Bruce Lee

Lee Jun-fan (Chinese: 李振藩; November 27, 1940 – July 20, 1973), known professionally as
Bruce Lee (Chinese: 李小龍), was a Chinese American[3] actor, director, martial artist, martial
arts instructor, and philosopher.[4] He was the founder of Jeet Kune Do, a hybrid martial arts
philosophy drawing from different combat disciplines that is often credited with paving the way
for modern mixed martial arts (MMA).[5][6] Lee is considered by commentators, critics, media,
and other martial artists to be the most influential martial artist of all time[7][8][9] and a pop
culture icon of the 20th century, who bridged the gap between East and West.[10][11] He is
often credited with helping to change the way Asians were presented in American films.[12]
The son of Cantonese opera star Lee Hoi-chuen, Lee was born in the Chinatown area of San
Francisco, California, on November 27, 1940, to parents from Hong Kong, and was raised with
his family in Kowloon, Hong Kong.[13] He was introduced to the film industry by his father and
appeared in several films as a child actor. Lee moved to the United States at the age of 18 to
receive his higher education at the University of Washington in Seattle,[14] and it was during
this time that he began teaching martial arts. His Hong Kong and Hollywood-produced films
elevated the traditional Hong Kong martial arts film to a new level of popularity and acclaim,
sparking a surge of interest in Chinese martial arts in the West in the 1970s. The direction and
tone of his films dramatically changed and influenced martial arts and martial arts films in
Hollywood, Hong Kong, and the rest of the world.[15]
He is noted for his roles in five feature-length martial arts films in the early 1970s: Lo Wei's The
Big Boss (1971) and Fist of Fury (1972); Golden Harvest's Way of the Dragon (1972), directed
and written by Lee; Golden Harvest and Warner Brothers' Enter the Dragon (1973) and The
Game of Death (1978), both directed by Robert Clouse.[16] Lee became an iconic figure known
throughout the world, particularly among the Chinese, based upon his portrayal of Chinese
nationalism in his films[17] and among Asian Americans for defying stereotypes associated with
the emasculated Asian male.[18] He trained in the art of Wing Chun and later combined his other
influences from various sources into the spirit of his personal martial arts philosophy, which he
dubbed Jeet Kune Do (The Way of the Intercepting Fist). Lee had residences in Hong Kong and
Seattle.[19] He died on July 20, 1973 at the age of 32.[20]
Early life

Bruce Lee as a baby with his parents, Grace Ho and Lee Hoi-chuen
Bruce Lee was born on November 27, 1940, in the Chinese Hospital in Chinatown, San
Francisco. According to the Chinese zodiac, Lee was born in both the hour and the year of the
Dragon, which according to tradition is a strong and fortuitous omen.[21] Lee and his parents
returned to Hong Kong when he was three months old.[22] Bruce's father, Lee Hoi-chuen, was
Han Chinese, and his mother, Grace Ho (何愛瑜), was of Eurasian ancestry.[23]
Career and education
1940 to 1958: Early Roles, schooling and martial arts initiation

Bruce Lee in The Kid

Lee's father Lee Hoi-chuen was a famous Cantonese opera star. Because of this, Lee was
introduced into films at a very young age and appeared in several films as a child. Lee had his
first role as a baby who was carried onto the stage in the film Golden Gate Girl.[24] As a nine-
year-old, he would co-star with his father in The Kid in 1950, which was based on a comic book
character and was his first leading role.[25] By the time he was 18, he had appeared in twenty
films.[21]
After Lee was involved in several street fights, his parents decided that he needed to be trained in
the martial arts. Lee's first introduction to martial arts was through his father, from whom he
learned the fundamentals of Wu-style t'ai chi ch'uan.[26]

