Hellé Nice
Encyclopedia
Hellé Nice
Hellé Nice (born Mariette Hélène Delangle 15 December 1900 in Aunay-sous-Auneau
, Eure-et-Loir
, France
; died 1 October 1984 in Nice
, France
) was a model
, dancer, and a Grand Prix motor racing
driver.
s. She became a very successful dancer under the stage name Hélène Nice which eventually became Hellé Nice. She built a solid reputation as a solo act but in 1926 decided to partner with Robert Lisset and performed at cabarets around Europe. Her income from dancing as well as modeling became such that she could afford to purchase a home and her own yacht.
In addition to the fast cars of her racing career, Nice lived a fast life. Her growing fame meant there was no shortage of suitors. Some of her affairs were brief while others were of longer duration that, beyond the wealthy and powerful Philippe de Rothschild, included members of the European nobility and other personalities such as Henri de Courcelles, Jean Bugatti
and Count Bruno d'Harcourt.
but an accident on the slopes damaged her knee and ended her dancing career. Perhaps inspired by Charlotte Versigny who had competed in a Talbot
racer in the 1927 Grand Prix de la Baule, Hellé Nice decided to try her hand at professional auto racing. In 1929, driving an Omega-Six, she won an all-female Grand Prix race at Autodrome de Montlhéry
in the process setting a new world land speed record for women. Capitalizing on her fame, the following year she toured the United States
, racing at a variety of tracks in an American-made Miller racing car.
Philippe de Rothschild
introduced himself to her shortly after her return from America. For a time, the two shared a bed and the love of automobile racing. Rothschild had been racing his Bugatti
and he introduced her to Ettore Bugatti
. The owner of the very successful car company thought Nice would be an ideal person to add to the male drivers of his line of racing vehicles. Having been outspoken in her desire to compete with the men, she achieved her goal and in 1931 and drove a Bugatti Type 35
C in five major Grands Prix in France. A master of showmanship, Hellé Nice was easily recognizable in her bright-blue race car. She loved every minute of her life and exploited her femininity, portraying herself as a fearless competitor up against hard-driving men. She wowed the crowds wherever she raced while adding to her income with a string of product endorsements. Although she did not win a Grand Prix race, she was a legitimate competitor, and frequently finished ahead of some of the top male drivers .
Over the next several years, as the only female on the Grand Prix circuit, Nice continued to race Bugattis and Alfa Romeo
s against the greatest drivers of the day including Tazio Nuvolari
, Robert Benoist
, Rudolf Caracciola
, Louis Chiron
, Bernd Rosemeyer
, Luigi Fagioli
, and Jean-Pierre Wimille
, among others. Like most race drivers, she competed not only in Grand Prix races but also hillclimb
s and rallies
all over Europe, including the famous Monte Carlo Rally
.
to compete in two Grand Prix races. During the São Paulo Grand Prix, she was in second place behind Brazilian champion Manuel de Teffé when a freak accident resulted in her nearly being killed. Reports on the matter vary, but a bale of straw ended up on the track and she slammed into it at more than 100mph causing her to lose control. Her Alfa Romeo somersaulted through the air and crashed into the grandstand, killing four race fans and injuring more than thirty others. Nice was thrown from the car and landed on a soldier who absorbed the full impact of her body, saving her life. The force of the impact killed the soldier and because she lay unconscious, she too was thought to be dead. However, taken to hospital, she awoke from a coma three days later and after two months convalescing was discharged from the hospital. The tragedy turned her into a national hero amongst the Brazilian population. A large number of families even began naming their children Helenice or Elenice after her. Although Nice never spoke about it publicly, the Brazilian race accident had a profound impact and the memory of the events haunted her for the rest of her life.
and at the Tripoli Grand Prix
, which offered a very substantial cash prize. However, she was unable to get the necessary backing and instead participated in the "Yacco" endurance trials for female drivers at the Montlhéry racetrack in France. There, alternating with four other women, Nice drove for ten days and ten nights breaking ten records that still stand to this day. For the next two years, she competed in rally racing while hoping to rejoin the Bugatti team. However, in August 1939, her friend Jean Bugatti was killed while testing a company vehicle and a month later, racing in Europe came to a halt with the onset of World War II
.
