US heiress Huguette Clark dies aged 104

She was photographed last, 80 years ago

The eccentric US multimillionaire Huguette Clark has died aged 104, media reports said Thursday.

Clark died Tuesday at Beth Israel Hospital in New York. She had lived in hospital at her request since the end of the 1980s.

'She died as she wanted, with dignity and privacy,' a spokesman for her lawyer Wallace Bock said, the Los Angeles Times reported.

She was the daughter of William Andrews Clark, a copper and railway magnate who was among the richest men in the country.

Huguette Clark's wealth was put at around 500 million dollars. She had no children.

Clark was born in Paris in 1906 and grew up in a house with 121 rooms, the New York Times reported.

She was briefly married in the late 1920s but after splitting from her husband she increasingly withdrew from public view and was only rarely seen after the death of her mother in 1963.

The family's houses in California and Connecticut remained empty.

Her New York lawyer was reportedly one of the few people she was in regular contact with.

Clark hit the headlines last year when MSNBC.com ran reports raising concerns about the handling of her wealth.

Distant relatives later went to court, complaining that advisors were exerting 'improper influence' over her.

It was unclear who would inherit her estate.