Biography

Michael Mullen
5/2/09
Biography

Bruce Lee
(1940-1973)

Bruce Lee was born as Lee Jun Fan on November 27, 1940 in San Francisco, California. His father, a famous opera singer from Hong Kong moved the family to America in 1939, where he appeared in his first film at three months old as a stand-in for another baby. In 1941, after being in America for two short years, the family moved back to Hong Kong. As a child, Bruce appeared in around twenty films, this started at the tender age of six. In his teen years he joined a street gang and started studying kung-fu in 1953. He was sent back to America to live with family there after getting into trouble with the police.
He finished high school and majored in philosophy at the University of Washington. He got a job teaching martial arts to his peers. In this way he met Linda Emery, who he married in 1964. The couple moved to California, where Bruce opened two more martial arts schools. He mostly taught a style called Jeet Kune Do at this time. In the television show The Green Hornet, which aired from 1966-1967, Lee gained a bit of popularity. Afterwards he made guest appearances in Ironside, Longstreet, and most notably Marlowe. Now a family of four (including children Brandon and Shannon), they moved to Hong Kong.
He was the lead actor in Fists of Fury and The Chinese Connection, two immensely popular films in Hong Kong. Both, however, were reviewed poorly overseas in America. By late 1972, he was a star in Asia, and though he had not yet gained fame in America he would be when Enter the Dragon premiered. Unfortunately, Lee passed a month before it was revealed due to a brain edema caused by a painkiller he was using for a back injury. Much controversy surrounds his death.