American postcard by Classico San Francisco, no. 105-685. Photo: Universal Studios.
American postcard by Classico San Francisco, no. 132-426. Photo: Universal Studios.
Vintage postcard, no. 1047.
British postcard, no. C100. Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon (Robert Clouse, 1973). Caption: Bruce Lee - Mirrors.
British postcard by London Postcard Company, Leeds, no. CP 653 (Series 1 (Set 1 of 9). Photo: Canal + Image (UK) LTD. Caption: Martial Arts Meister.
The Kato Show
Bruce Lee was born in a hospital in the Chinatown section of San Francisco in 1940, the year of the Dragon according to Chinese astrology. Lee's parents were opera actors on tour in the United States during his birth. They gave several Cantonese opera performances, attended mainly by the Chinese community in the United States. His parents named him Lee Yun Fan, but the nurse recorded on his US birth certificate ‘Bruce Lee’. After three months, his parents returned with him to Hong Kong, where Lee would spend his childhood. Lee's father was called Hoi Chuen and was known in Hong Kong as both a film and opera actor. His mother Grace Ho was the adopted daughter of Ho Kom Tong, who belonged to one of Hong Kong's richest clans. His mother had a half-European half-Chinese appearance, but it is not known who Bruce Lee's mother's biological parents were.
Bruce was the second youngest of five children. His brother Peter Lee became a fencing champion and taught Bruce its basics. His younger brother Robert became a musician. Lee's first introduction to kung fu came through his father, who taught him the basics of Wu-style tai chi chuan when he was still young. Bruce Lee appeared in some Chinese films as a child thanks to his father's connections with the Hong Kong film world. As a baby, he debuted in Golden Gate Girl (Esther Eng, 1941). As a nine-year-old, he starred with his father in the film Xi lu xiang/The Kid (Fung Fung, 1950), based on a cartoon character. It was his first leading role. By the age of 18, he had played in about 20 Chinese films. None of them were martial arts films.
After attending Tak Sun School, Lee entered the prestigious Catholic La Salle College at 12. The city of Hong Kong, where Lee grew up, was then a colony of the United Kingdom. Hong Kong was a busy city and was regularly plagued by street gangs. In 1953, Bruce was beaten up by a street gang and Lee decided to take kung fu lessons. His friend William Cheung introduced him to his master Yip Man, who taught the wing chun style of kung fu. Bruce Lee became an avid practitioner, quickly progressing and becoming better than most senior students. From 1954 to 1958, he trained under Yip Man and continued training under Yip Man's senior student Wong Shun-leung. In 1956, he was transferred to St Francis Xavier's College, where he would be mentored by Brother Edward, a teacher and coach of the school's boxing team. In 1957, Bruce became the champion of the Hong Kong Amateur Boxing Championships. Lee was also a talented chachacha dancer. At a 1958 Hong Kong ballroom dancing competition, he became the champion in chachacha.
In 1959, Bruce Lee left Hong Kong for the United States with only $100 in his pocket. His US birth certificate gave him entry to the country. Lee went to study at Edison Technical School, a high school in Seattle and at the University of Washington. To support himself, Lee started teaching kung fu. At university, he met his future wife Linda C. Emery, who was one of his students in his kung fu school. After completing university, he became a full-time kung fu teacher. He soon opened a training centre in Seattle, the Jun Fan Kung Fu (Bruce Lee's Kung fu). Lee began to explore how to develop a fluid and practical martial art which allowed its practitioners to express themselves freely in choosing their preferred fighting techniques. He created a new fighting style, which he called 'jeet kune do' (method of the intercepting fist). In his fighting style, he introduced modern training methods from boxing such as fitness training, weight training and punching bag training. Lee even designed special boxing gloves for his fighting style. In 1966, Lee moved with his family to Los Angeles and opened another kung fu school there. This school was often attended by celebrities such as actors Steve McQueen and James Coburn.
Film producer William Dozier offered Lee a role in the television series The Green Hornet (1966). In this series, Lee played the character Kato, who was the sidekick of the Green Hornet (Van Williams). During the filming, Bruce Lee had to perform his fighting techniques more slowly than usual, otherwise, the camera could not capture it properly on film. The Green Hornet lasted only one season (30 episodes) beginning in the year 1966. Lee in a supporting role became more popular than the lead actor. In Hong Kong, the series aired under the name The Kato Show. Lee played some minor roles in other TV series. In 1969, Lee was involved as a martial arts choreographer in the film The Wrecking Crew (Phil Karlson, 1968), where he asked his friend Chuck Norris to act in it. Lee made his American film debut opposite James Garner in Marlowe (Paul Bogart, 1969), as a kung fu expert in the service of a gangster boss. He played a kung fu teacher in a few episodes of the series Longstreet (1971), who teaches his martial art jeet kune do to the main character, blind private eye James Franciscus. In 1971, he came up with the idea for a TV series called The Warrior, in which a Shaolin monk flees to America from China in the 19th century and has various adventures. Warner Brothers was interested, but they did not consider him suitable for the lead role. His Asian appearance would not appeal to Western viewers and this would make the series commercially unsuccessful. In the series, Kung Fu (1972), the lead role went to actor David Carradine, who had no martial arts experience and received a quick course in Shaolin kung fu for his role.
French postcard by Editions F. Nugeron, no. E 283. French affiche by René Chateau for The Green Hornet (William Beaudine, Norman Foster, E. Darrell Hallenbeck, 1974), which had the French title Le Retour du Dragon. Several episodes of the TV series The Green Hornet (1966-1967) were edited together and released as a feature.
