Cherylene Lee
 | This article's lead section may be too short to adequately summarize the key points. (October 2021) |
Cherylene Lee | |
|---|---|
 Cherylene Lee in Dennis The Menace in 1962. | |
| Born | June 13, 1953 Los Angeles, California |
| Died | March 18, 2016 (aged 62) San Francisco, California |
Cherylene Alice Lee (June 13, 1953 – March 18, 2016) was an American actress and writer.
Life[]
Cherylene Alice Lee was born and raised in Los Angeles, and was a fourth-generation Chinese-American.[1] She had two sisters, Priscilla "Puggy" and Virginia.[2]
Lee began a career as a child actress and dancer at age three, and performed as a song and dance team with her sister Virginia in Las Vegas for three summers.[2]
She graduated from UC Berkeley with a BA in Paleontology and from UCLA with an MS in Geology.[2] She subsequently managed an alternative wastewater treatment plant as a Disney Imagineer.[3]
In 1983, she began writing plays, poetry, and fiction.[1] Her plays include The Legacy Codes about the Wen Ho Lee affair and Carry the Tiger to the Mountain about the death of Vincent Chin.
In 2015, Lee self-published an autobiography, "Just Like Really": An Uncommon Chinese American Memoir.[2]
On March 18, 2016, Lee died in her sleep with her two sisters at her side, after a long battle with breast cancer.[4]
Acting career[]
Lee started out as a child actor, appearing in television shows Playhouse 90, with her sister Virginia Lee on The Dinah Shore Chevy Show, The Gene Kelly Show, The Frank Sinatra Timex Show, Bachelor Father as Blossom, the niece of Peter (played by Sammee Tong), McHale's Navy, Kentucky Jones, Ensign O'Toole, My Three Sons, with Virginia on Art Linkletter's House Party, voice in The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan, and with Virginia in an episode of M*A*S*H and others. In 1962, Cherylene played Sen Yuen in the season 4 episode 1 TV series, Dennis the Menace, where she won the hearts of many with her mannerisms and politeness. She appeared in the movies The Seventh Sin, Stagecoach to Dancer's Rock, Flower Drum Song with Virginia, Donovan's Reef, and A Letter to Nancy, among others.
In 1977, she returned to the stage, performing in A Chorus Line.[5][1]
References[]
- ^ a b c "Cherylene Lee". www.amazon.com. Retrieved 2021-05-09.
- ^ a b c d "Cherylene Lee Obituary (1953 - 2016) - San Francisco, CA - San Francisco Chronicle". www.legacy.com. Retrieved 2021-05-09.
- ^ Lee, Cherylene Lee (August 31, 2015). ""Just Like Really": An Uncommon Chinese American Memoir". Amazon. Retrieved May 9, 2021.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ CAAM. "Cherylene Lee (1953-2016): Pioneering Actor and Writer". caamedia.org.
- ^ "Cherylene Lee – Broadway Cast & Staff | IBDB". www.ibdb.com. Retrieved 2021-05-09.
External links[]
- 1953 births
- 2016 deaths
- American actresses of Chinese descent
- American film actresses
- American writers of Chinese descent
- Actresses from Los Angeles
- Deaths from breast cancer
- 20th-century American actresses
- 20th-century American dramatists and playwrights
- 20th-century American women writers
- 21st-century American dramatists and playwrights
- 21st-century American women writers
- American women memoirists
- 21st-century American memoirists
- American women dramatists and playwrights
- Writers from Los Angeles