Virginia Hall helped win World War II and went on to a long career at the CIA. Now, she's finally getting the fame she deserves.

LANGLEY, VA -- The most-feared Allied Spy of the 1940s was a woman with a disability -- and she's now having a pop culture moment.

Three books, two movies, all coming out about Virginia Hall, the “one-legged limping lady” who helped win World War II -- and laid the ground work to win if there had been a World War III.

A daughter of Baltimore who shied from the limelight, Virginia Hall is the swashbuckling hero you’ve probably never heard of.

Deep inside CIA headquarters at Langley, a rare visit to a shrine to a disabled woman who set the standard for paramilitary operations behind enemy lines.

"She’s someone who is remembered as a true trailblazer here," said CIA historian Randy Burkett.

Born to a prominent Baltimore family, Virginia Hall was not interested in the social scene. She wanted to be a foreign service officer, but could only get a job as a clerk.

A hunting accident cost her a leg -- and nearly her life.

"She would never give up. She would never take no. And that was what was so extraordinary about her," said Sonia Purnell, author of the biography, "A Woman of No Importance, The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II."

When the Nazis seized power, Hall volunteered to drive an ambulance for the French Army.

"She would go weeks without being able to bath. She had blood on her," said Janelle Neises, director of the CIA museum.

She joined British Special Operations, Churchill’s “Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare,” running a network of informants, including sex workers in a brothel patronized by German troops.

The Gestapo tracked her, a wanted poster called “the limping lady,” “the most dangerous of allied spies.” She escaped across the Pyrenees, pushing harder through the snow than the men.

"They had no idea Virginia Hall had to drag her wooden leg, her prosthetic leg, behind her. Taking of her stump stock, blisters, she never complained," said Neises.

As soon as she was out, she wanted to go back. She returned in disguise to occupied France for the OSS, the precursor to the CIA, leading more than 1,000 French resistance fighters, blowing up supply and communications lines, even a railroad bridge.

She helped corner hundreds of German troops.

"What an inspiration to women who are looking to fight the good fight and do something good for their country," said Neises.

When the war was over, Hall went to work for the CIA, figuring out the networks and agents NATO would need to leave behind if the Soviets invaded.

"She not only helped win World War II, but if they’d gone to World War III, she was preparing to win that war as well," said Burkett.

Harry Truman wanted to give Virginia Hall the Distinguished Service Cross in the Oval Office, but she wanted to stay clandestine.

She retired to a small town outside Baltimore and died in 1982, never really telling her own story.

Now decades later, there are books, and movies coming – and the most feared spy of World War II has finally broken cover.