In 1943, in the middle of the German
occupation of France, she moved to the warm climate of the French Riviera
and acquired a home in the city of Nice where she lived with one of her lovers for the remainder of the war.
and Nice was there to take part. At a large party organized to celebrate the return to racing, Louis Chiron
, a multiple Grand Prix champion and Monaco’s favorite son, suddenly strode across the room and in a loud voice laced into Hellé Nice, accusing her of being a Gestapo
agent during the war. At the time, such an accusation could be a serious setback for anyone's career, but coming from someone as powerful as Chiron, even though he provided no proof, it spelled the end of Nice's racing career.
Dropped by her sponsors, she never raced again and because of the accusation, her name and great accomplishments were virtually obliterated from the annals of racing history. Ostracized by friends and acquaintances, her lover soon abandoned her. With him went a great deal of her money and quickly the meager funds she had left deteriorated to the point where she was forced to accept charity from a Paris organization that had been established to give a bit of help to former theatre performers who had fallen on hard times.
, author of Nice's biography published in 2004, could find nothing to substantiate such a charge. A respected biographer, Seymour went so far as to check the official records in Berlin
and was advised by the German authorities Nice had never been an agent. Ironically, Chiron himself, led by the lure of a superior car, had driven for the Mercedes-Benz
team, which the Nazis
were using as an object of propaganda for their philosophy of racial superiority, at a time when his Jewish colleague and rival René Dreyfus
could not.
near her birthplace and where her parents were buried. Nevertheless, Nice is not mentioned on the family's cemetery memorial.
Hellé Nice (born Mariette Hélène Delangle 15 December 1900 in Aunay-sous-Auneau
Aunay-sous-Auneau
Aunay-sous-Auneau is a commune in the Eure-et-Loir department in northern France.-Population:-References:*...
, Eure-et-Loir
Eure-et-Loir
Eure-et-Loir is a French department, named after the Eure and Loir rivers.-History:Eure-et-Loir is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790 pursuant to the Act of December 22, 1789...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
; died 1 October 1984 in Nice
Nice
Nice is the fifth most populous city in France, after Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse, with a population of 348,721 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Nice extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of more than 955,000 on an area of...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
) was a model
Model (person)
A model , sometimes called a mannequin, is a person who is employed to display, advertise and promote commercial products or to serve as a subject of works of art....
, dancer, and a Grand Prix motor racing
Grand Prix motor racing
Grand Prix motor racing has its roots in organised automobile racing that began in France as far back as 1894. It quickly evolved from a simple road race from one town to the next, to endurance tests for car and driver...
driver.
Early life and fast lifestyle
Nice was the daughter of Alexandrine Bouillie and Léon Delangle, the postman in their small village, 47 miles to the south west of Paris. Delangle went to Paris at age 16, where she found work in some of the city's music hallMusic hall
Music Hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment which was popular between 1850 and 1960. The term can refer to:# A particular form of variety entertainment involving a mixture of popular song, comedy and speciality acts...
s. She became a very successful dancer under the stage name Hélène Nice which eventually became Hellé Nice. She built a solid reputation as a solo act but in 1926 decided to partner with Robert Lisset and performed at cabarets around Europe. Her income from dancing as well as modeling became such that she could afford to purchase a home and her own yacht.
In addition to the fast cars of her racing career, Nice lived a fast life. Her growing fame meant there was no shortage of suitors. Some of her affairs were brief while others were of longer duration that, beyond the wealthy and powerful Philippe de Rothschild, included members of the European nobility and other personalities such as Henri de Courcelles, Jean Bugatti
Jean Bugatti
Jean Bugatti was an French/Italian automotive designer and test engineer.Born Gianoberto Maria Carlo Bugatti in Cologne, Germany, he was the eldest son of Ettore Bugatti. Soon after his birth the family moved to the village of Dorlisheim near Molsheim in Alsace where his father built the new...
and Count Bruno d'Harcourt.