Lee and Yip Man

The largest influence on Lee's martial arts development was his study of Wing Chun.[27] Lee
began training in Wing Chun when he was 16 years old under the Wing Chun teacher Yip Man
in between late 1956 and 1957, after losing to rival gang members. Yip's regular classes
generally consisted of the forms practice, chi sao (sticking hands) drills, wooden dummy
techniques, and free-sparring.[28] There was no set pattern to the classes.[28] Yip tried to keep
his students from fighting in the street gangs of Hong Kong by encouraging them to fight in
organized competitions.[29]
After a year into his Wing Chun training, most of Yip Man's other students refused to train with
Lee when they learned of his mixed ancestry, as the Chinese were generally against teaching
their martial arts techniques to non-Asians.[30][31] Lee's sparring partner, Hawkins Cheung,
states, "Probably fewer than six people in the whole Wing Chun clan were personally taught, or
even partly taught, by Yip Man".[32] However, Lee showed a keen interest in Wing Chun and
continued to train privately with Yip Man and Wong Shun Leung.[33] Wan Kam Leung, a
student of Wong's, witnessed a sparring bout between Wong and Lee and noted the speed and
precision with which Lee was able to deliver his kicks.[34] Lee continued to train with Wong
Shun Leung after returning to Hong Kong from America.

