Bruce Lee

One person who I admire is Bruce Lee. He was a movie and tv actor and the greatest martial arts master of all time. He was born in San Fransisco in Chinatown on November 27, 1940. His parents were traveling in America doing performances with a traveling Cantonese Opera Company. He got his first part in a play when he was only 3 months old. He went back to Hong Kong and grew up there. When he was 13 years old he got beat up by a steet gang and decided to learn Kung Fu. He started college when he was only 12 years old. When he was 18 years old he entered a boxing championship and won. Because he got into so many street fights his dad and mom decide he better leave Hong Kong so they send him back to America. He stayed with friends of his mom and dad.

When he was 21 he went to the University of Washington and started to teach other students Kung Fu. By the time he was 23 he moved his Kung Fu classes into a building off of the college campus. He was one of the first teachers to teach anyone, and not just oriental people. He developed a punch called the One Inch Punch. He could hold his arm straight out at shoulder height and shrug his shoulder one inch and slam a person across the room. He could also do push ups on two fingers.

He made movies in America and Hong Kong. They were famous in both countries. All together he made 7 movies as an adult. The last movie was Game of Death and was released after he died.

He opened many schools of martial arts and combined different ones to make a different kind of fighting. He married Linda Emery and had a son, Brandon, who followed his father's footsteps and became an actor.

In 1973 at age 33, he told his sister, Grace Lee, that he didn't think he would live long but she would be ok financially. This is the first time he said anything about dying. In April he collapsed in the bathroom on the set of Enter the Dragon. He was taken to the hospital.

In July of 1973, he typed a letter to his lawyer explaining his business. Then he got on a plane for a trip to Los Angeles. There he visited a friend, Betty Ting Pei. Before dinner he said he had a headache so Betty gave him a pain killer and he lay down. Later she couldn't wake him up. At the hospital he was declared dead of a cerebral edema.

The reason I admire him is because he was a great fighter and a good person who didn't care what race you were, but would teach you anyway. He was a good father and husband. I think it would have been great if he could have lived longer to make more great movies and raise his family.