Irene Manning

Irene Manning, born Inez Harvuot on July 17, 1912, in Cincinnati, Ohio, was an American actress and singer whose career spanned film, stage, radio, and television. She died on May 28, 2004, from congestive heart failure at her home in San Carlos, California, at the age of 91, and was cremated with her ashes scattered at sea.

Manning grew up as one of five siblings in a household where both parents were singers. Family gatherings frequently centered on group singing, and she developed an early interest in the art form — her sisters later recalled that she would sing even in her sleep. She pursued formal training as an opera singer at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, and performed with that city's Civic Music Association in 1935.

Her screen career began under the name Hope Manning when she entered the Republic Studios system in 1936. Her first film role placed her opposite Gene Autry as the lead actress in the western The Old Corral, released in 1938. By the early 1940s she had moved into the Warner Bros. studio system as a contract actress and singer. She is perhaps most widely recognized for portraying diva Fay Templeton in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), opposite James Cagney, a role that required her to act, sing the song "Mary," and play the piano simultaneously in a single scene. That same year she appeared alongside Humphrey Bogart in The Big Shot. She subsequently co-starred with Dennis Morgan in both The Desert Song (1943) and Shine On, Harvest Moon (1944). Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer later signed her to a contract, intending to use her singing abilities as leverage against Jeanette MacDonald, but the dispute between MacDonald and the studio resolved before Manning appeared in any MGM production, and her contract was dropped. She made approximately a dozen films in total.

During World War II, Manning performed with a four-woman USO show in both England and the United States. Because she had established herself as a light opera performer and was fluent in singing in German, she was recruited to record American popular songs translated into German vocals for broadcast into Nazi Germany through the American Broadcasting System in Europe. Those recordings were made with Glenn Miller and his Army Air Force Band and were among the final records Miller completed before he was lost on a flight over the English Channel to Paris in December 1944.

Manning's Broadway career extended from 1939 to 1945. She appeared in the musical Susanna, Don't You Cry in 1939 and in the musical The Day Before Spring in 1945. She also performed in The Dubarry, Castle in the Air, and Serenade during her time in London. Following her London stage work, she hosted her own BBC television program, An American in England, continuing in that role until 1951, when she returned to the United States for television and nightclub engagements. She later retired from performing to teach acting and voice.

Manning was married four times. In 1944 she married publisher Keith Kolhoff. Her final marriage was to Maxwell W. Hunter II, an engineer who designed missiles during the Cold War; they remained married for 37 years until his death in 2001.