French actress Danielle Darrieux

Danielle Darrieux, a prolific French actress whose movie and theatre career spanned eight decades, has died at the age of 100.

One of France’s best-loved actresses, Darrieux appeared in dozens of plays and more than 100 films during her long career.

Generations of French moviegoers watched her mature from a precocious, fresh-faced teenager into a radiant nonagenarian starring in films into her 90s.

She was born on May 1 1917 in the south-western city of Bordeaux.

Her father, an ophthalmologist, died when she was seven, and her mother supported the family by giving singing lessons.

Darrieux was 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 favourite of French directors, appearing in films by heavyweights Claude Chabrol, Jacques Demy and Andre Techine.

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

Darrieux played the leading lady in more than half a dozen movies by Frenchman Henri Decoin.

They married in 1935 and divorced six years later.

A second marriage, to Dominican playboy Porfirio Rubirosa – who was romantically linked to Zsa Zsa Gabor, Ava Gardner and a host of other screen sirens – lasted five years, and was followed by a more than 40-year union with screenwriter Georges Mitsinkides.

Darrieux made a brief transatlantic escapade, appearing in 1938 Hollywood flop The Rage Of Paris, before returning to France.

Darrieux had a career spanning decades.