Irene on AllMovie

American movie costume designer Irene was a graduate of the Wolf School of Design, but when she headed for Hollywood she first tried her luck as an actress, using her given name Irene Lentz. She decided after a few false starts to return to her original chosen vocation, and in the mid '20s opened her own Los Angeles dress shop. When Irene began attracting some of the most glamous female stars as clients, various producers began signing her up to design costumes on a film-by-film basis. Irene freelanced for RKO, Columbia, Hal Roach, Walter Wanger, Alexander Korda, David O. Selznick and others before settling down to a long-term engagement at MGM in 1942. She left Hollywood seven years later to create her own fashion firm, then returned to films in the early '60s to work on the plush star vehicles of Universal producer Ross Hunter (Midnight Lace [1960], Lover Come Back [1961], etc). Irene died in 1962; her last film credit was seen one year later, on Universal's A Gathering of Eagles.