Baroness Irene von Meyendorff was of Baltic German origin, born in 1916 in Tallinn (then Reval, Russian Empire), Estonia as the eldest child of a German-Baltic aristocrat.
Her birth name and title was Baroness Irene Isabella Margarete Pauline Caecila von Meyendorff.
The sale of her promotional postcards shows that she was the number one pin-up girl among the German Army during World War II.
The production of these elaborately produced colour films was strictly supervised by Goebbels; Kolberg was the most expensive film ever produced in Germany (with the budget of 8.5 million Reichsmarks), intended to celebrate the 12th anniversary of Adolf Hitler's ascent to power, opening on 30 January 1945.
A series of strokes, starting in 1968, gradually prevented James Robertson Justice from working again and led to his eventual bankruptcy.