Béatrice Dalle was born in Le Mans, Sarthe in 1964. Her major breakthrough in cinema was 1986's 37,2° le matin, directed by Jean-Jacques Beneix. She was initially spotted by a photographer on the Champs Élysées, which lead to an introduction to Beniex.
Partly ignoring Hollywood and partly unable to pursue a career in America due to her various run-ins with the authorities over drugs and shoplifting, she instead secured a place in French hearts as an actress of unparalleled presence, beauty and daring, accepting difficult and controversial roles such as La Visione del Sabba and La Vengeance d'une Femme and later Trouble Every Day in which she starred opposite Vincent Gallo as a passionate woman without conscience and a taste for human flesh.
Her private life has been suitably turbulent, first marrying struggling poet Jean-François Dalle, who struggled with her increasing fame overshadowing his own success. An unsuccessful marriage to rapper Joey Starr and a broken engagement to Alessandro Gassman - ending when he ran away to marry another woman - followed, and in 2005 she wed Guenael Meziani, who has been held for two years in jail awaiting trial - later that year he was sentenced to 12 years for rape and false imprisonment. Beatrice has not defended his crimes, but only her decision to marry. Dalle has campaigned for the homeless and various good causes through her career.
She is a close friend of Rupert Everett, whom had this to say about her:
"Her kind of beauty was definitely pre-Botox, much deeper than the cash-and-carry bargains of today. Its origins were the gaslit barmaids of Manet and the Parisian demimonde between the wars. She was jolie laide—pretty and ugly. If you pulled back her hair, her head was the shape of a woodland elf..."
