Bruce Lee

Actor

  • Born: November 27, 1940
  • Birthplace: San Francisco, California
  • Died: July 20, 1973
  • Place of death: Hong Kong

Actor and martial artist

Best known for his exciting depiction of kung fu on screen, Bruce Lee realized his ambition of showing the world authentic Chinese martial-arts culture through his films. A gifted athlete, he created his own style of martial art, which he named jeet kune do (way of the intercepting fist).

Born: November 27, 1940; San Francisco, California

Died: July 20, 1973; Hong Kong

Full name: Bruce Lee

Birth name: Lee Jun Fan

Also known as: Lee Siu Lung; Lee Xiao Long; Little Dragon

Areas of achievement: Film, martial arts

Early Life

Bruce Lee was born in San Francisco on November 27, 1940, to Lee Hoi Chuen and Grace Lee. His father was a famous Cantonese opera star from Hong Kong, while his mother, Grace, was of German and Chinese descent. Grace Lee gave her son the name Lee Jun Fan, which means “to return again,” because she thought that he would one day return to his place of birth.

Lee’s father arranged for him to appear onscreen as a three-month-old for a scene in a Chinese movie filming in San Francisco. Shortly after this early screen appearance, the Lee family moved back to Hong Kong. There, young Bruce lived with his parents, brothers Peter and Robert, and sisters Agnes and Phoebe, as well as his father’s sister-in-law and her five children. The family home was crowded, and Bruce spent a lot of time on the streets of Hong Kong as a teenager, hanging out with street gangs and looking for fights.

During the 1940s, Japan occupied Hong Kong. It is said that Lee would shake his fist and yell at Japanese war planes that would fly over his home. He would also pick fights with British schoolchildren from King George V School when he enrolled at nearby La Salle College at the age of twelve. Around this time, he told his parents that he needed to defend himself at school and asked to study kung fu. His mother agreed, and at thirteen, he began to study wing chun kung fu under the famous master Yip Man.

Lee had a considerable career as a child star in Hong Kong films. His first role in a Hong Kong film was in The Beginning of a Boy (1946) at the age of six. By the time he was eighteen years old, he had appeared in twenty films. He began using the stage name Lee Siu Lung at age eight, which means “little dragon” in Cantonese.

Lee attended St. Xavier Francis High School for a time, but when he was eighteen, his parents decided to send him to the United States to live with a family friend. He was an American citizen by birth, and his parents felt that he could have a better life in America. He arrived in San Francisco in 1959 and shortly after began working as a waiter in a restaurant owned by a family friend in Seattle, Washington.

Lee earned a high school diploma at Edison Technical School and enrolled at the University of Washington in May 1961 to study philosophy. There, Lee met his future wife, Linda Emery, when she was a student in his kung fu class. The couple married in August 1964. Although Lee was a good student, he would not make a career out of academics. He left the University of Washington at the end of his junior year.

Life’s Work

Lee’s real passion in life was the practice, study, and analysis of the art of Chinese kung fu. Lee decided that he would make his living teaching kung fu. Along with his friend and fellow Chinese martial artist James Lee, Bruce Lee established the Jun Fan Gung Fu Institute in Oakland, California, in June 1964.

Shortly after opening the kung fu school, Lee received a formal challenge from a Chinese martial artist. The challenge, written in Chinese, stated that if Lee lost the fight, he had to close down his school and stop teaching white people. Lee felt that he should be able to teach kung fu to anyone who wanted to learn, regardless of race. Lee fought the challenger and won the match, although he was disappointed that it took him three minutes to beat his opponent.

Because of this encounter, Lee reappraised his approach to martial arts and, in the process, created his own style that he would later name jeet kune do, meaning “way of the intercepting fist” in Cantonese. Jeet kune do combines elements of Western boxing and fencing, as well as the high kicking of tae kwon do and other martial arts such as wing chun.

Lee received an invitation to perform at the International Karate Tournament in Long Beach, California, on August 2, 1964. Ed Parker, founder of American kenpo karate, organized the event. Lee’s demonstration, which Parker recorded on sixteen-millimeter film, captivated the audience. Parker showed the footage to television producer William Dozier, who invited Lee come to Twentieth Century Fox Studios for a screen test in early 1965. Dozier was impressed with Lee and cast him as the character Kato in the television show The Green Hornet.

