Life and career

Further information: Parkour § Raymond and David Belle

Belle was born and raised in Fécamp, France, the son of Monique and Raymond Belle, in a modest family in the suburbs of Paris. His grandfather Gilbert Kitten, father Raymond, and brother Jean-François Belle have been highly skilled rescuers in the Military Paris Fire Brigade.

In 1984, at the age of 11, Belle moved to Lisses, France. He made close friends with a group of teenagers with similar physical passions who began training with him. Some of the friends that trained with David would later become known as the Yamakasi. Later in life Belle spent time in the military and fire brigade with aspirations of following in his father's and grandfather's footsteps. He left soon after for personal reasons in order to dedicate himself to parkour.

Belle later joined the Troupes de marine in Vannes, where he received a promotion, a gymnastic agility certificate of honour, and champion records for regimental rope-climbing (which his father had once held) and the Essonne obstacle course. He has however said that his taste and love for adventure and freedom did not go well with the regimented life of the military.

Upon completing his national service, he worked in various professions including a warehouse worker, security guard and furniture salesman. He also spent 3 months in India studying kung fu. After his return he continued his training in parkour and filmed footage of his capabilities which he later turned into the famous Speed Air Man video. In 1997 the Stade 2 team (Francis Marroto, Pierre Sled and Pierre Salviac) were shown a video of Belle and decided to film a news feature about parkour.

In filming this news feature the term Yamakasi was used for the first time in connection with the team. Belle did not approve of the name and felt like it did not give credit to his father, so he split from the group after the feature. Later Belle would go on to train other students who gave themselves the name 'tracer.' The spelling was later adapted to 'traceur', and has since been used to define a practitioner of parkour. However more recently, Belle claimed that "A traceur is not a practitioner of parkour, a traceur is someone who is trying to understand parkour."

Belle was first introduced to his acting career in a meeting with Hubert Koundé (La Haine), in order to discuss the success of parkour in cinema. He then began developing his acting ability with the play Pygmalion, and has since been successful in obtaining a number of roles mostly in French films and promotions. Belle has been featured in promotional videos for Tina Turner, and Iam. He has starred in "Les gens du voyages" and "Un monde meilleur", followed by "L'Engrenages" and "Femme Fatale", as well as "Les rivières pourpres 2", starring Jean Reno. After filming several more advertisements and promotions for the BBC, Nissan, Canon, and Nike, Belle was contacted by Luc Besson (director of Nikita, and The Fifth Element) regarding co-starring as lead actor with Cyril Raffaelli in the action movie District 13, followed by the sequel District 13: Ultimatum. Belle co-starred with Paul Walker in Brick Mansions (2014), a remake of District 13.

Filmography

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2000	Louis Page	Laurent	1 Episode
2001	Engrenage, L	Le créancier
2002	Femme Fatale	French Cop
2004	District 13	Leïto	Parkour film debut
2009	District 13: Ultimatum	Leïto
2012	Métal Hurlant Chronicles	Red Light	1 Episode
2013	Malavita	Mezzo
2014	Brick Mansions	Lino Duppre	District 13 Remake
2014	Jaya	Jaya	(Short)

Stunts

Year	Title	Notes
2002	BBC One's	Advertising Campaign
2002	Canon	Commercial
2002	Nike	Commercial
2002	Nissan	Commercial
2003	Crimson Rivers II: Angels of the Apocalypse	Stunt Coordinator
2005	Transporter 2	Stunt Coordinator
2010	Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time	Stunt Coordinator
2011	Covert Affairs	Stunt Coordinator
2011	Colombiana	Stunt Coordinator

Video game

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2014-2015	Dying Light	Antoine Merpe	Also Mo-Cap, Stunt Coordinator & Counseling

Endorsements and groups

Belle largely stays out of the public spotlight. His last major appearance was when he appeared as a guest at the New Yorker Festival in 2007. Belle was interviewed for the parkour article "No Obstacles" written by Alec Wilkinson which was published in April 2007.

Belle formerly endorsed the clothing company Take Flight, deciding to sever his ties to the brand because he disapproved of their business activities and motives.

Parkour groups

• Les Traceurs
  • Belle was the leader of a group called "Les traceurs" which also included well known practitioner Stephane Vigroux. The name has since been used to refer to those that practice parkour.
• PAWA (former member)
  • Belle helped form the Parkour World Association, but he stopped the group for lack of cohesion.
• Yamakasi
  • Belle was never a member of the Yamakasi group. He was a part of the group that later called themselves the Yamakasi, but the group chose the name Yamakasi during the filming of the Stade 2 news feature, credited as the first news feature about parkour. Belle was against the name and wanted to call the practice "parkour". He then split from the group after the feature because he felt that naming took away from the recognition of the discipline and its history.

[ Source: Wikipedia ]