Lee grew up in the Los Angeles area, and also in San Francisco. She studied dance and theater and later became a full-time Dancer in her teens. According to her interview on the Magic Knight Rayearth DVDs, she started doing voices at school, and got in trouble for it. Her first anime voice role was in Harmony Gold production Robotech in the 1980s, where she voiced Vanessa Leeds, one of the operators aboard the SDF-1 Macross. She also worked with Streamline on several anime productions including Dragon Ball She would continue dance, and work part-time as a make-up Artist, choreography, and dance instruction.