Doris was born on 25 November 1959 and grew up with 2 two siblings, a brother 12 years older, and a sister 6 years older. Her father passed away when she was a tender 6 year old, and her mother followed suit when she was 16.

Doris started her acting career when she was working as a receptionist in a nightclub and was approached by a Hong Kong director to play a minor role of a lady detective in a movie starring Bruce Liang and Nora Miao back in 1976. This gave her her first taste of filming. While waiting for the second lead role in a costumed Chinese ghost movie that the HK director promised her to be filmed shortly, Doris answered a newspaper ad that asked "Are you smart, sexy and seductive?" The ad was placed by Suarez' BAS Film Productions, which was looking for a heroine who could do martial arts and ride a motorcycle. She auditioned in a miniskirt and boots and won the role. Her screen name, Marrie Lee, was created to capitalize on the fame of the late Bruce Lee. "Some fans thought that I was his younger sister," she told The Business Times in a 2005 interview.

She spent the next 3 years in The Philippines playing the lead role in “They called her Cleopatra Wong” and its sequels. Doris performed her own stunts, including jumping through a real glass window and dangling from a helicopter 150ft without safety harness or net. She sustained many injuries, including a fractured left wrist and a torn pinkie finger from practising cocking the .45 calibre pistol single handedly. In the 80s, she was dubbed Asia’s female James Bond.

In 1981, a lucrative US$50,000 offer from Hollywood came along; as the lead in “Charlie Chan’s #1 Daughter” with the opportunity to act alongside Patrick Wayne and Antonia Fargas. However, the 1981 Screenwriters Guild Strike and its ensuing domino effect on the other guilds changed everything completely. By the time the strikes ended, marriage came a-calling and Doris retired from filming, spending the next 8 years travelling and doing freelance work. As a hobby, she formed and managed a dance troupe called "The Devil's Angels". For 2 years, the troupe performed in top clubs and lounges across Singapore and Southeast Asia before being disbanded in 1983.

Over the years, Doris has been invited to attend and speak at various Film Festivals in Australia, Switzerland and The Philippines. Both Marrie Lee and Cleopatra Wong are cited in Singapore The Encyclopedia and Singapore Cinema (Raphael Millet, 2006) and in foreign authored books such as “Mondo Macabro” by Pete Tombs and “Tales from the Cult Film Trenches” by Louis Paul. The Cleopatra Wong series of movies are also a subject of discourse for local film students.

These days, Doris is busy preparing for the opening of an arts-themed café, aptly named Cleopatra Wong Café. Scheduled to open in the 3rd quarter of 2009, this “café with a mission” strives to support and provide opportunities to our local artists and arts students and THE place for the hip and funky, the artists, designers, poets, storytellers, thespians, makers of short films, comedians and multimedia artists to hangout.