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Unexpected and unresolved, Bruce Lee's death in Hong Kong, caused by what experts now believe was a brain edema, spawned tales of battles with mythical Chinese demons as well as rumors of murder, mistresses, drugs and intrigue. On Friday, "Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story," a film that largely celebrates the Chinese-American actor's life, will be released in the shadow of yet another unexpected and unresolved death -- Brandon's. The 28-year-old actor was shot and killed in an apparent accident on March 31 while filming "The Crow," in which he was starring.
As someone close to the family observed, both father and son died "as they were just becoming."
The parallels extend to the expectations surrounding their final films. "Enter the Dragon," the 1973 movie intended to introduce Bruce Lee to American audiences and establish him as an action star, was not released until three weeks after his death. In the two decades since, it has made $100 million. "The Crow" was the film Brandon Lee hoped would propel him out of the action genre. It remains to be decided whether it will be completed.
"Had Bruce Lee lived beyond 'Enter the Dragon,' " said Alex Ben Block, author of the biography "The Legend of Bruce Lee" and editor of The Hollywood Reporter, "I think he would have gone on to be quite a force in show business, but that's just a guess. He never had that luxury. He made a few lousy films in Hong Kong. He made one American film, and he died."
While Bruce Lee was a charismatic presence, no one considered him an Olivier. Indeed, showings of his films, with the audience cheering each punch and kick, had more the feel of a sporting match than high art. And when Brandon died, he was still striving to free himself from the action genre that had so defined his father. Both father and son struggled to realize the American dream, only to have death leave them on the verge of success. Like James Dean and Marilyn Monroe, whose celebrity seduced the public and whose premature deaths came as a shock, Bruce and Brandon Lee's immortality seems assured. Their films record the bittersweetness of promise unfulfilled.
Brandon Lee spent a lifetime dealing with his father's death and struggling to be more than Bruce Lee's son. But just as Brandon's life was framed by his father's fame, so will his death. "If Brandon had lived and made 50 great films," said Mr. Block, "then no one would much remember the Bruce Lee connection except as some minor footnote. But I'm afraid he is inextricably linked with his father forever."
In the process, Hollywood discovered Lee, first as a martial arts master whose pupils included Steve McQueen, Kareem Abdul Jabar and James Coburn, then as an actor. A child star in Hong Kong -- he had appeared in 20 films by the time he left at age 18 -- Lee returned to acting in the United States with small television roles. His major break came with the 1966 television action series "The Green Hornet," in which he co-starred as the hero's sidekick, Kato.
But Hollywood was to disappoint him. Lee helped develop the idea for the television series "Kung Fu," about a martial arts superman who wanders the West battling villains with his wits and the tenets of kung fu. When the starring role went to the American actor David Carradine, Lee became convinced his Asian features would forever limit his future in Hollywood, and he returned to Hong Kong. Nearly two decades later, his son would get his first real acting job co-starring with Mr. Carradine in the 1985 television film "Kung Fu: The Movie."
Once back in Hong Kong, Bruce Lee and his martial arts films -- "Fists of Fury" (1971), "The Chinese Connection" (1972) and "Return of the Dragon" (1973) -- became huge successes. In Asia, he was a film star of major proportions, and there was a growing audience for his movies in Europe as well. Raffaella De Laurentiis, the Italian- born producer of the new film "Dragon," has childhood memories of being taken to Bruce Lee films by her mother, the actress Silvana Mangano. By "Return of the Dragon," Lee was not only choreographing the scenes but also writing and directing. But his films did less to establish him as an actor -- he rarely spoke -- than to his remarkable physical prowess.
Lee had just completed filming a death scene in "Game of Death" when he died in the apartment of Betty Ting-Pei, an actress rumored to be his mistress. The coroner labeled the cause of death as "misadventure," a conclusion that is still disputed. More than 25,000 people attended Lee's funeral, and for months the press pursued rumors about the real cause of his death.
His mystique also captured the fancy of the press in the United States, and in the months and years after his death, it was explored in detail in magazines, books and at least one Hong Kong exploitation film, "Bruce Lee: His Last Days, His Last Nights."
For years, Brandon had said he was little more than a comma: Bruce Lee's son, Brandon. At the same time, his walls were covered with huge photographs of his father. In one of his favorites, taken on the lawn of their Los Angeles home, Bruce can be seen holding up a board for Brandon, then just 6 years old, to break with a precisely aimed blow of his hand. Both faces were turned to the board in intense concentration, one a miniature of the other. "In the end," said his mother, "Brandon was a young man who had found his own identity."
At a memorial service in Los Angeles on April 4, a day after Brandon was buried beside his father in Seattle, Mrs. Cadwell tried to explain Brandon's sense of reconciliation to friends and relatives by telling of a conversation she had had with her son the day before the accident.