Lee in 1958, dancing Cha-cha

After attending Tak Sun School (德信學校; several blocks from his home at 218 Nathan Road,
Kowloon), Lee entered the primary school division of the Catholic La Salle College at the age of
12.[35] In 1956, due to poor academic performance and possibly poor conduct, he was
transferred to St. Francis Xavier's College, where he would be mentored by Brother Edward, a
teacher and coach of the school boxing team. In 1958, Bruce won the Hong Kong schools boxing
tournament, knocking out the previous champion in the final.[36]
1959 to 1964: Continuous studies and martial arts breakthrough
In the spring of 1959, Lee got into another street fight, and the police were called.[37] Until his
late teens, Lee's street fights became more frequent and included beating the son of a feared triad
family.[38] Eventually, Lee's father decided his son should leave Hong Kong to pursue a safer
and healthier life in the United States. His parents confirmed the police's fear that this time Lee's
opponent had an organized crime background and that there was the possibility that a contract
was out for his life.[citation needed]
The police detective came and he says "Excuse me Mr. Lee, your son is really fighting bad in
school. If he gets into just one more fight I might have to put him in jail".
— Robert Lee[39]
In April 1959, Lee's parents decided to send him to the United States to stay with his older sister,
Agnes Lee (李秋鳳), who was already living with family friends in San Francisco. After several
months, he moved to Seattle in 1959 to continue his high school education, where he also
worked for Ruby Chow as a live-in waiter at her restaurant. Chow's husband was a co-worker
and friend of Lee's father. Lee's elder brother Peter Lee (李忠琛) would also join him in Seattle
for a short stay before moving on to Minnesota to attend college. That year Lee also started to
teach martial arts. He called what he taught Jun Fan Gung Fu (literally Bruce Lee's Kung Fu). It
was basically his approach to Wing Chun.[40] Lee taught friends he met in Seattle, starting with
Judo practitioner Jesse Glover, who continued to teach some of Lee's early techniques. Taky
Kimura became Lee's first Assistant Instructor and continued to teach his art and philosophy
after Lee's death.[41] Lee opened his first martial arts school, named the Lee Jun Fan Gung Fu
Institute, in Seattle.
In December 1960, Lee completed his high school education and received his diploma from
Edison Technical School on Capitol Hill in Seattle.[citation needed]
In March 1961, Lee enrolled at the University of Washington and studied dramatic arts,
philosophy, psychology, and various other subjects.[42][43] Despite what Lee himself and many
others have stated, Lee's official major was drama rather than philosophy according to a 1999
article in the university's alumni publication.[44]
Lee dropped out of college in early 1964 and moved to Oakland to live with James Yimm Lee.
James Lee was twenty years senior to Bruce Lee and a well-known Chinese martial artist in the
area. Together, they founded the second Jun Fan martial arts studio in Oakland. James Lee was
also responsible for introducing Bruce Lee to Ed Parker, an American martial artist and
organizer of the Long Beach International Karate Championships where Bruce Lee was later
"discovered" by Hollywood.[citation needed] At the invitation of Ed Parker, Lee appeared in the
1964 Long Beach International Karate Championships and performed repetitions of two-finger
push-ups (using the thumb and the index finger of one hand) with feet at approximately
shoulder-width apart. In the same Long Beach event he also performed the "One inch
punch."[45] Lee stood upright, his right foot forward with knees bent slightly, in front of a
standing, stationary partner. Lee's right arm was partly extended and his right fist approximately
one inch (2.5 cm) away from the partner's chest. Without retracting his right arm, Lee then
forcibly delivered the punch to volunteer Bob Baker while largely maintaining his posture,
sending Baker backwards and falling into a chair said to be placed behind Baker to prevent
injury, though Baker's momentum soon caused him to fall to the floor. Baker recalled, "I told
Bruce not to do this type of demonstration again. When he punched me that last time, I had to
stay home from work because the pain in my chest was unbearable".[46] It was at the 1964
championships that Lee first met Taekwondo master Jhoon Goo Rhee. The two developed a
friendship—a relationship from which they benefited as martial artists. Rhee taught Lee the side
kick in detail, and Lee taught Rhee the "non-telegraphic" punch.[47] In Oakland's Chinatown in
1964, Lee had a controversial private match with Wong Jack Man, a direct student of Ma Kin
Fung, known for his mastery of Xingyiquan, Northern Shaolin, and T'ai chi ch'uan. According to
Lee, the Chinese community issued an ultimatum to him to stop teaching non-Chinese people.
When he refused to comply, he was challenged to a combat match with Wong. The arrangement
was that if Lee lost, he would have to shut down his school, while if he won, he would be free to
teach white people, or anyone else.[48] Wong denied this, stating that he requested to fight Lee
after Lee boasted during one of his demonstrations at a Chinatown theatre that he could beat
anyone in San Francisco, and that Wong himself did not discriminate against Whites or other
non-Chinese people.[49] Lee commented, "That paper had all the names of the sifu from
Chinatown, but they don't scare me".[50] Individuals known to have witnessed the match include
Cadwell, James Lee (Bruce Lee's associate, no relation), and William Chen, a teacher of T'ai chi
ch'uan. Wong and William Chen stated that the fight lasted an unusually long 20–25 minutes.
[49][51] Wong claims that although he had originally expected a serious but polite bout, Lee
aggressively attacked him with intent to kill. When Wong presented the traditional handshake,
Lee appeared to accept the greeting, but instead, Lee immediately thrust his hand as a spear
aimed at Wong's eyes. Forced to defend his life, Wong nonetheless refrained from striking Lee
with killing force when the opportunity presented itself because it could have earned him a
prison sentence, but used illegal cufflings under his sleeves. The fight ended due to Lee's
"unusually winded" condition, as opposed to a decisive blow by either fighter.[49] By contrast,
according to Bruce Lee, Linda Lee Cadwell, and James Yimm Lee, the fight lasted a mere 3
minutes with a decisive victory for Lee. In Cadwell's account, "The fight ensued, it was a no-
holds-barred fight, it took three minutes. Bruce got this guy down to the ground and said 'Do you
give up?' and the man said he gave up".[48] A couple of weeks after the bout, Lee gave an
interview claiming that he had defeated an unnamed challenger, which Wong says was an
obvious reference to him.[49][51] In response, Wong published his own account of the fight in
the Chinese Pacific Weekly, a Chinese-language newspaper in San Francisco, with an invitation
to a public rematch if Lee was not satisfied with the account. Lee did not respond to the
invitation despite his reputation for violently responding to every provocation,[49] and there
were no further public announcements by either, though Lee continued to teach white people.
Lee had abandoned thoughts of a film career in favour of pursuing martial arts. However, a
martial arts exhibition on Long Beach in 1964 eventually led to the invitation by television
producer William Dozier for an audition for a role in the pilot for "Number One Son" about Lee
Chan, the son of Charlie Chan. The show never materialized, but Dozier saw potential in Lee.
[52]
1966 to 1970: American roles and creating Jeet Kune Do