The Green Hornet only lasted one season, airing from 1966 to 1967, but it was important to Lee’s life and career because it marked a professional shift from kung fu instruction to acting. Lee believed work in film and television would help him bring Chinese kung fu to the world. Lee’s work in television brought him into contact with the world of Hollywood, and he soon became friends with actor Steve McQueen and screenwriter Sterling Siliphant. Lee went back to Hong Kong in 1970 to visit with his son, appearing on local television. While there, Lee was surprised to learn that he was recognized everywhere he went as Lee Siu Lung from The Kato Show. Hong Kong had been rerunning The Green Hornet as The Kato Show to great success.

Lee managed to get bit parts in American television and film after The Green Hornet, but he wanted to be a star in Hollywood with his own television series. With a growing family to support, Lee began looking for a starring role. He had begun to develop a Western-style kung fu series with Warner Bros. in 1971, with the idea that he would be the star. However, Lee began to grow frustrated with Hollywood when it looked as though he might not get the part.

Because of the excitement generated by Lee’s return to Hong Kong, several producers wanted to make films with him for Hong Kong audiences. The Hong Kong film company Golden Harvest offered him a deal in 1971 to star in two Chinese films. Lee took the offer and started filming of The Big Boss in Thailand in July 1971. The movie became the highest-grossing film in Hong Kong history, breaking the record held by the American musical The Sound of Music (1965). Shortly after the release of The Big Boss, actor David Carradine took the lead role in the Western kung fu series called Kung Fu. The television network felt that Lee was too Chinese to star in an American television series.

Lee’s next film, Fist of Fury (1972), featured his character fighting against the occupying Japanese in Shanghai in 1908 and broke the sales record previously set by The Big Boss. Because of his success, Lee was able to form his own satellite company within Golden Harvest, Concord Pictures, in 1972. His first film for Concord Pictures was Way of the Dragon (1972), which he wrote, produced, and directed himself; it broke the Hong Kong box office record set by Fist of Fury.

Hollywood began taking notice of Lee’s record-breaking success. In 1972, while Lee was shooting his next self-directed film, The Game of Death (1978), Warner Bros. offered him a starring role in Enter the Dragon, a film to be shot in Hong Kong. The film, which was released in the United States in August 1973 and earned over $200 million worldwide, would be the last of Lee’s career.

On May 10, 1973, Lee suffered a blackout while recording dialogue for the Warner Bros. film. He went to California to receive a full medical checkup and received a clean bill of health. However, Lee suffered another blackout episode on July 20, 1973. Doctors were unable to revive him and pronounced him dead. The official cause of death was ruled a cerebral edema, or swelling of the brain. He left behind his wife, Linda, and their two children, Brandon and Shannon.

Significance

The influence of Bruce Lee is far reaching. He has become more than just a film star or a great martial artist. Lee’s early death, the success of Enter the Dragon,andthe popularity of kung fu as a martial art in entertainment all helped make Lee a cultural icon. Audiences all over the world identify with his films and with the heroic image of Lee triumphing over racism and oppression. Lee has become a hero to many Asian Americans for countering the offensive stereotypes of Asian people that existed in American popular culture before him. He helped introduce Hong Kong cinema to the world and remains the most popular Hong Kong actor of all time. Movie stars such as Jackie Chan and Jet Li have followed Lee’s lead, helping to establish martial-arts movies as a separate genre of film.

Lee also continues to have a profound influence on the world of martial arts. Many of his fans are quick to point out that he was a genuine martial-arts practitioner, not just an actor. Jeet kune do, the system of martial arts envisioned by Lee, has practitioners throughout the world.

Bibliography

Bordwell, David. “Two Dragons: Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan.” Planet Hong Kong: Popular Cinema and the Art of Entertainment. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2000. Print. Discusses Lee’s significance to Hong Kong and international film. Includes recommended studies on Lee in the notes section.

Bowman, Paul. Theorizing Bruce Lee: Film-Fantasy-Fighting-Philosophy. New York: Rodopi, 2010. Print. A scholarly examination of the influence Lee had on film and popular culture through the frameworks of cultural theory and philosophy. Includes a filmography.

Clouse, Robert. The Making of “Enter the Dragon.” Burbank: Unique, 1987. Print. Details how Warner Bros. made the film Enter the Dragon on location in Hong Kong. Includes over two hundred behind-the-scenes photos. Written by the film’s director.

Lee, Bruce, and John Little, ed. Jeet Kune Do: Bruce Lee’s Commentaries on the Martial Way. Boston: Tuttle, 1997. Print. A treatise on jeet kune do written by Lee in 1970.

---. Letters of the Dragon: Correspondence, 1958–1973. Boston: Tuttle, 1998. Print. Traces Lee’s life in his own words, including his journey to San Francisco in 1959.

Lee, Linda. The Bruce Lee Story. Santa Clarita: Ohara, 1989. Print. A biography of Lee written by his widow.