Racing career
At the time, the Paris area was one of the principal centres of the French car industry and there were numerous competitions for auto enthusiasts. Nice loved the thrill of driving fast cars and so snatched the chance to perform in the racing event at the annual fair organized by fellow performers from the Paris entertainment world. An athletic woman, she was also an avid downhill skierAlpine skiing
Alpine skiing is the sport of sliding down snow-covered hills on skis with fixed-heel bindings. Alpine skiing can be contrasted with skiing using free-heel bindings: Ski mountaineering and nordic skiing – such as cross-country; ski jumping; and Telemark. In competitive alpine skiing races four...
but an accident on the slopes damaged her knee and ended her dancing career. Perhaps inspired by Charlotte Versigny who had competed in a Talbot
Talbot
Talbot was an automobile marque that existed from 1903 to 1986, with a hiatus from 1960 to 1978, under a number of different owners, latterly under Peugeot...
racer in the 1927 Grand Prix de la Baule, Hellé Nice decided to try her hand at professional auto racing. In 1929, driving an Omega-Six, she won an all-female Grand Prix race at Autodrome de Montlhéry
Autodrome de Montlhéry
Autodrome de Montlhéry is an automobile racetrack, officially called L’autodrome de Linas-Montlhéry, located across the towns of Linas Bruyères-le-Châtel and Ollainville, outside Paris in the southside....
in the process setting a new world land speed record for women. Capitalizing on her fame, the following year she toured the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, racing at a variety of tracks in an American-made Miller racing car.
Philippe de Rothschild
Philippe de Rothschild
Baron Philippe de Rothschild was a member of the Rothschild banking dynasty who became a Grand Prix race-car driver, a screenwriter and playwright, a theatrical producer, a film producer, a poet, and one of the most successful wine growers in the world.-Early life:Born in Paris, Georges Philippe...
introduced himself to her shortly after her return from America. For a time, the two shared a bed and the love of automobile racing. Rothschild had been racing his Bugatti
Bugatti
Automobiles E. Bugatti was a French car manufacturer founded in 1909 in Molsheim, Alsace, as a manufacturer of high-performance automobiles by Italian-born Ettore Bugatti....
and he introduced her to Ettore Bugatti
Ettore Bugatti
right|thumb|Ettore Bugatti in 1932Ettore Arco Isidoro Bugatti was an Italian-born and French naturalized citizen automobile designer and manufacturer....
. The owner of the very successful car company thought Nice would be an ideal person to add to the male drivers of his line of racing vehicles. Having been outspoken in her desire to compete with the men, she achieved her goal and in 1931 and drove a Bugatti Type 35
Bugatti Type 35
The Type 35 was the most successful of the Bugatti racing models. Its version of the Bugatti arch-shaped radiator that had evolved from the more architectural one of the Bugatti Type 13 Brescia, was to become the one that the marque is most known for though even in the ranks of the various Type 35s...
C in five major Grands Prix in France. A master of showmanship, Hellé Nice was easily recognizable in her bright-blue race car. She loved every minute of her life and exploited her femininity, portraying herself as a fearless competitor up against hard-driving men. She wowed the crowds wherever she raced while adding to her income with a string of product endorsements. Although she did not win a Grand Prix race, she was a legitimate competitor, and frequently finished ahead of some of the top male drivers .
Over the next several years, as the only female on the Grand Prix circuit, Nice continued to race Bugattis and Alfa Romeo
Alfa Romeo in motorsport
During its history, Alfa Romeo has competed successfully in many different categories of motorsport, including Grand Prix motor racing, Formula One, sportscar racing, touring car racing and rallies. They have competed both as a constructor and an engine supplier, via works entries and private...
s against the greatest drivers of the day including Tazio Nuvolari
Tazio Nuvolari
Tazio Giorgio Nuvolari was an Italian motorcycle and racecar driver, known as Il Mantovano Volante or Nivola. He was the 1932 European Champion in Grand Prix motor racing...
