George Li was born on Feb. 18, 1935, in Hong Kong. His father, Alexander Li, was a circus acrobat who taught him how to do handstands; his mother was his first dance teacher. When Japan occupied Hong Kong in 1941, the family fled to Shanghai, and then his father went to western China to find work.
In Shanghai, a city with a vibrant population of émigrés, George took dance lessons from Russian teachers; at 7, he began performing polkas and Russian dances in nightclubs to help his mother get by. Sometimes he was paid in rice.
In 1945, George’s father died in a truck accident while trying to return to Shanghai. Four years later, George and his mother, fearing the Communist takeover of Shanghai, evacuated to the Philippines, where they spent two years in a refugee camp.
Before they left the Philippines, George’s mother warned him about what would be required if he wanted a future in dance. In an oral history interview for the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, in 2024, he recalled her saying, “Look here, George, you are Asian, part of you, and we’re going to America, and there will be all white people, so you better be 10 times better.”
Their immigration to the United States was sponsored by a friend of the family who also introduced George to the School of American Ballet.
When he later stopped dancing, his career was largely forgotten by the public. In 2022, Ms. Lin, the filmmaker, was looking at old photos at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, when she spotted a publicity shot of Mr. Lee from “The Nutcracker.”
