Bruce Lee is a Hong Kong-American film actor, director, screenwriter, and producer. He became a real legend. The film actor amazed everyone with his incredible strength and stamina, unprecedented endurance and fearlessness. He was a philosopher who popularized Chinese martial arts.
Millions of boys wanted to learn how to fight like the legendary Bruce Lee, fighting for good and justice. He managed to ignite their hearts with his own example. After all, everything that Bruce Lee could do, he achieved without anyone’s help, on his own.
As a child, the actor was a very weak child and was often sick. But later I decided to take care of myself completely. He exhausted himself with long, grueling training and achieved unprecedented skill.
The biography of Bruce Lee is a vivid example of the fact that a person can make himself by putting effort into it.
Childhood
Brandon Lee was born in early February 1965 in California, where his family lived at that time. His full name is Brandon Bruce Emery Lee, combining the surnames of both his father and mother. Brandon's childhood passed between the USA and Hong Kong, where his father's career at that time was more successful.
His father, the famous martial artist Bruce Lee, introduced him to karate from early childhood, in particular, taught him according to the fighting system he himself developed, Jeet Kune Do, which means the way of the leading fist. Brandon turned out to be a very capable student and by the age of five he was fighting like a real fighter.
In the spring of 1969, his sister Shannon was born. Unlike Brandon, who was born in Oakland, their mother gave birth to Shannon in Santa Monica. Bruce Lee and his daughter were involved in his and Brandon’s training, so the children grew up athletic, physically developed and healthy. However, at an older age, after the death of his father, Bruce Lee's son became a rather difficult teenager and, due to his behavior, changed several schools.
Height, weight, age. How old is Bruce Lee
Every person on the globe could answer the question about the famous martial artist’s height, weight, and age. How old Bruce Lee is is quite easy to find out if you know his date of birth.
Bruce Lee was born in 1940 and died suddenly in 1973, so the man was thirty-two years old at the time of his death. According to his zodiac sign, Bruce was friendly, sociable, sincere and straightforward Sagittarius.
According to the Eastern horoscope, he had the traits inherent in the Dragon, namely, strength, brightness, sexuality, directness, wisdom and the desire for knowledge.
Bruce Lee's height was one meter and seventy-five centimeters, and his weight was fifty-nine kilograms. However, pathologists claimed that at the time of death he weighed sixty-five kilograms.
Family
The Lee family consisted of four people: the famous actor and karate master Bruce Lee, his student, and then his wife Linda and their two children, Brandon and Shannon. When Bruce Lee suddenly died from an allergic reaction to a headache pill (according to one version), Brandon was only eight years old, and Shannon was only a four-year-old baby.
Linda Lee, suddenly becoming a young widow and left with two small children in her arms, decided to finally settle in the United States. Raising Shannon wasn't much of a hassle, but with Brandon it was different. His mother transferred him from school to school, but he never stayed anywhere for long. Even entering Emerson College did not correct him - he remained a gloomy, uncommunicative and harsh guy.
After college, Bruce Lee's son entered the Lee Strasberg Film Academy, having already decided by this time that he would become a famous dramatic actor.
Karate
The world of martial arts opened to Brandon Lee at the age of three. And by five he could already break boards with kicks and reach the chin of an adult with his heel in a jump. Bruce Lee introduced his son to his mentor and teacher Ip Man, specially taking him with him on a trip to Hong Kong for this purpose.
After the death of his father, Brandon did not give up karate, but continued training. While he was studying at the Military Arts School, Kung Fu and Jeet Kune Do were taught there by the students and followers of his great parent, namely Dan Inosanto along with Richard Bustillo. These skills and his strong, trained body greatly helped him perform stunts in films on his own.
Career
Shannon's acting debut was a cameo appearance in the biopic about her father, Bruce Lee, Dragon: The Life of Bruce Lee.
, which came out in 1993.
She continued her acting career, starring in several low-budget films: High Voltage
(1997),
Enter the Eagle
(1998) and
Lessons for an Assassin
(2001).
She was also cast in the television show Chinese Policeman
alongside Sammo Hung in 1998, and also starred in the science fiction television film
The Age
, which premiered in the United States on Syfy Universal in 2000.
She was also invited to participate in the first season of the television show WMAC Masters
.
