[4] Lee's early experience in theater included acting with the YMHA Players in Newark and performing at the Walnut House on the Hill in the Catskills.
Other Broadway credits included Peter Pan (1954), Hotel Paradiso (1957), Jerome Robbins' Ballet: U.S.A. (1958), Sunday in New York (1961), and Hello Dolly (1964).
[6] In 1953, Lee portrayed Daisy, a maid, in a production of Bloomer Girl by the St. Louis Municipal Opera Theatre,[5] and in 1954, she relocated to France to be the co-star of Ballets de Paris.
Based on Kathy Kahn's book of the same name, the production focused on six women of Appalachia, each of whom presented highlights of her life story.
[19] Some items were gifts, including a Victorian sofa that someone anonymously left at her door and she reupholstered and an old clock that her parents gave her and she gilded.