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Hellé Nice - Defeating men as a passion

Name: Alfa Romeo Monza 1932
Brand: Alfa Romeo

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Created on August 4, 2013

Text:

Bernhard Brägger

Photos:

Archiv Bernhard Brägger

Alfa Romeo Monza (1933) - Hellé Nice also drives the fast "Monza" with a displacement of 2.3 liters and eight cylinders. She has a serious accident in this car at the Brazilian GP

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Bugatti 35 C (1931) - Hellé Nice as she lived and breathed - self-confident and full of life

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Bugatti 35 C (1932) - Hellé Nice at the Klausen Pass race in 1932, she was beaten by Emma Munz, who started in a similar vehicle

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Emma Mnz in front of the press calet on the Klausen Pass - she is fast, but more modest than Hellé Nice

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Hellé Nice on the cover of the book "Bugatti Queen"

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Summary

In the 1920s and early 1930s, the list of courageous women who wanted to compete with male racing drivers in the wake of emancipation is long. The modern, successful, fun-loving woman wanted to free herself from the shackles of many taboos. They have a hard life, the first female racing drivers. They are often more ostracized than celebrated. One of these heroines is Hellé Nice, alias Mariette, Hélène Délangle, who died in October 1984, penniless and largely unknown. In the 1930s, she had built up a good reputation as a fast racing driver and finished in the top places in Bugatti and Alfa Romeo cars. As the center of high society at the time, she knew how to present herself well, whether in or next to a racing car. This fourth article in the "Five Women" series tells the life story of Hellé Nice.

This article contains the following chapters

From nude model to glamor girl
The scent of castor oil
In the fight against men
Accident in a fast Alfa Romeo
Decline after character assassination

Estimated reading time: 4min

Preview (beginning of the article)

When Mariette, Hélène Delangle, died in a dirty apartment in Nice on October 1, 1984, no one, not even those closest to her, knew who this neglected 83-year-old woman was. Her cremation is paid for by a Paris-based charity organization for destitute artists. The urn is sent by the authorities to Sainte-Mesme near her birthplace and buried there in the Delangle family grave by her sister. Nameless! At the age of 16, the attractive young Mariette, Hélène Délangle, has had enough of life without prospects in the provincial town of Aunay-sous-Auneau, barely halfway between Paris and Le Mans, enough of the village gossip and her stepfather, and moves to Paris. The First World War is raging, the senseless slaughter at Verdun is still going on.

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