Bruce Lee

“Defeat is a state of mind; no one is ever defeated until defeat has been accepted as a reality” (Bruce Lee). Born the year 1940, November 27th in little town San Francisco, CA. Martial Arts Master, Legend, Philosopher, Father, Move-Star, and Hero. These are all the qualities of one man, a man who became more than just another famous icon. A man who became a legend, who left a legacy that will always be remembered. Bruce Lee, the first “mixed” martial artist that entered the US became an icon for his techniques and styles of Martial Arts, using his abilities and becoming an action movie-star.

Lee wasn’t just a movie-star as an adult, as he was born; Lee was an actor for baby commercials in the 1940’s. He was the fourth child out of four children, the youngest. Bruce’s mother gave him the name “Bruce” which means “Strong One” in Gaelic. As he was a child, he produced in 20 films in the beginning of 1946. As he grew up and time past, Mr Lee learned to dance, winning a cha-cha competition. In 1953, he began to study kung-fu, to sharpen his fighting skills. But as a teen, he was caught into trouble. Being in a Hong Kong street gang, Bruce Lee was arrested for fighting by the police, being sent back to the US to live with his family outside of Seattle, Washington in 1959.

After being sent to Washington, Lee finished his high school education in Edison. Soon, choosing to major in philosophy at the University of Washington. Teaching the art of Wing Chun martial arts style he learned back in Hong Kong, as a job. As time went by through Lee’s teaching career, he came across Linda Emery (a white woman), who he soon married in 1964. Lee and his wife soon moved to California, and as he dreamed, he opened his first martial arts school, teaching his own art called Jeet Kune Do, meaning “Way of the Intercepting Fist” opening his school around Los Angeles and Oakland, Lee started to become more than just a martial arts master, he eventually became a TV star.

Aired in the 1966, Bruce Lee stared in the television show “The Green Hornet” which caught Lee’s celebrity icon to arise. Though he was a Chinese man, he was not allowed to show his face. During these times, racialism was still around, being racial to Bruce as an Asian man. But, as the television show hit the top, Lee used his acrobatic and theoretical fighting style as the Hornet’s loyal sidekick, Kato. “While his most notable role came in the 1969 film Marlowe, starring James Garner. Confronted with the dearth of meaty roles and the prevalence of stereotypes regarding actors of Asian heritage, Lee left Los Angeles for Hong Kong in 1971, with his wife and two children (Brandon, born in 1965, and Shannon, born in 1967)” (Bruce Lee).

Landing back in the land he grew up in, Lee signed a “two film” contract. Eventually creating the film “Fist of Fury” which released in late 1971, featuring Lee as a “vengeful fighter chasing the villains who had killed his kung-fu master” (Bruce Lee). “Combining his smooth Jeet Kune Do athleticism with the high-energy theatrics of his performance in The Green Hornet, Lee was the charismatic center of the film, which set new box office records in Hong Kong” (Bruce Lee). The records soon broke, when Lee’s next film soon arose titled “The Chinese Connection” in 1972. By the end of the year, Lee became a “major movie star” in Asia. As time flew by, he made a total of 5 movies, which displayed his martial arts finesse. Shortly later in 1973, Lee was producing his number one film “Enter the Dragon” But before he could see his own film premiere, Lee died a month before at the age of 32. Dying in a coma due to brain edema, “caused by a strange reaction to a prescription painkiller he was reportedly taking for a back injury” (Bruce Lee).

“Lee’s death from the beginning, as some claimed he had been murdered. He was also widely believed to have been cursed, a conclusion driven by Lee’s obsession with his own early death. (The tragedy of the so-called curse was compounded in 1993, when Brandon Lee was killed under similarly mysterious circumstances during the filming of The Crow. The 28-year-old actor was fatally shot with a gun that supposedly contained blanks but somehow had a live round lodged deep within its barrel.)” (Bruce Lee). But as Lee’s last film “Enter the Dragon” released, Lee’s status as a film icon became confirmed. Which soon the film went with earnings of $200 million, that left a legacy of Lee’s accomplishments, leaving a new breed of action hero’s.

Therefore, Bruce Lee was a hero for becoming the first “Chinese/Asian” man to be spoken in the US for his unique techniques of kung-fu and his trilogy of becoming the first Asian orientated movie star of his time.