Publicity photo of Williams and Lee for The Green Hornet

From 1966 to 1967, Lee played the role of Kato alongside the title character played by Van
Williams in the TV series produced and narrated by William Dozier[53] titled The Green Hornet,
based on the radio show by the same name.[54][52] The show lasted only one season (26
episodes), from September 1966 to March 1967. Lee and Williams also appeared as their
characters in three crossover episodes of Batman, another William Dozier-produced television
series.[55][56][57]
The Green Hornet introduced the adult Bruce Lee to an American audience, and became the first
popular American show presenting Asian-style martial arts. The show's director wanted Lee to
fight in the typical American style using fists and punches. As a professional martial artist, Lee
refused, insisting that he should fight in the style of his expertise. At first, Lee moved so fast that
his movements could not be caught on film, so he had to slow them down.[58] After the show
was cancelled in 1967, Lee wrote to Dozier thanking him for starting "my career in show
business."[58]
In 1967, Lee played a role in one episode of Ironside.

The Jeet Kune Do emblem is a registered trademark held by the Bruce Lee Estate. The Chinese
characters around the Taijitu symbol read: "Using no way as way" and "Having no limitation as
limitation" The arrows represent the endless interaction between yang and yin.[59]
Jeet Kune Do originated in 1967. After filming one season of The Green Hornet, Lee found
himself out of work and opened The Jun Fan Gung Fu Institute. The controversial match with
Wong Jack Man influenced Lee's philosophy about martial arts. Lee concluded that the fight had
lasted too long and that he had failed to live up to his potential using his Wing Chun techniques.
He took the view that traditional martial arts techniques were too rigid and formalized to be
practical in scenarios of chaotic street fighting. Lee decided to develop a system with an
emphasis on "practicality, flexibility, speed, and efficiency". He started to use different methods
of training such as weight training for strength, running for endurance, stretching for flexibility,
and many others which he constantly adapted, including fencing and basic boxing techniques.
[citation needed]
Lee emphasized what he called "the style of no style". This consisted of getting rid of the
formalized approach which Lee claimed was indicative of traditional styles. Lee felt that even
the system he now called Jun Fan Gung Fu was too restrictive, and it eventually evolved into a
philosophy and martial art he would come to call Jeet Kune Do or the Way of the Intercepting
Fist. It is a term he would later regret, because Jeet Kune Do implied specific parameters that
styles connote, whereas the idea of his martial art was to exist outside of parameters and
limitations.[60]
At the time, two of Lee's martial arts students were Hollywood script writer Stirling Silliphant
and actor James Coburn. In 1969 the three worked on a script for a film called The Silent Flute,
and went together on a location hunt to India. The project was not realised at the time, but the
1978 film Circle of Iron, starring David Carradine, was based on the same plot. In 2010,
producer Paul Maslansky was reported to have planned and received funding for a film based on
the original script for The Silent Flute.[61] In 1969, Lee made a brief appearance in the
Silliphant-penned film Marlowe, where he played a hoodlum hired to intimidate private detective
Philip Marlowe, (played by James Garner), who uses his martial arts abilities to commit acts of
vandalization to intimidate Marlowe.[62][63] The same year he was credited as the karate
advisor in The Wrecking Crew, the fourth instalment of the Matt Helm comedy spy-fi film
starring Dean Martin.[64] Also that year, Lee acted in one episode of Here Come the Brides and
Blondie.[65][66]
In 1970, he was responsible for fight choreography for A Walk in the Spring Rain starring Ingrid
Bergman and Anthony Quinn, again written by Silliphant.[67][68]
1971 to 1973: Hong Kong films and Hollywood breakthrough
In 1971, Lee appeared in four episodes of the television series Longstreet, written by Silliphant.
Lee played Li Tsung the martial arts instructor of the title character Mike Longstreet (played by
James Franciscus), and important aspects of his martial arts philosophy were written into the
