéry. In July 1931, she came second to Anne Itier in the Coupe des Dames at Reims and in the 2-litre race she came fourth, competing against male drivers such as Louis Chiron, Stanisław Czaykowski, René Dreyfus, Philippe Etancelin and the eventual winner Marcel Lehoux. The following month she came ninth in her blue Bugatti at the Grand Prix du Comminges, was the only female entrant at the Monza Grand Prix in Milan and competed in the Grand Prix on the beach at La Baule-Escoublac. She earned significant amounts from racing, receiving entry fees of 5,000 to 6,000 francs per race. Nice's biographer Miranda Seymour reports that she took many lovers in the early 1930s, including Georges d'Arnoux, Roger Bonnet, René Carrière, Marcel Lehoux and Philippe de Rothschild.
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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 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. She won the Grand Prix Féminin and the Actor's Championship in 1929. 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 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.
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 performed as a dancer.
Through Carrère, Delangle met Gérard de Courcelles and Marcel Mongin who ran a car accessory business together and raced sports cars. 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. 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. 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 (French: Les Ailes de Paris). Two years later, whilst skiing offpiste at Megève, she injured the cartilage in her knee. She did perform again after taking a year to recover, but she decided to switch to motor racing, taking morphine for the pain.
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. 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 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.
Nice had become a household name in France and capitalising on her fame, she toured the United States in 1930. She practiced dirt track racing at Harrington Park, New Jersey and was paid $200 per event as an exhibition driver. Her first appearance was in Woodbridge and she was nicknamed the "Speedbowl Queen", gaining a sponsorship deal with Esso. Promoters told her she was the first woman to race cars in the US; Joan la Costa and Elfreida Mais had done it previously, although no woman had raced on dirt tracks. Nice drove at dangerous circuits such as Langhorne Speedway where deaths frequently occurred: Bill Albertson shared tips with her and died on the Orange County Fair Speedway in 1930; her friend Herman Schurch died on a practice run at the Legion Ascot Speedway the following year. After eight weeks, she was offered a contract extension. She drove cars borrowed from other drivers, such as an American-made Miller. In Winston-Salem, North Carolina she hit a pothole and crashed; her last ride was at Spartanburg, South Carolina and she holidayed in Florida before returning to Europe.
Nice appeared at the 1931 Mi-Carême carnival in Nantes and continued to race cars. She broke time records in a hillclimb on Mont Ventoux in Provence and competed in the Women's Championship at Montlhéry. In July 1931, she came second to Anne Itier in the Coupe des Dames at Reims and in the 2-litre race she came fourth, competing against male drivers such as Louis Chiron, Stanisław Czaykowski, René Dreyfus, Philippe Etancelin and the eventual winner Marcel Lehoux. The following month she came ninth in her blue Bugatti at the Grand Prix du Comminges, was the only female entrant at the Monza Grand Prix in Milan and competed in the Grand Prix on the beach at La Baule-Escoublac. She earned significant amounts from racing, receiving entry fees of 5,000 to 6,000 francs per race. Nice's biographer Miranda Seymour reports that she took many lovers in the early 1930s, including Georges d'Arnoux, Roger Bonnet, René Carrière, Marcel Lehoux and Philippe de Rothschild.
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