Irene Manning
| Irene Manning | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
Inez Harvuot July 17, 1912 Cincinnati, Ohio, US |
| Died | May 28, 2004 (aged 91) San Carlos, California, US |
| Occupation | Actress, singer |
| Years active | 1936–1955 |
Irene Manning (July 17, 1912 – May 28, 2004) was an American actress and singer.
Manning was born Inez Harvuot on July 17, 1912 in Cincinnati, Ohio, in a family of five siblings. Both of her parents were singers. Her family loved to go on outdoor picnics where the featured activity was group singing. This family environment helped Irene to develop a keen interest in singing at a very early age. Her sisters later complained that little Irene would sing in her sleep, keeping them awake. Manning trained as an opera singer at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester.
While performing with an all-girl USO show in England, Irene was asked to perform with bandleader Glenn Miller shortly before his death in 1944. Miller was involved in making swing records to be broadcast into Nazi Germany as part of the American Broadcasting System in Europe. Because she had been a light opera star prior to World War II and was fluent in singing in German, she was asked to sing some American pop tunes which had been translated into German vocals. Her sides were some of the last records made by Glenn Miller, prior to his being lost on an ill-fated flight to Paris over the English Channel in December 1944.
She was briefly credited as Hope Manning in her first films, as she broke in with the Republic Studios system in 1936. Her first film placed her as the lead actress in a western, The Old Corral, opposite Gene Autry. Irene once said in jest that "she had left light opera for a horse opera."
By the early 1940s, Irene was employed in the Warner Bros. studio system as a contract actress and singer. She is probably best remembered as diva "Fay Templeton" in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), opposite James Cagney. In this film, she had a scene in which she had to simultaneously act, sing the song "Mary", and play the piano. She starred with Humphrey Bogart in The Big Shot (1942) and with Dennis Morgan in both The Desert Song (1943) and Shine On, Harvest Moon (1944).
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