- She was not in good standing with Louella Parsons and it kept her career stuck in the "B" ranks. Lee's husband, magazine writer Tom Wood, wrote a frank piece on Parsons which did not go over well with the powerhouse columnist.
- Studio biographies trimmed ten years off her actual age.
- Signed with RKO in 1937 so she could repeat her Broadway performance in Stage Door (1937). RKO owned the film rights. However, her role was rewritten for two other actresses, Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers.
- She has appeared in five films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: The Maltese Falcon (1941), Now, Voyager (1942), Mildred Pierce (1945), Vertigo (1958) and Pillow Talk (1959).
- Was once seriously considered for the title role in the tearjerker Stella Dallas (1937), which went to Barbara Stanwyck, who won an Oscar nomination.
- Many references list Lee's death date as November 21, 1982, the day before her 81st birthday. This is incorrect. On November 22nd, Lee was in New York and appeared on a live segment of Good Morning America (1975) paying tribute to her old series Topper (1953). She returned to her California home and died of a coronary a few days later. Her death certificate confirms November 25th.
- Biography in "Actresses of a Certain Character: Forty Familiar Hollywood Faces from the Thirties to the Fifties" by Axel Nissen.
- She was a lifelong Republican.
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