Perhaps overhere they are not that familiar with the French cinema, but une grande dame du cinema français died at the rich age of one hundred years...
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-41684181
From the BBC:
"Fondly referred to as the "grande dame" of French cinema, Darrieux had about a 140 films to her name in a career over eight decades.
But her decision to continue working during the Nazi occupation of France saw her branded as a collaborationist.
Born in Bordeaux in 1917, Darrieux started in comedy with a film role on Le Bal at just 14.
She went on take more dramatic roles in films such as Mayerling by Anatole Litvak in 1936 where she stared opposite Charles Boyer - for which she won a National Board of Review Best Actress prize.


During the Nazi occupation, she continued to work and even travelled to Berlin in 1942.
She was visiting her then-husband, Porfirio Rubirosa, who had been arrested by the Germans on suspicion of espionage.
After the war, her career picked up again with such notable films as La Ronde in 1950 and The Earrings of Madame de... in 1953.
Lingering doubts about her wartime activities were quashed by her performance as Marie Octobre in the 1959 thriller about the survivors of a French resistance network and their quest to find the person who had betrayed their murdered leader.
In 1967, she starred and sang in Jacques Demy's classic Les Demoiselles De Rochefort, a move which gave her career a new lease of life, and she would later find work in Hollywood and Broadway.

"I went to the studio as one went to school, I was lazy and I remain so," Darrieux once said but she continued working until she was 99, lending her voice in the 2007 animated hit Persepolis.
Darrieux joins a list of French icons who have all passed away in recent months, including Jean Rochefort, Mireille Darc, Jeanne Moreau and Emmanuelle Riva.


Kind regards, Paul.

I knew DD's name of course, Paul, but I would be disingenuous if I claimed that I knew a great deal about her (I know more about her since reading the linked BBC article).  "Les Demoiselles de Rochefort" from what I recall also starred a young Catherine Deneuve and her sister Francoise Dorleac (who sadly died not long after making the film).  One certainly has to admire DD for carrying on working until she was 99.

In all honesty, I can't name all that many French actors though there are some I might recognise without being able to put a name to them.  Excluding the ones you have mentioned as passing away recently Brigitte Bardot is well known.  Ms Deneuve is known of course.  Marlene Jobert is slightly known and her daughter Eva Green was a Bond girl so known for that and her niece Josephine Jobert plays a young police sergeant in one of my guilty pleasures "Death in Paradise".  Thinking of young - well younger - French thespians, Clemence Poesy was in the police procedural TV show "The Tunnel" and though I probably couldn't name them (except Jacqueline Proust and Audrey Fleurot and Gregory Fitoussi who played the late lamented Pierre) I was impressed by the cast of the French TV thriller "Engrenages".  Alas, although I watched some not all of "Les Rois Maudits" ('70 version) and of course "The Flashing Blade" which I referenced flippantly recently  on another thread, I doubt if I could think of the actors' names from those productions.  "Versailles" which I binge-watched last month was a bit strange in that it was a series made by a French company about a French king in France but they hired anglophone actors (gave some British actors a chance to become renowned outside Britain and to film in lush surroundings I guess) but it didn't wholly tally with what I learned about the reign of Louis XIV at school.  One French actress (though I didn't see a lot of her work) I liked way back when was Yvonne Furneaux, though apparently her father was English but she adopted a different name for work. I saw her many years ago playing Hereward's first wife in a TV adaptation (at one time the BBC used to do an adaptation of a "classic" novel round the tea-time slot) of Charles Kingsley's "Hereward the Wake".  She also played the scientist's wife/Egyptian princess in the 1959 remake of "The Mummy" with Christopher Lee in the title role.  I have not heard of Christophe Lambert for a long time - and is Gerard Depardieu still French - there was some talk of him changing his nationality (to avoid French taxes) at one time but I can't remember if he actually went through with it.  Sorry I have not been able to put accents on the French words in this comment.

Sorry, I have typed a "stream of consciousness" post and rather strayed from the topic of Ms Darrieux.  DD does seem to have had a fruitful life and of course my thoughts would be with her loved ones at this time (not that I'd ever meet them to be able to tell them).

Lady in retirement,

"Sorry, I have typed a "stream of consciousness" post and rather strayed from the topic of Ms Darrieux."

Lady, I am even worser...I start a thread about German philosophy in the 19th century and end with the musicality of languages and illustrate that with Italian, French and German opera...

Kind regards from your friend Paul.