French postcard by Editions F. Nugeron, no. E 282. French affiche by René Chateau for Tang shan da xiong/The Big Boss (Wei Lo, Chia-Hsiang Wu, 1971), which had the French title Big Boss.
French postcard by Editions F. Nugeron, no. E 256. French affiche by René Chateau for Jing wu men/Fist of Fury (Wei Lo, 1972), which had the French title La furieux de vaincre.
French postcard by Editions F. Nugeron, no. E 262. French affiche by René Chateau for Game of Death (Robert Clouse, Bruce Lee, 1978), which had the French title Le jeu de la mort.
French postcard by Editions F. Nugeron, no. E 281. French affiche by René Chateau for the documentary Li Xiao Long De Sheng Yu Si/Bruce Lee: The Man and the Legend (Shih Wu, 1973), which had the French title Bruce Lee Story: L'homme et sa légende.
Bruceploitation
Having failed to secure a film role in the United States, Bruce Lee tried his luck in the Asian film world. He moved to Hong Kong with his family. There, he met film producer Raymond Chow, who had just founded the Golden Harvest film company. At Golden Harvest, Lee began making the films that would bring him his eventual fame. He successively starred in the films Tang shan da xiong/The Big Boss (Lo Wei, Chia-Hsiang Wu, 1971), Jing wu men/Fist of Fury (Lo Wei, 1972) and Meng long guo jiang/The Way of the Dragon (Bruce Lee, 1972), which became huge hits in Hong Kong. In these films, actress Nora Miao plays an important role. Lee often had disagreements with director Lo Wei on the film set about how some fight scenes should be shot. Lee wanted more realistic fights and decided to direct his films from now on.
Together with Raymond Chow, he founded the Concord Production Company. His first self-directed, written and produced film was Meng long guo jiang/The Way of the Dragon (1972), shot in Rome, Italy. Chuck Norris played his antagonist in this film. Their fight in Rome's Colosseum is now one of the highlights of kung fu film history. His next film was Game of Death with Ji Han-jae, the grandmaster of Hapkido, and his students Dan Inosanto and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
He had already filmed some fight scenes for the film when he unexpectedly received an offer from Warner Brothers to star in the film Enter the Dragon (Robert Clouse, 1973). Lee accepted this offer and temporarily stopped filming Game of Death to work on the new film. In Enter the Dragon, Lee co-starred with John Saxon and Jim Kelly, but he was also put in charge of the martial arts choreography. The film was eventually produced jointly by Warner Brothers, Golden Harvest and Concord Production Company. The film became a huge success in the United States and started the kung fu craze in the 1970s. However, Lee would not live to see it, as he would die three weeks before the film's premiere. Due to the great commercial success of Enter the Dragon, Lee's earlier films, which had only been released in Hong Kong, were now released internationally.
On 10 May 1973, while recording the sound for Enter the Dragon, Bruce Lee suddenly fell. Unconscious, he was transferred to Hong Kong Baptist Hospital where a doctor diagnosed Lee as suffering from swelling in the brain and gave him medication for this. A small amount of the drug cannabis was also removed from his stomach. The next day, Lee confirmed that he sometimes chewed cannabis from Nepal and that he had chewed cannabis on the day he passed out. His doctor warned him to stop doing this. Later, after the filming of Enter the Dragon was completed, Lee wanted to resume Game of Death. On 20 July 1973, he and film producer Raymond Chow met with co-stars Betty Ting Pei and George Lazenby. During his visit to Pei, Lee suffered from a headache. He was offered a painkiller by her. After taking the pill, he lay down for a while to get some rest. Chow left earlier to arrange dinner with Lazenby at a restaurant. When Chow was waiting with Lazenby at the restaurant and Lee kept not showing up, he decided to call Pei. She said that she could not wake Lee up. Chow rushed to Pei's house and a doctor was called in. Lee was found to be in a coma. Lee was transferred by ambulance to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Hong Kong. Arriving at the hospital, Bruce Lee had already died. The cause of his death is still controversial. The official explanation describes it as an allergic reaction to painkillers. When his body was autopsied, cannabis was found in his stomach, after which his wife Linda admitted, Bruce Lee occasionally used cannabis. However, doctors argued that the amount of cannabis found did not affect Lee's death.
A symbolic funeral ceremony was held in Hong Kong on 25 July 1973, where his body was put on display. Besides his family and friends, some 30,000 fans attended this funeral ceremony. Afterwards, his body was flown to Seattle and a small ceremony was held in Lakeview Cemetery on 30 July 1973. After James Coburn gave a short speech, Bruce Lee was buried. Lee's death was followed by 'Bruceploitation'. Hong Kong film companies started looking for a replacement for their biggest star and cast actors with stage names such as Bruce Li, Bruce Le, and Dragon Lee in many low-budget films. Robert Clouse, the director of Enter the Dragon, completed the unfinished film Game of Death (Robert Clouse, Bruce Lee, 1978). The original screenplay was completely rewritten. Clouse used only 15 minutes of the already shot film material and with the help of actor Kim Tai Chung, who resembled Bruce Lee, the rest of the scenes were filmed. Many fans considered the film a laughable and commercial exploitation of Lee's legacy. The documentary Bruce Lee: A Warrior's Journey (John Little, Bruce Lee, 2000) reconstructed how Lee had originally intended the film Game of Death. The documentary showed the full scenes of the film, which had never been shown to the public before.
Vintage postcard, no. 1049.
Vintage postcard.
Thai postcard by Suwan Studio / Starpics.
French postcard by Pierron Impremerie, no. 25.
British postcard. Bruce and his son Brandon Lee.
Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch and English) and IMDb.
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