Dorothy Lee

Dorothy Lee (born Marjorie Elizabeth Millsap, May 23, 1911 – June 24, 1999) was an American actress and comedian during the 1930s. She appeared in 28 films, usually appearing alongside the Wheeler & Woolsey comedy team. Born in Los Angeles, Marjorie Elizabeth Millsap was the daughter of Homer and Bess Millsap. Her father was an attorney in Los Angeles.She became an actress known as Dorothy Lee. Her first film was Syncopation (1929).Lee began her career as a dancer in a stage show, Ideas. When she happened to be watching scenes shot backstage for a film, the director asked her to take a small part in the film because the woman who was supposed to have the part did not show up. She later went to New York for a role in the stage show Hello Yourself. Her work in that production caught the attention of an RKO director, leading to her being in Syncopation, which was being filmed in New York.At 18, she signed with RKO Radio Pictures and began working with Wheeler & Woolsey; she became so identified with the comedians that she seldom appeared apart from them. Of W & W's 21 feature films, Lee is the leading lady in 14 of them.

She withdrew from the series after producer David O. Selznick tampered with her performance in Girl Crazy; she returned when Selznick's successor Mark Sandrich cast her in two well-received features in 1934. RKO replaced her with Mary Carlisle and then Betty Grable, but she returned in 1935 for two appearances.

In the early 1940s, after Robert Woolsey had died, Bert Wheeler was struggling to re-establish himself as a solo performer, and asked Dorothy Lee to tour with him in vaudeville. She immediately interrupted her private life to help her friend.