Bruce Lee November 27, 1940 – July 20, 1973 born Lee Jun Fan in San Franscisco California was an Chinese-American martial artist, philosopher, instructor, and martial arts actor widely regarded as the most influential martial artist of the 20th century.
Lee is iconic for his presentation of Chinese martial arts to the non-Chinese world. His films, especially the Hollywood-produced Enter the Dragon, elevated the traditional Hong Kong martial arts film to a new level of popularity and acclaim, and sparked the first major surge of interest in Chinese martial arts in the West. The direction and tone of his films changed and influenced martial arts and martial arts films in Hong Kong, China, and the rest of the world. Lee became an iconic figure particularly to Chinese, as he portrayed Chinese national pride and Chinese nationalism in his movies. Many see Lee as a model blueprint for acquiring a strong and efficient body, as well as developing a mastery of martial arts and hand to hand combat skills.Lee was born at the Chinese Hospital in San Francisco to a Chinese family. His father, Lee Hoi-Chuen (???), was Chinese, and his Catholic mother, Grace (???), had a half German and half Chinese father and a Chinese mother. He is an American citizen. He doesn't have Chinese citizenship.Lee's Cantonese given name, Jun Fan (??; Mandarin Pinyin: Zhènfán), literally means "invigorate San Francisco" (???). At his birth, he additionally was given the English name of "Bruce" by a Dr. Mary Glover. Though Mrs. Lee had not initially planned on an English name for the child, she deemed it appropriate and would concur with Dr. Glover's addition. Interestingly, the name "Bruce" was never used within his family until Bruce Lee enrolled in La Salle College (a Hong Kong high school) at the age of 12, and again at another high school (St. Francis Xavier's College in Kowloon), where Lee would come to represent the boxing team in inter-school events.
Lee initially had the birth name Li Yuen Kam[1](???); Mandarin Pinyin: Li Xuà njin) given to him by his mother, as at the time Lee's father was away on a Chinese opera tour. This name would later be abandoned because of a conflict with the name of Bruce Lee's grandfather, causing him to be renamed to Jun Fan upon his father's return. Also of note is that Bruce Lee was given a feminine name, Sai Fung (??, literally "small phoenix"), which was used throughout his early childhood in keeping with a Chinese custom that is traditionally thought to hide the child away from evil spirits.
Lee's screen names were respectively Lee Siu Lung (in Cantonese), and Li Xiao Long (in Mandarin) (???; Cantonese pengyam: Ley5 Siw2 Long4; Mandarin Pinyin: Li Xiaolóng) which literally translate to "Lee Little Dragon" in English. These names were first used by director ??? of the 1950 Cantonese movie ??? in which Lee would perform. It is possible that the name "Lee Little Dragon" was based on his childhood name of "small dragon", as in Chinese tradition the Chinese dragon and phoenix come in pairs to represent the male and female genders, respectively. The more likely explanation however is that he came to be called "Little Dragon" because according to the Chinese zodiac, Bruce Lee was born in the Year of the Dragon.At age 12, Lee entered La Salle College, a high school, under the wing of Brother Henry. Then, he attended St Francis Xavier's College. In 1959, Lee got into a fight with a feared Triad gang member's son. His father became concerned about young Bruce's safety, and as a result, he and his wife decided to send Bruce to the United States to live with an old friend of his father's. All he had was $100 in his pocket and the title of 1958 Crown Colony Cha Cha Champion of Hong Kong. After living in San Francisco, he moved to Seattle to work for Ruby Chow, another friend of his father's. In 1959, Lee completed his high school education in Seattle and received his diploma from Edison Technical School. He enrolled at the University of Washington as a philosophy major. It was at the University of Washington that he met his future wife Linda Emery, whom he would marry in 1964. He had two children with Linda, Brandon Lee (born 1965) and Shannon Lee (born 1969). Brandon, who would also become an actor like his father, died in an accident during the filming of The Crow in 1993.Lee's father, Lee Hoi-Chuen, was a famous Cantonese Opera star. Through his father he was introduced into films at a very young age and appeared in several short black-and-white films as a child.