Lee currently heads the Bruce Lee Foundation. In addition, in 2003, Lee took part in the recording of the album The Mechanical Forces of Love
Medicine group.
Shannon Lee also performed the song (“I’m in the Mood for Love”) for the film Shanghai Connection
(2000).
In 2008, Shannon Lee became the executive producer of the television film The Legend of Bruce Lee
, which tells the story of her father's life.
Passion for cinema
Since childhood, Brandon Lee dreamed of a film career. During his school years, he participated in amateur performances and small theater productions, while studying at college and university, he honed his skills and acquired new skills.
The son of the kung fu legend had a lot of determination. But he was very upset that the directors did not see individuality and talent in him, they perceived him only as their father’s son, his copy. But Brandon didn't want to limit himself to action films. He wanted to star in serious dramatic films, play deep and complex characters. And perhaps he would have succeeded. He just didn't have time.
Biography and personal life of Bruce Lee
The biography and personal life of Bruce Lee is a subtle interweaving of truth and fiction, reality and legend. The boy was born in San Francisco, America, in the year and hour of the Dragon. At birth, the boy was named Li Xiaolong - Little Dragon. It reliably protected the baby from evil forces. The name Bruce was given to the boy by the nurse who delivered the baby.
Little Bruce was a frail and sickly baby; from the age of three months he acted in Chinese films. Because of his thinness, he had to play hooligans, tramps, thieves, orphans and difficult children.
The boy lived in Hong Kong, he studied mediocrely, but was fond of dancing in the cha-cha-cha style. He studied at La Salle College, and at the age of 17, Bruce Lee won the dance championship.
From the age of fourteen he studied kung fu, impressing his master with endurance and coordination of movements. From that time on, he trained daily and thoroughly mastered the nunchaku. The guy practiced boxing, jiu-jitsu, judo, and later developed his own style - jit kune do. Already in 1961, the Bruce Lee School was opened, in which all people, regardless of age and nationality, could study, however, the cost of training was $275 per hour.
Many fans tried to repeat the famous Bruce Lee one-inch punch, a video of which could be found on old video tapes. So far, not a single person in the world has been able to repeat this blow.
At nineteen, the guy realized that life in China would give him nothing, so he went to America, where he confirmed his citizenship by birth and took the name Bruce. The future actor worked as a waiter for a long time, and then entered the Edison Technical School and the University of Washington, where he studied philosophical practices.
Filmography
Brandon Lee's first appearance on television took place in 1986, when he was only seventeen years old. It was a low-budget film, Kung Fu: The Movie. Before that, he appeared in two biographical films about his father, while still a child, and in the crowd of the action movie “Criminal Killer.”
Then there were the quite successful “Legacy of Fury”, “Showdown in Little Tokyo” with Dolph Lundgren and “Rapid Fire”, which brought him the attention of directors. Brandon Lee is an actor, he was finally able to declare himself.
Bruce Lee's wife - Linda Lee Cadwell
Bruce Lee's wife, Linda Lee Cadwell, appeared in Bruce's life quite by accident, she simply came to his training in a form of martial arts popular in the sixties - kung fu.
The wedding of the master and his student took place in 1964, after two years of a whirlwind romance. Linda's parents were not delighted that an Asian man became the husband of their beloved daughter, but the young people managed to convince them of the power of their love.
Linda was a Scandinavian by nationality and a teacher by training, she gave up everything to help her husband with his work and give birth to his children. Before the death of her beloved, the marriage lasted nine years.
Personal life
Despite all his popularity, Brandon Lee, whose personal life was never stormy, was not seen in promiscuous relationships with women. His only serious romance was with Eliza Hutton, whom he met in 1990.
Eliza worked in the film industry, which is how she and Brandon became close. Their relationship lasted three years and things were in full swing towards the wedding, which was supposed to take place after the completion of work on the film “The Crow”. They wanted to get married in Mexico. At the time of Brandon’s death, Eliza was in another city, but immediately dropped everything and flew to Willington upon receiving news of the tragedy.
The ill-fated film begins with a dedication to unhappy lovers - Eliza and Brandon. The girl could not recover from what happened for a long time and only got married in 2004.
