Claudia Lee (born June 20, 1996) is an American actress, singer and songwriter best known for her costarring role of “Magnolia Breeland” on the dramatic series Hart of Dixie, which airs on the CW Television Network in the United States and on other networks throughout the world. She is also known for her recurring role as “Bridget” on the situation comedy Zeke and Luther, which airs on the Disney XD channel and the Disney Channel in more than 50 countries.
Lee was born Claudia Lee Mirkowski in Lafayette, Indiana, the daughter of a Polish immigrant father and an American mother. At the age of 3, her parents enrolled her in dance classes, where she studied ballet, jazz and tap-dancing for 10 years. It is a skill that would later prove useful in an episode of Zeke and Luther, in which her character is involved in a high school play. The dancing on that episode was choreographed by acclaimed choreographer Michael Rooney, son of actor Mickey Rooney.
When she was 8 years old, Lee expressed a desire to learn her father’s native language. Determined that she would learn to speak Polish correctly, her parents sent her to a language school in Poznań, Poland for one month every summer, for five years. Lee is now conversant in Polish.
Long interested in music, Lee began taking piano lessons when she was 10. At age 13, she attended the School of Creative and Performing Arts (SOCAPA) summer camp in Vermont. There, her roommate introduced her to Harry Abrams, president of the prestigious Harry Abrams Agency. After the agency offered to represent Lee for film and TV acting, she and her mother moved to Los Angeles in January 2010, while her father remained in Indiana to oversee a business he owned.
Within her first few weeks in Hollywood, Lee landed a role in a national TV commercial for Comcast with actor Zachary Levi (Chuck, Less Than Perfect). She was then cast in a short film, The Circus Girl, as “Elizaveta,” a young Russian villain who is traveling with a struggling circus family.
Following Circus Girl, Lee won a recurring role in season 3 of the popular sitcom Zeke and Luther, a show about a group of teenage skateboarding friends. In that series, she played “Bridget,” a waitress in a donut shop and the love interest of the character “Luther” (Adam Hicks). Currently, she has a recurring role as "Magnolia," the younger sister of "Lemon Breeland" (Jaime King) on Hart of Dixie, a dramatic series that airs on the CW Television Network and is scheduled to begin its second season on October 2, 2012. In August 2012, Lee was cast in the role of “Brooke” in the Universal Pictures motion picture Kick Ass 2: Balls to the Wall, which will be based on the second volume of the Kick-Ass comic book series by Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr. The film is scheduled for release in June, 2013.
Simultaneous to her acting pursuits, in 2010 Lee began working with music producer Max DiCarlo, who had previously worked with famed Italian record producer Giorgio Moroder and produced for Elton John, Donna Summer, RBD and other leading artists. In November of that year, Lee released her first song and music video, It Gets Better, inspired by the It Gets Better Project, a national campaign aimed at stopping bullying against kids. Lee's debut album, Here Right Now, was released in February 2012. Hollywood Sunset, a song on the album, had previously been released in September 2011. A second single from the album, the country-rap song 3 Leaf Clover, was released in May 2012.
Lee is represented by the Paradigm Talent Agency in Beverly Hills and Nashville, and she is managed by Beverly Strong Management and Joanne Horowitz Management in Beverly Hills.