Irene Handl was born in the district of Maida Vale, in London. At thirty, after having devoted his life to caring for his father after the early death of his mother, he enrolled in a school of dramatic art. He made his debut on the London stage in 1937 and, throughout his career, he appeared in more than a hundred films, playing roles of humorous character, as slightly eccentric mothers, porters and maids. She became known throughout Britain during the second half of the twentieth century as an inimitable comedy actress and, at the end of her days, participated in several television series such as For the Love of Ada or Mapp and Lucia. In addition to his career on the big screen, he published two novels about a French upper class family (the extreme opposite of most of his roles), The Sioux (1965) and The Gold Tip Pfizer (1966), which were very successful . In a way, her fame as an actress has prevented her from happening to posterity as the excellent narrator she was. He never got married. He died in the London district of Kensington in 1987.