Arielle Dombasle is a French celebrity of many talents. She's an actress and singer. But not many in France know she grew up in Mexico. In her latest incarnation, Dombasle is a sultry latin-jazz singer. The World's Adeline Sire has more.

Arielle Dombasle might just fit the bill of "international woman of mystery." First, the looks: Dombasle is a stunning petite blonde. She's... 48 or 53, depending on whom you ask. That's the first mystery. Then there's the pedigree. She's an aristocrat, born Arielle Sonnery de Fromental. Dombasle is her mother's maiden name. And then, she's a jet-setter who socializes with world leaders and thinkers. That's because she's married to the French philosopher and political activist Bernard-Henri Levy.

As an actress, she's made more than a hundred films. And in 1986, her sex-kitten looks landed her a part on the TV series "Miami Vice." But Dombasle started out as an opera singer. Now with her new album "Amor amor," the 40...or 50-something chanteuse reveals her deep connection to Mexico.

Arielle Dombasle was born in Connecticut to French parents. She moved to Mexico when she was an infant. She grew up speaking Spanish and French. But when she landed in Paris at age 18, she felt like a foreigner.

Arielle: "Actually I'm a Chicana. So when I arrived in this new country that was France I tried to play it low profile and tried not to say really what made me feel so different from the others."

It's clear that Spanish is Dombasle's first language. She slips into it without even noticing...

Arielle: "My first language was Espanol, bueno, yo hablo Mexicano, es mi idioma de siempre y vivi en Mexico 18 anos..."

Dombasle says, in Paris, she was embarrassed by her Mexican background. She even used to disguise it.

Arielle: "Because you know I had an accent in French, a Latin accent actually, and I used to say it's Swiss, just to get out of any type of sarcasm."

But now the singer is proud to reclaim her Latin-American identity.

Her album "Amor Amor" was a hit in France last year. It was released here last month. There's a stylish nostalgia about the album's songs. They're mostly classic Latin love songs from the 30s and 40s. Dombasle says as a child, she listened to her parents' music: Classical and jazz. But the music that really touched her, came from the kitchen.

Arielle: "In the radio of the kitchen, with the cook and the maids, I was listening to all that fantastic rumbas, boleros, calypsos, merengues, cha cha chas, mexicanos del pueblo, and listening to those boleros it was something that goes through your soul and right through your heart, and my cook used to cry and so I used to cry with her."

This song, "Quien Sera" or "Sway with Me" was made famous by the late Mexican diva Lola Beltran. Beltran was known as Lola La Grande. She was the queen of "musica ranchera."

Arielle Dombasle has deep emotional connection to this music.

Arielle: "I was really raised by my maids, you know, because I lost my mother when I was very young and then my father remarried and was never there. So for me, Miss Nannies, las muchachas, para mi, eran mi familia. One was Cecilia, now she's dead and I adored her, she was my nanny."

With this album, Dombasle was able to revisit her love for Mexican and Latin-American culture. She says there's something about those songs that make them timeless.

Arielle: "Por ejemplo, cuando tu cantas...There is something very simple, very natural about love songs, very intimate, and those songs are very melodramatic."

And to spice up the melodrama, Dombasle recorded the classic song "Quizas, Quizas, Quizas" with Spanish crooner Julio Iglesias. Dombasle idolizes singers of the 1940s and 50s. She's a fan of Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, Sarah Vaughan and Julie London. And for her album, she picked Latin-style songs that those artists covered. But what really moves this "international woman of mystery" are the Mexican songs she heard in the kitchen.

Arielle: "Para mi, pienso que..."

She goes back to Spanish and to the memory of the cook, and of Cecilia the nanny, who taught her everything she knows about Latin love songs.

Arielle: "Bueno tambien, Amor Amor."

The song "Amor Amor" was one of Cecilia's favorites.