In 1947, she starred with Eddy in Northwest Outpost, a musical film composed by Rudolf Friml.

She played Madame Egelichi, a femme fatale spy, and her performance inspired Milton Caniff in the creation of his femme fatale spy, Madame Lynx, in the comic strip "Steve Canyon".

"[5] Beginning on November 1, 1954, she hosted DuMont's The Ilona Massey Show, a weekly musical variety show in which she sang songs with guests in a nightclub set, with music provided by the Irving Fields Trio.

She remained strongly anti-communist for what she saw as the destruction of her native country, at one point picketing the United Nations during the 1959 visit of Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev.

[8] Massey died of cancer in Bethesda, Maryland, and is buried in Virginia's Arlington National Cemetery near her last husband, Donald Dawson, who had served in the United States Air Force Reserve as a major general.