Ballet prodigy turned Vegas blackjack dealer dies at 90

George Lee, the longtime Las Vegan whose journey from pioneering ballet dancer to a four-decade career dealing blackjack at the Four Queens was chronicled in the documentary “Ten Times Better,” has died. He was 90.

Lee died Saturday in hospice care, according to Jennifer Lin, the reporter-turned-documentarian behind the movie that debuted in February 2024 at New York’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

Lee was born in 1935 to a Chinese acrobat and a Polish ballerina living in Hong Kong. By the age of 7, Lee was a professional dancer performing in Shanghai nightclubs and being paid in rice.

He arrived in America in 1951. Three years later, he danced for 15 minutes in front of legendary choreographer George Balanchine, who was working on his first staging of “The Nutcracker.” Some of what Lee performed was incorporated into the Chinese tea divertissement that’s still being performed each year at Christmas.

In 1958, Gene Kelly convinced Lee to join the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “Flower Drum Song,” which the dance legend was directing. A 1961 production of the show at the Thunderbird, where the Fontainebleau now stands, first brought Lee to Las Vegas.

Lee returned for good in 1980 to appear in “Alcazar de Paris” at the Desert Inn. A friend’s husband, who dealt blackjack at the Four Queens, convinced him that was a good job to fall back on, so Lee danced at night and went to dealer school during the day. When “Alcazar de Paris” closed after four months, Lee was hired by the Four Queens, where he worked in anonymity for four decades until Lin tracked him down for her documentary.

“Ten Times Better” debuted locally with a celebration for Lee on May 7, 2024, at the Beverly Theater. He was feted there again with a screening on his 90th birthday on Feb. 18.

“When I first contacted George Lee, he said to me, ‘Why do you want to talk to me? I’m nobody,’ ” Lin said in an email. “I think he finally understood that indeed he was somebody. George’s story of resilience and optimism inspired everyone who heard it.”

According to Lin, the hospice chaplain played music from “Flower Drum Song” when she visited him April 16. Lee, who had been largely unresponsive since arriving in hospice care, moved his feet in time with the music.