In the 1960s Lee attempted to start his acting career in America. He became famous for playing Kato alongside Van Williams in the TV series The Green Hornet which lasted for only one season from 1966 to 1967. He also played Kato in three episodes of the series Batman which was also produced by the same people of The Green Hornet. This was followed by guest appearances in television series such as Ironside (1967) and Here Come the Brides (1969). In 1969 he made his first major film appearance in Marlowe where he played a henchman hired to intimidate private detective Philip Marlowe (played by James Garner) by smashing up his office with karate chops and kicks. In 1971 he appeared in four episodes of the television series Longstreet as the martial arts instructor of the title character Mike Longsteet (played by James Franciscus)
Not happy with the roles that he was being offered in America, Lee then returned to Hong Kong and was offered a film contract by Raymond Chow to appear in films produced by his company Golden Harvest. He played his first leading role in The Big Boss (1971) which was a huge box office success all over Asia and catapulted him to stardom. He went on to star in Fist of Fury (1972) which was an even bigger success at the box office and wrote, directed and starred in Way of the Dragon (1972). In 1964 at a demonstration in Long Beach, California, Lee met Karate champion Chuck Norris. In Way of the Dragon Lee introduced Chuck Norris as his opponent in the final fight scene at the colosseum in Rome which is considered to be one of his most famous fight scenes. He was then offered the lead role in Enter the Dragon (1973) which was the first to be produced jointly by a Chinese and American studio. This was to be the film that would have shot Lee to fame in America. Tragically Lee mysteriously died two weeks before the film was released. Enter the Dragon went on to become one of the highest grossing films of the year and cemented Lee's status as a martial arts legend. It was made for US$850,000 in 1973 ($3.74 million in 2005 currency). To date, Enter the Dragon has grossed over $200 million worldwide. The movie sparked a brief fad in the martial-arts epitomized in songs like Kung Fu Fighting and TV shows like Kung Fu.
Robert Clouse, the director of Enter the Dragon attempted to finish Lee's incomplete film Game of Death which Lee had intended to also write and direct. Lee had shot over 40 minutes of footage for Game of Death before shooting was stopped to allow him to work on Enter the Dragon. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, a student of Bruce Lee also appeared in the film. In the film, Lee played Billy Lo who while wearing the now famous yellow track suit, took on the 7 foot 2 giant basketball player in a climactic fight scene. Unfortunately, Lee had died before he was due to resume filming for Game of Death. Robert Clouse finished the film using a Bruce Lee look-alike and archive footage of Lee from his other films and released it in 1978 with a new storyline and cast. However it only contained 15 minutes of the actual footage Lee had shot and the rest of the film had Lee's lookalike Tai Chung Kim playing Billy Lo and Yuen Biao acting as a stunt double. The unused footage Lee had filmed was recovered 22 years later and was included in the Bruce Lee documentary Bruce Lee: A Warrior's Journey.Young Bruce learned the fundamentals of Wu style Tai Chi Chuan from his father, Lee Hoi Cheun. Lee's Wing Chun sifu, Yip Man, was also a colleague and friend of Hong Kong Wu family teacher Wu Ta-ch'i. He always held that the principles of Tai Chi Chuan influenced his view of martial arts all through his life as an actor and a martial artist. While it is obvious that the style studied by his father was the Wu style, Lee was seen on at least one occasion demonstrating the 108 Basic Movements of the Yang form.
Lee started training in Wing Chun at the age of 14 under Hong Kong Wing Chun master Yip Man. Lee was introduced to Yip Man in early 1954 by William Cheung, then a live-in student of Yip Man. Like most martial arts schools at that time, Sifu Yip Man's classes were often taught by the highest ranking students. One of the highest ranking students under Yip Man at the time of Lee's training was Wong Shun-leung, who is understood to have had the largest influence. Yip Man trained Lee privately after some students refused to train with Lee due to his ancestry.Lee would leave before learning the entire Wing Chun curriculum, but Wing Chun formed a base for his later explorations of martial arts.
In between the learning of Tai Chi and Wing Chun, Lee also learned bits and pieces of the Hung Gar style from a friend of his father.There are photographs and videos of Bruce demonstrating animal stances and forms found within its teachings.
