Lee Burgess

Margaret Lee Burgess, later known professionally as Lee Dick, was an American actress, stage performer, and pioneering figure in independent documentary and industrial filmmaking. Born as Margaret Lee Burgess, she graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1930 and went on to found the Truro Tryout Theater in Provincetown, Massachusetts. She died in Florida in 1970.

Burgess appeared on Broadway between 1930 and 1931, with credits including The Venetian Glass Nephew and the play Overture. Her stage work coincided with the early years of her career before she transitioned into film. During the 1930s, she worked as an unpaid assistant for Frontier Films, where Helen Grayson and Jerome Hill served as directors.

Her film career advanced significantly in 1939 when she produced and directed The School for her own company, Lee Dick, Inc. The film was made at the Hessian Hills School in Croton-on-the-Hudson, New York, and was screened in the special theatre of the Science and Education Building at the New York World's Fair. The Film Forum Review recognized the work for its imaginative construction, restrained commentary, and well-recorded dialogue. That same year, Burgess became one of the founding members of the Association of Documentary Film Producers, serving on its Finance Committee as Chair. She may have been the first American woman to hold solo directing credits on a documentary film.

In 1940, she produced and directed Day After Day for Dial Films, a documentary focused on the visiting nurse services of the Henry Street Settlement House in New York. That same year, she co-produced and directed the soundtrack for Men and Dust, a film photographed and co-directed by her then-husband, photographer Sheldon Dick. The film examined the dangers of silicosis among workers in the zinc- and lead-mining regions where Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma converge, and was released by Thomas Brandon. One scholar of leftist American documentary film history described it as a priceless experimental documentary among the best of the decade.

During World War II, Burgess served as associate director of the Civilian Defense Volunteer Office Film Bureau. Working alongside volunteers from the Amateur Cinema League, she helped produce The Volunteer Nurses' Aide to support enrollment of Volunteer Nurses' Aides. She also directed Joe Comes Back for Willard Pictures for the War Production Board, a film that used montage to emphasize the importance of industrial war work, written by Robert T. Furman.

Burgess worked as a director and editor for Willard Pictures across multiple years, directing a series on nursing and a State Department film titled Rural Nursing. Her other credits include production assistant work on The City in 1937, assistant director duties on The Candid Camera in 1938, and editorial work on Operation Fast Freight in 1950 and Lighted Windows in 1954 for the Girl Scouts of the United States of America. She married Sheldon Dick in 1933 and later divorced him, subsequently marrying writer and producer Frank Beckwith in 1945.