michelle lee

Michele Lee (born on June 24, 1942) is a Tony and Emmy-nominated American singer, dancer, actress, producer, director and frequent game show panelist of the 1970s. She is best-known for her role as Karen Cooper Fairgate MacKenzie on the 1980s prime-time soap opera, Knots Landing. She also co-starred with Dean Jones in the 1968 Disney film, The Love Bug.
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Stage actress

Lee began her career on television in an episode of the late 1950s sitcom The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. When she was 18, she auditioned for the Broadway play Vintage '60. She soon began appearing in musicals, becoming a star on Broadway at the age of 19 in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying in the role of "Rosemary", opposite Robert Morse and Rudy Vallee, a role she reprised in the film version. She also appeared in more plays, such as the Los Angeles production of Jerry Herman's Parade and the Broadway productions of Bravo Giovanni and The Tale of the Allergist's Wife .

Film and TV work

After she sang and starred in the film version of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1967), she became known for her roles in the films The Comic and The Love Bug, the latter becoming the biggest blockbuster movie of 1969. That same year, she starred in a special television production of the Jerome Kern – Otto Harbach musical, Roberta, in which she sang "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes". After the birth of her son, she worked infrequently until accepting a role on Broadway in Seesaw, which netted her a Tony Award nomination in 1974. After her mother's death, she stopped working, wanting to spend time with her only son.

In 1974, Lee starred in her own CBS sitcom entitled The Michele Lee Show in which she played Michele Burton, a clerk in a hotel newsstand. The series also starred Stephen Collins, but only the pilot episode was aired.

In addition to becoming a singer, Lee became one of the most in-demand guest actresses of the 1970s, appearing in Marcus Welby, M.D., Alias Smith and Jones, Night Gallery, Love, American Style, Fantasy Island and The Love Boat.

Lee's name would proved to be even more prominent by making numerous appearances on several game shows in the 1970s, such as: Hollywood Squares, Match Game, Celebrity Sweepstakes, This Is Your Life, The Movie Game, The $25,000 Pyramid, What's My Line, The Gong Show, Snap Judgment, among many others. She appeared on a pilot of a 1970s game show Cop-Out that has never been aired.