Lee was also trained with weapons by the renowned Martial artist Fumio Demura, the head of the Shito Ryu martial arts style.Bruce Lee felt that many martial artists of his day did not spend enough time on physical conditioning. Bruce included all elements of total fitness, muscular strength, muscular endurance, cardiovascular endurance, and flexibility. He tried traditional bodybuilding techniques to build bulky muscles or mass. In his book The Tao of Jeet Kune Do, he wrote "Training is one of the most neglected phases of athletics. Too much time is given to the development of skill and too little to the development of the individual for participation." "JKD, ultimately is not a matter of petty techniques but of highly developed spirituality and physique".
The weight training program that Lee used during a stay in Hong Kong in 1965 at only 24 years old placed heavy emphasis on his arms. At that time he could perform bicep curls at a weight of 70 to 80 lbs for three sets of eight repetitions, along with other forms of exercises, such as squats, push-ups, reverse curls, concentration curls, French presses, and both wrist curls and reverse wrist curls. The repetitions he performed were 6 to 12 reps (at the time). While this method of training targeted his fast and slow twitch muscles, it later resulted in weight gain or muscle mass, placing Bruce a little over 165 lbs. Bruce Lee was documented as having well over 2,500 books in his own personal library, and eventually concluded that "A stronger muscle, is a bigger muscle". However, Bruce forever experimented with his training routines to maximize his physical abilities. He employed many different routines and exercises, which effectively served his training and bodybuilding purposes.
Lee believed that the abdominal muscles were one of the most important muscle groups for a martial artist, since virtually every movement requires some degree of abdominal work. Perhaps more importantly, the "abs" are like a shell, protecting the ribs and vital organs.
He trained from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m., including stomach, flexibility, and running, and from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. he would weight train and cycle. A typical exercise for Lee would be to run a distance of two to six miles in 15 to 45 minutes, in which he would vary speed in 3-5 minute intervals. Lee would then ride his stationary bicycle for 30-45 minutes at full speed immediately after running. Next, Lee would do some skipping rope for 800 jumps non-stop.On July 20, 1973, Lee was in Hong Kong, due to have dinner with former James Bond star George Lazenby, with whom he intended to make a film. According to Lee's wife Linda, Lee met producer Raymond Chow at 2 p.m. at home to discuss the making of the movie Game of Death. They worked until 4 p.m. and then drove together to the home of Lee's colleague Betty Ting Pei, a Taiwanese actress who was to have a leading role in the film. The three went over the script at her home, and then Chow left to attend a dinner meeting.
A short time later, Lee complained of a headache, and Ting Pei gave him an analgesic. At around 7:30 p.m., he lay down for a nap. After Lee did not turn up for dinner, Chow came to the apartment but could not wake Lee up. A doctor was summoned, who spent ten minutes attempting to revive him before sending him by ambulance to Queen Elizabeth Hospital. However, Lee was dead by the time he reached the hospital. There was no visible external injury; however, his brain had swollen considerably, from 1,400 to 1,575 grams (a 13% increase). Lee was thirty-two years old. On October 15, 2005, Chow stated in an interview that Lee was allergic to Equagesic. When the doctors announced Bruce Lee's death officially, it was coined as "Death by Misadventure."
Another theory is that he died from an allergic reaction to marijuana, which he was consuming at the time in hashish form. This is controversial, but it is confirmed that the coroner did find traces of the substance during his autopsy.
However, the exact details of Lee's death are controversial. Bruce Lee's iconic status and unusual death at a young age led many people to develop many theories about his death. Such theories about his death included murder involving the triads, a curse on Lee and his family, etc. The theory of the curse carried over to Lee's son Brandon Lee, also an actor, who died 20 years after his father in a bizarre accident while filming The Crow.Upon his death his wife, Linda, returned to her home town of Seattle and had Bruce buried at lot 276 of Lakeview Cemetery. His son Brandon is buried beside him. Pallbearers at his funeral on July 31, 1973 included Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Dan Inosanto, Taky Kimura, Peter Chin, and his brother, Robert Lee. To this day, over 30 years after his death, fresh flowers are found on his gravestone every day.-From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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