, Robert Benoist
Robert Benoist
Robert Marcel Charles Benoist was a French Grand Prix motor racing driver and war hero.-Early life:Born near Rambouillet, Île-de-France, France, Robert Benoist was the son of Baron Henri de Rothschild's gamekeeper...
, Rudolf Caracciola
Rudolf Caracciola
Otto Wilhelm Rudolf Caracciola , more commonly Rudolf Caracciola , was a racing driver from Remagen, Germany. He won the European Drivers' Championship, the pre-1950 equivalent of the modern Formula One World Championship, an unsurpassed three times...
, Louis Chiron
Louis Chiron
Louis Alexandre Chiron was a Grand Prix driver.-Career:As a teenager, Louis Chiron fell in love with cars and racing. He learned to drive at a young age and joined the Grand Prix circuit after World War I where he had been requisitioned from the artillery section to serve as a chauffeur...
, Bernd Rosemeyer
Bernd Rosemeyer
Bernd Rosemeyer was a German racing driver.- Career :...
, Luigi Fagioli
Luigi Fagioli
Luigi Fagioli , nicknamed "the Abruzzi robber", was an Italian motor racing driver.-Career:Born in the small city of Osimo, Ancona Province in the Marche region of central Italy, as a boy Luigi Fagioli was fascinated by the relatively new invention of the automobile and the ensuing racing...
, and Jean-Pierre Wimille
Jean-Pierre Wimille
Jean-Pierre Wimille was a Grand Prix motor racing driver and a member of the French Resistance during World War II.-Biography:...
, among others. Like most race drivers, she competed not only in Grand Prix races but also hillclimb
Hill climbing
In computer science, hill climbing is a mathematical optimization technique which belongs to the family of local search. It is an iterative algorithm that starts with an arbitrary solution to a problem, then attempts to find a better solution by incrementally changing a single element of the solution...
s and rallies
Rallying
Rallying, also known as rally racing, is a form of auto racing that takes place on public or private roads with modified production or specially built road-legal cars...
all over Europe, including the famous Monte Carlo Rally
Monte Carlo Rally
The Monte Carlo Rally or Rally Monte Carlo is a rallying event organised each year by the Automobile Club de Monaco which also organises the Formula One Monaco Grand Prix and the Rallye Monte-Carlo Historique. The rally takes place along the French Riviera in the Principality of Monaco and...
.
Crash
In 1936, Nice traveled to BrazilBrazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
to compete in two Grand Prix races. During the São Paulo Grand Prix, she was in second place behind Brazilian champion Manuel de Teffé when a freak accident resulted in her nearly being killed. Reports on the matter vary, but a bale of straw ended up on the track and she slammed into it at more than 100mph causing her to lose control. Her Alfa Romeo somersaulted through the air and crashed into the grandstand, killing four race fans and injuring more than thirty others. Nice was thrown from the car and landed on a soldier who absorbed the full impact of her body, saving her life. The force of the impact killed the soldier and because she lay unconscious, she too was thought to be dead. However, taken to hospital, she awoke from a coma three days later and after two months convalescing was discharged from the hospital. The tragedy turned her into a national hero amongst the Brazilian population. A large number of families even began naming their children Helenice or Elenice after her. Although Nice never spoke about it publicly, the Brazilian race accident had a profound impact and the memory of the events haunted her for the rest of her life.
Comeback
In 1937, Nice attempted a racing comeback, hoping to compete in the Mille MigliaMille Miglia
The Mille Miglia was an open-road endurance race which took place in Italy twenty-four times from 1927 to 1957 ....
and at the Tripoli Grand Prix
Tripoli Grand Prix
The Tripoli Grand Prix was a motor racing event first held in 1925 on a racing circuit outside Tripoli, the capital of what was then Italian Tripolitania...
