Belle du Berry
French singer (1966–2020)
Bénédicte Grimault (8 April 1966 – 11 August 2020), who performed as Belle du Berry, was a French singer, songwriter, and actress. She was the lead singer of the band Paris Combo.
Biography
She was born in Berry-Bouy, near Bourges, in France. After studying cinematography in Paris and becoming attracted to the punk movement, she joined the band Pervers Polymorphes Inorganisés (PPI) and took the stage name Belle du Berry. At the end of the 1980s, the group sang alongside Les Endimanchés at Berry Zèbre, a cinema in Belleville. In 1992, as part of the musical revue Les Champêtres de Joie, she collaborated with Philippe Decouflé to choreograph the ballets for the closing of the 1992 Winter Olympics.
Du Berry took part in the Cabaret Sauvage from 1994 to 1995 and began her partnership with Australian musician David Lewis, performing with him at the Erotica and the Opus café, as well as numerous other venues across Paris. From these performances emerged Paris Combo, which would become highly successful. Their second album, Living-Room, went gold, and toured for ten years. Lewis and du Berry worked alongside Roger Planchon and Laurent Pelly in various musical, theatrical, and cinematic performances.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Belle du Berry” is french singer (1966–2020). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Belle, Berry and French, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “french singer (1966–2020)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2894765. VIAF identifies the subject as 17486114. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1966, 2020, 1992 and 1994.
Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Belle du Berry”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Belle du Berry primary sources, Belle du Berry archive and Belle research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Belle du Berry”?
- Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
- Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Belle du Berry” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.