Cult film "The Raven"
In the fateful year of 1993, Bruce Lee’s son began filming the film “The Crow,” which later became a cult film. This mystical action film was the last in the life of the young actor. This film was directed by Australian director Alex Proyas, using as a script a comic book with the same name and a similar plot, created by James O'Barr.
One of the slogans of the film is: love is stronger than death. This is a direct reference to a tragedy that occurred in O'Barr's personal life: the woman he loved died in a car accident. According to the legend voiced in the film, after the death of a person, his soul is carried to the kingdom of the dead on the wings of a crow. But in exceptional cases, when the soul carries great pain and a thirst for revenge, the raven can bring it back some time. To complete all matters and calm down.
A loving couple, Eric and Shelley, die at the hands of bandits. The last thing Eric sees in his life is how these scoundrels rape Shelley. His soul is full of hatred, and the raven brings him back in an invulnerable body so that revenge can be accomplished.
This film was a wild success and enormous popularity fell upon Lee posthumously. After all, it was on the set of this film that Brandon Lee died. His biography is short, because his life was cut short at the very takeoff. "The Crow" won an MTV Award for Best Song, and Brandon was nominated for Best Actor, but did not win the award.
How did Brandon Lee die?
Brandon Lee died two months after work on the film began. There have always been many rumors and legends around the Raven. They said that troubles and misfortunes rained down one after another on the film crew and all other participants in the process.
As a result, at the end of March, Brandon Lee was killed during a rehearsal for one of the last scenes. The cause of death was a penetrating wound to the abdomen and spine by a foreign body. The foreign body was the cap of a revolver, which, by chance or someone's oversight, got stuck in the barrel of the weapon. And when actor Michael Massey, who plays the villainous bad guy Fanboy, shot Lee in the stomach with what he thought was a blank cartridge, the blank flew out and injured Brandon as much as a bullet.
A few hours later, the actor died in the hospital, the doctors could not do anything - the injuries were too serious and there was too much blood loss. Because of this terrible tragedy, the film's release was postponed indefinitely, and the film studio faced a long trial with Brandon's mother, Linda Emery.
The actor, who was only indirectly guilty of what happened, was in severe depression for a long time, all his thoughts were occupied by the deceased Brandon Lee, the cause of whose death Massey saw as his shot, although no one ever blamed him for this.
The film was completed with the help of a double. It was Chad Stahelski, Brandon's former martial arts teacher. The main reasons for this choice were, in addition to the external similarity, Stahelski's excellent knowledge of Lee's style and technique and the ability to move like him.
Brandon's sister, Shannon, as well as his fiancee Eliza, took his death very hard. Together with their mother and Eliza, they were and continue to be engaged in perpetuating the memory of Bruce and Brandon Lee, making films about them and writing books. And she, together with her mother, Linda Lee Cadwell, and her husband, Ian Kesler, founded the Bruce Lee Foundation, the main task of which is to preserve for posterity the legacy that the great master, his art and philosophy left them.
Family and children of Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee's family and children were international, since his father, Lee Hoi Chen, was Chinese by nationality, and his mother, Grace Lee, was half German.
The guy’s parents were creative and artistic people who couldn’t imagine their life without touring and performing. Dad shone on the stage of Chinese opera as an actor-comedian. Mom was a theater actress, she gave birth to little Bruce on an American tour.
Children have always been the great actor’s favorite people, although he could not devote enough time to them due to filming. He literally gave the children everything; his little son was trained by Bruce Lee himself, so he achieved a lot in martial arts and the world of cinema.
Where is Brandon Lee buried?
Brandon Lee was buried in Seattle, at Lakeview Cemetery, next to his father. The inscription on his grave reads: “Since we cannot know when we will die, we should think of life as something infinite. After all, everything in life has its limit; in fact, there are very few real opportunities. How often will you remember a day from your childhood, or several days, those very ones that have become so much a part of you that you cannot imagine your life without them? Perhaps three or four times. Perhaps more. Or maybe not even that much. Do you know how many more times you'll see the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty, but at the moment you do not see this limit and life seems eternal ... "
These lines are taken from the book Heavenly Refuge, written by Paul Bowles. Brandon wanted them printed on the invitations for his and Eliza's wedding. And nearby, on the grave of my father, on the pages of an open stone book, the words are engraved: “You continue to inspire us and lead us to inner freedom.”