script.[69][70] According to statements made by Lee, and also by Linda Lee Cadwell after Lee's
death, in 1971 Lee pitched a television series of his own tentatively titled The Warrior,
discussions of which were also confirmed by Warner Bros. During a December 9, 1971
television interview on The Pierre Berton Show, Lee stated that both Paramount and Warner
Brothers wanted him "to be in a modernized type of a thing, and that they think the Western idea
is out, whereas I want to do the Western".[71] According to Cadwell, however, Lee's concept
was retooled and renamed Kung Fu, but Warner Bros. gave Lee no credit.[72] Warner Brothers
states that they had for some time been developing an identical concept,[73] created by two
writers and producers, Ed Spielman and Howard Friedlander. According to these sources, the
reason Lee was not cast was in part because of his ethnicity, but more so because he had a thick
accent.[74] The role of the Shaolin monk in the Wild West was eventually awarded to then-non-
martial-artist David Carradine. In The Pierre Berton Show interview, Lee stated he understood
Warner Brothers' attitudes towards casting in the series: "They think that business-wise it is a
risk. I don't blame them. If the situation were reversed, and an American star were to come to
Hong Kong, and I was the man with the money, I would have my own concerns as to whether
the acceptance would be there".[75]
Producer Fred Weintraub had advised Lee to return to Hong Kong and make a feature film which
he could showcase to executives in Hollywood.[76] Not happy with his supporting roles in the
US, Lee returned to Hong Kong. Unaware that The Green Hornet had been played to success in
Hong Kong and was unofficially referred to as "The Kato Show", he was surprised to be
recognized on the street as the star of the show.[citation needed] After negotiating with both
Shaw Brothers Studio and Golden Harvest, Lee signed a film contract to star in two films
produced by Golden Harvest.
Lee played his first leading role in The Big Boss (1971), which proved to be an enormous box
office success across Asia and catapulted him to stardom. He soon followed up with Fist of Fury
(1972), which broke the box office records set previously by The Big Boss. Having finished his
initial two-year contract, Lee negotiated a new deal with Golden Harvest. Lee later formed his
own company, Concord Production Inc., with Chow. For his third film, Way of the Dragon
(1972), he was given complete control of the film's production as the writer, director, star, and
choreographer of the fight scenes. In 1964, at a demonstration in Long Beach, California, Lee
had met karate champion Chuck Norris. In Way of the Dragon Lee introduced Norris to
moviegoers as his opponent, their showdown has been characterized as "one of the best fight
scenes in martial arts and film history".[77][78] The role had originally been offered to American
karate champion Joe Lewis.[79]
From August to October 1972, Lee began work on his fourth Golden Harvest Film, Game of
Death. He began filming some scenes, including his fight sequence with 7 ft 2 in (218 cm)
American basketball star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, a former student. Production stopped in
November 1972 when Warner Brothers offered Lee the opportunity to star in Enter the Dragon,
the first film to be produced jointly by Concord, Golden Harvest, and Warner Bros. Filming
began in Hong Kong in February 1973 and was completed in April 1973.[80] One month into the
filming, another production company, Starseas Motion Pictures, promoted Bruce Lee as a
leading actor in Fist of Unicorn, although he had merely agreed to choreograph the fight
sequences in the film as a favour to his long-time friend Unicorn Chan. Lee planned to sue the
production company, but retained his friendship with Chan.[81] However, only a few months
after the completion of Enter the Dragon, and six days before its July 26, 1973 release, Lee died.
Enter the Dragon would go on to become one of the year's highest-grossing films and cement
Lee as a martial arts legend. It was made for US$850,000 in 1973 (equivalent to $4 million
adjusted for inflation as of 2007).[82] To date, Enter the Dragon has grossed over $200 million
worldwide.[83] The film sparked a brief fad in martial arts, epitomised in songs such as "Kung
Fu Fighting" and TV shows like Kung Fu (in Enter The Dragon, Lee was a Shaolin Kung Fu
master, similar to the role of David Carradine as Kwai Chang Caine).