French acting legend Danielle Darrieux, whose movie and theater career spanned eight decades, has died aged 100.

Hailed as the Grand Dame of French Cinema, she appeared in more than 100 films during her long career, which started with a small role in a movie aged 14.

She was also infamously accused of collaborating with the Nazis during World War II after she performed for German troops in the hope of freeing her then-husband from an internment camp.

Her lover, Dominican playboy diplomat Porfirio Rubirosa, was locked up accused of being a spy.

Legend: Danielle Darrieux, hailed by many as the Grand Dame of French Cinema, whose movie and theater career spanned eight decades, has died in her home in Bois-le-Roi aged 100

Darrieux was born on May 1, 1917, in the southwestern city of Bordeaux. Her father, an ophthalmologist, died when she was seven, and her mother supported the family by giving singing lessons.

Darrieux was just 14 when she made her screen debut, with a supporting role in 1931's 'Le Bal.'

With her expressive face, liquid eyes and original, slightly nasal voice, Darrieux quickly became a favorite of French directors, appearing in films by heavyweights Claude Chabrol, Jacques Demy and Andre Techine.

She starred in legendary Austrian-born director Billy Wilder's first film, 'Mauvaise graine,' a 1934 gangster flick in French.

Darrieux played the leading lady in more than a half-dozen movies by Frenchman Henri Decoin. They married in 1935 and divorced six years later.

Screen siren: Darrieux quickly became a favorite of French directors in the 1930s - a love story that continued into the 2000s

Stand by your man: When her then-husband Porfirio Rubirosa was detained by Nazis in the 1940s, she agreed to sing for German troops in exchange for his freedom

Betrayal: Porfirio Rubirosa repaid her kindness by leaving her for American journalist Doris Duke - the heir to the American Tobacco fortune, pictured together

The cause of the divorce was Dominican playboy Porfirio Rubirosa, who she met in Paris in 1940 and married in 1942.

When Rubirosa was interned by the Nazis, after the Dominican Republic sided with the Allies, Danielle performed a concert for German troops in return for his freedom.

As a result, she was seen as a collaborationist, and in 1944, two years after they had married, they were shot at in an ambush, probably by the French Resistance. Rubirosa was hit in the kidney but survived.

At the end of the war they decamped to Rome, where Danielle was making a film, and when American journalist, Doris Duke, came to interview them in their hotel suite, Rubirosa's eyes wandered.

Doris Duke was the heir to the American Tobacco fortune and worth a staggering $100 million - enough for Rubirosa to leave Darrieux.

Darrieux sits next to American actor Mel Ferrer as they portray the roles of man and wife in a scene from the French film 'L'homme a Femmes,' in Paris in 1960

Danielle Darrieux holds up a prop gold record at the Paris Saint-Maurice studios in 1959

Over the ocean: The actress poses outside the Irving Thalberg Building in Hollywood, California in 1960

However, she found love again with screenwriter Georges Mitsinkides, and they stayed together for more than 40 years.

Darrieux made a brief trans-Atlantic escapade, appearing in 1938 Hollywood flop 'The Rage of Paris' before returning to France.

A later American engagement - in which she replaced Katharine Hepburn in 'Coco,' a Broadway show about Coco Chanel - also met with little success.

As reserved in real life as she was fiery on-screen, Darrieux shunned the spotlight, spending much of her time in a village in the French countryside.

She described battling her natural shyness throughout her career and often appeared visibly shaken during interviews.

Success: She is pictured on stage with Howard Keel performing in 1971

No retirement: Darrieux performing on stage in at the Comedie des Champs-Elysees in 2003

'I am very simple, perhaps too simple for all this,' she told ORTF television in 1972. 'This whole thing, the interviews, it's too much for me.'

Darrieux insisted she couldn't bear to see herself on-screen and that the only one of her movies she enjoyed watching was Max Ophuls' critically acclaimed 1953 'Madame de...,' in which she played the eponymous heroine - a dazzling, adulterous countess.

As she grew older, Darrieux was increasingly cast not as leading lady but as the star's mother and, later, grandmother. In one of her late roles, Darrieux reaffirmed her status as one of French cinema's all-time greats.

In the 2002 whodunit musical extravaganza 'Eight Women,' she played a matriarch, reigning over a nearly-all female cast that included legendary actresses Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, Emmanuelle Beart and Fanny Ardant.

She continued to act into her 90s and died in her home in Bois-le-Roi, France on Tuesday.