Obituary: George Lee - the original Tea in Balanchine's The Nutcracker

George Lee, the first Asian dancer to dance with New York City Ballet, has passed away. He was 90 years old.

According to Las Vegas Review Journal, Lee died on Saturday, 19th April 2025.

Lee was born in Hong Kong in 1935 and fled to the Philippines in 1949 with his mother, a Polish ballerina who was his first ballet teacher. They moved to New York, the United States in 1959.

While Lee was still a student at School of American Ballet, George Balanchine created the Tea variation in his The Nutcracker and he performed it on stage with New York City Ballet.

Lee never danced again with New York City Ballet. He was never invited to join the company. He continued to dance as a freelance dancer, however, including dancing with the company of André Eglevsky, in Broadway shows like “Flower Drum Song,” and in cabarets and revues. Eventually he retired from the stage in 1980.

Fast forward in 2022, documentary filmmaker Jennifer Lin found a picture of an Asian dancer among old photographs at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. She identified him as Lee and tracked him down in Las Vegas after many false leads. He was working as a blackjack dealer.

His extraordinary life story eventually become a documentary film, "Ten Times Better".