Attractive, blond, dimple-cheeked artist's daughter, Irene Hervey was trained at the MGM School of Acting before being signed as a contract player in 1933. Often on loan to other studios, she was assigned bit parts until meatier co-starring roles came along in The Girl Said No (1937) and Say It in French (1938). While at MGM, Irene was briefly engaged to Robert Taylor, an affair which was stymied by Louis B. Mayer, who saw it as detrimental to Taylor's career.
After briefly free-lancing, Irene signed with Universal (joining her then-husband, actor/singer Allan Jones) in 1938 and remained with that studio until 1943. Her best-known film was the classic James Stewart-Marlene Dietrich western Femme ou démon (1939) in 1939. In the 1940's, Irene became a leading lady of B-movies. In the crime melodramas San Francisco Docks (1940) and Frisco Lil (1942), she was, respectively, a barmaid and a law student, trying to clear her nearest and dearest of murders they hadn't committed. In the adventure yarn Bombay Clipper (1942), she was William Gargan's obligatory girlfriend - more decorative than active; and in the potboiler, Night Monster (1942), a Dr. Phibes-like tale of revenge and murder, she played second-fiddle to those great characters, Lionel Atwill and Bela Lugosi.
A charming, smart and like-able actress, who some reviewers compared to Myrna Loy, Irene put her family above her career and never made the breakthrough to A-grade pictures. In 1943, she was injured in a car accident and sidelined for five years. When she returned to the screen, it was as a character actress in the fantasy Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid (1948), as the titular character's sophisticated wife. From the 1950's, Irene concentrated on television work with a recurring role as "Aunt Meg" in the series Honey West (1965) (with Anne Francis), and numerous guest-starring spots in top shows like Peter Gunn (1958), Perry Mason (1957), L'homme de fer (1967) and La quatrième dimension (1959). She was nominated for an Emmy Award for a performance on My Three Sons (1960) in 1969. Her final motion picture role was as radio station owner "Madge Brenner" in Un frisson dans la nuit (1971).
