Marie-Paule Belle, the French singer and pianist whose song "La Parisienne" became a defining hit of 1970s French chanson, died Saturday at 80 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, following a recurrence of breast cancer.
Though born in the Oise, Belle came of age in Nice, moving there with her family at eight years old and remaining until she was 23. She studied psychology at the University of Nice, and by her own account spent much of that time absorbing the city that would come to define her, cruising the Promenade des Anglais in her aunt's sports car and revising for exams on a balcony lined with oleander. It was in Nice that she met childhood friend and future lyricist Michel Grisolia, and it was a 1969 Radio Monte Carlo talent contest, entered on a dare from university friends, that gave her career its start.
Adrien Mangano, a journalist with ICI Azur who often discussed her Nice memories with her directly, remembered her as humble and warm. "She liked to walk along the Promenade des Anglais in her aunt's sports convertible. She could show off a little at university," he recalled, describing a young woman whose father worked as a doctor in the city.
Belle went on to build a career spanning more than fifty years, blending humour and gravity across a catalogue that included a celebrated tribute album to Barbara and a memoir titled after her breakout hit. She gave what she described as her farewell concert series at Paris' Théâtre de Passy this past May, closing out a career that began, by her own telling, on a bet among friends on the French Riviera.