, which offered a very substantial cash prize. However, she was unable to get the necessary backing and instead participated in the "Yacco" endurance trials for female drivers at the Montlhéry racetrack in France. There, alternating with four other women, Nice drove for ten days and ten nights breaking ten records that still stand to this day. For the next two years, she competed in rally racing while hoping to rejoin the Bugatti team. However, in August 1939, her friend Jean Bugatti was killed while testing a company vehicle and a month later, racing in Europe came to a halt with the onset of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
In 1943, in the middle of the German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
occupation of France, she moved to the warm climate of the French Riviera
French Riviera
The Côte d'Azur, pronounced , often known in English as the French Riviera , is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France, also including the sovereign state of Monaco...
and acquired a home in the city of Nice where she lived with one of her lovers for the remainder of the war.
Accusations
In 1949, the first Monte Carlo Rally after the war took place in nearby MonacoMonaco
Monaco , officially the Principality of Monaco , is a sovereign city state on the French Riviera. It is bordered on three sides by its neighbour, France, and its centre is about from Italy. Its area is with a population of 35,986 as of 2011 and is the most densely populated country in the...
and Nice was there to take part. At a large party organized to celebrate the return to racing, Louis Chiron
Louis Chiron
Louis Alexandre Chiron was a Grand Prix driver.-Career:As a teenager, Louis Chiron fell in love with cars and racing. He learned to drive at a young age and joined the Grand Prix circuit after World War I where he had been requisitioned from the artillery section to serve as a chauffeur...
, a multiple Grand Prix champion and Monaco’s favorite son, suddenly strode across the room and in a loud voice laced into Hellé Nice, accusing her of being a Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
agent during the war. At the time, such an accusation could be a serious setback for anyone's career, but coming from someone as powerful as Chiron, even though he provided no proof, it spelled the end of Nice's racing career.
Dropped by her sponsors, she never raced again and because of the accusation, her name and great accomplishments were virtually obliterated from the annals of racing history. Ostracized by friends and acquaintances, her lover soon abandoned her. With him went a great deal of her money and quickly the meager funds she had left deteriorated to the point where she was forced to accept charity from a Paris organization that had been established to give a bit of help to former theatre performers who had fallen on hard times.
Further
No facts on Chiron's accusation ever came to light and recent research by Miranda SeymourMiranda Seymour
Miranda Jane Seymour is an English literary critic, novelist, and biographer.Miranda Seymour was two years old when her parents moved into Thrumpton Hall, the family's ancestral home in Nottinghamshire. This celebrated Jacobean mansion is on the south bank of the River Trent at the secluded...
, author of Nice's biography published in 2004, could find nothing to substantiate such a charge. A respected biographer, Seymour went so far as to check the official records in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
and was advised by the German authorities Nice had never been an agent. Ironically, Chiron himself, led by the lure of a superior car, had driven for the Mercedes-Benz
Mercedes-Benz
Mercedes-Benz is a German manufacturer of automobiles, buses, coaches, and trucks. Mercedes-Benz is a division of its parent company, Daimler AG...
team, which the Nazis
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
were using as an object of propaganda for their philosophy of racial superiority, at a time when his Jewish colleague and rival René Dreyfus
René Dreyfus
René Dreyfus was a French driver who raced automobiles for 14 years in the 1920s and 1930s, the Golden Era of Grand Prix motor racing.-Early life:...
could not.
Final years
One of the 20th Century's most colorful and illustrious pioneering women who had successfully competed in more than seventy events at the highest echelon of automobile racing, spent her final years in a sordid rat-infested apartment in the back alleys of the city of Nice, living under a fictitious name to hide her shame. Estranged from her family for years, she died penniless, friendless, and completely forgotten by the rich and glamorous crowd involved in Grand Prix motor racing. Her cremation was paid for by the Parisian charity organization that had helped her, and the ashes were sent back to her sister in the village of Sainte-MesmeSainte-Mesme
Sainte-Mesme is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France in north-central France.-References:*...
near her birthplace and where her parents were buried. Nevertheless, Nice is not mentioned on the family's cemetery memorial.