She arrived in Leeds, England, and lived there for two years, working as a servant, nanny, and candy striper while waiting for her parents' escape.

In a 2006 interview, she explained, At that time, I was painting Tyrolean designs on wooden boxes, and then I got a job on the 46th floor of Rockefeller Center at Reiss advertising agency.

[4] At Fiction House, which had sought women to replace its male artists who had been drafted into World War II, she worked as a penciler and inker alongside other female comic illustrators and writers including Nina Albright and Fran Hopper.

actress Rita Farrar, was designed by artist Nick Cardy in 1942, "Renée," writes historian Don Markstein, "was probably the one who became most strongly associated with the character.

"[8] In 1948, after Fiction House moved out of New York,[citation needed] Renée and her artist husband, Eric Peters, began working at St. John Publications.

[4] After she left comics, Renée said she "did some children's books and I also wrote some plays", with at least one, the black comedy Superman in Sleep's Embrace, produced at Hunter College in Manhattan.

[4] She later married Eric Peters, another Viennese refugee and a cartoonist whose work appeared in such glossy magazines as Collier's and The Saturday Evening Post.