Béatrice Dalle

Béatrice Dalle, born Béatrice Cabarrou on 19 December 1964 in Brest, Brittany, France, emerged from a modest upbringing in Le Mans to become one of French cinema’s most iconic and provocative figures. At fifteen she fled home for the allure of Paris, where her striking looks secured work as a model and caught the eye of filmmaker Jean‑Jacques Beineix. Beineix cast her in the lead role of the 1986 cult classic 37°2 le matin (internationally known as Betty Blue), a performance that combined raw sensuality with an unsettling intensity, earning the film Oscar and BAFTA nominations for Best Foreign Language Film and launching Dalle into instant fame. Her early career was marked by a willingness to inhabit transgressive characters, a trait that would define her artistic identity and attract both admiration and controversy. Over the ensuing decades she has appeared in more than fifty films, ranging from the surreal Chimère (1989) – entered into the Cannes Film Festival – to Jim Jarmusch’s Night on Earth (1991), demonstrating a versatility that spans art‑house cinema and mainstream thrillers.