This family environment helped Irene to develop a keen interest in singing at a very early age.

[3] Manning performed with a four-woman USO show in England and the United States and recorded with Glenn Miller and his Army Air Force Band.

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.

[citation needed] Her first film placed her as the lead actress in a western, The Old Corral (1938), opposite Gene Autry.

She is probably best remembered as diva Fay Templeton in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), opposite James Cagney.

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).