She had been in a shopping mall when a poster promoting "Dragon" caught her eye. Some teen-agers had gathered in front of it, and as she walked up, she heard one of them ask, "Who's Bruce Lee?" To which another answered, "He's Brandon Lee's dad." Damon Caro, a friend who studied martial arts with Brandon, related the anecdote: "When Brandon heard the story, he said, 'Mom, when I was 17, that would have meant a lot to me. Now it doesn't make any difference.' In the last few years, he had really come to terms with the pressure of living in his father's shadow." Another friend added that Brandon was just starting to cast his own shadow.
"Dragon," with its portrayal of a larger-than-life character, is likely to sharpen the focus on the father. As designed, the film is not a typical martial arts movie but an intimate exploration of Bruce Lee's life, drawn heavily from conversations with Mrs. Cadwell and her memoir, "Bruce Lee: The Man Only I Knew."
Jan McCormack, Brandon's personal manager, said Brandon cried when he read the script, which the director, Rob Cohen, wrote with Edward Khmara and John Raffo. But Brandon vowed he would never see the film. He told his mother that "it would be too painful and too difficult to see our lives portrayed in that sort of intimate way," she recalled. "He felt such a strong connection with his father, he couldn't take watching those memories." She would not, however, approve the project without Brandon's blessing. He gave it.
In the early stages of the development of "Dragon," several executives at Universal Pictures suggested that Brandon Lee be considered for the role of Bruce. From the outset, Ms. De Laurentiis and Mr. Cohen were troubled by the idea.
"The process for a really great actor is to burrow into the psychology of a character so deeply they become the character," said Mr. Cohen. "To ask an actor to burrow into the psychology of his own father, knowing it's going to be a love story and he would have to start thinking about being in love with his mother -- we did not want to send this kid into psychoanalysis."
Brandon dismissed the idea immediately, too, and the part of Bruce Lee went to a 26-year-old Hawaiian actor, Jason Scott Lee, who is not related. Brandon had gone up against Jason Scott Lee for a leading role in the recently released "Map of the Human Heart," a role that Jason Scott won. Brandon's younger sister, Shannon, 24, an aspiring singer, does make an appearance in "Dragon."
The aura of tragedy that surrounded Bruce Lee seemed to haunt the production of both "Dragon" and "The Crow." From the beginning, Mr. Cohen believes, "Dragon" was touched by what the Chinese call yuan fan, "fate of the deepest sort."
Jason Scott Lee also tells of the personal losses and afflictions that darkened the atmosphere around the film. Within a two-month period, while "Dragon" was in preproduction, his grandmother died; the actress Lauren Holly, who portrays Linda Lee, lost her 14-year-old brother in a fire; Ms. De Laurentiis lost an uncle she was close to, and Mr. Cohen had a heart attack that nearly forced him off the project. "The whole impact of Rob's heart attack and those people in our lives leaving us just shifted our whole energy," said Mr. Lee.
When Jason Scott Lee learned of Brandon's death, his mind went to a scene in "Dragon" that takes place in a Hong Kong cemetery. Bruce Lee is almost lost in swirling mists as, for the final time, he fights the phantom that chases him throughout his life. But in this scene, he is fighting not for himself but to save his 8-year-old son, who stands at the edge of the graveyard calling for his father.
From the outset, "The Crow," too, was plagued with problems, which were widely reported. The production was bedeviled by freak accidents, ranging from an electrocution that severely burned a technician to the destruction of a workroom by a disgruntled employee. Even the weather in Wilmington, N.C., where the film was being made, was unseasonable, with storms destroying some of the sets. "It was cold and wet," said the producer, Edward R. Pressman, "and Brandon was doing these scenes, which were often without much clothing." Brandon was said to be exhausted. When he died, "The Crow" was nearly complete.
"Bruce seemed to have a real sense of his own mortality that went beyond something normal," said Mr. Block, the author. Brandon, who owned a vintage Cadillac hearse, spoke of mortality, he said, "but seemed more playful about it." To Ms. McCormack, who never knew Bruce Lee, "Dragon" revealed what Brandon had inherited from his parents -- agility and intensity from his father, strength and humor from his mother.
Although his father was his first teacher, as Brandon grew older he would go to Mr. Inosanto's school in the ocean town of Marina del Rey. There he would spend hours training with Mr. Inosanto and talking to him about his father. "Most people don't know how accomplished Brandon had become in martial arts," said Mr. Inosanto's wife, Paula, who was also close to Brandon. In 1991, Brandon was one of just 14 people worldwide certified by the Thai Boxing Association to teach the sport.
Only in recent years did Brandon become consumed with wanting to learn everything he could about martial arts -- and his father. "I had tried taking him down to Danny's when he was 9 or 10," said Mrs. Cadwell. "I hoped it would be a good thing for him to be around his father's students. But he rebelled against it totally. When he was about 18, he went back on his own." Despite the memories and the legacy of Bruce Lee that still saturate Mr. Inosanto's studio, it became one of the few places that Brandon felt he could be himself as he grew older. He would sometimes take as many as four classes a night. To friends, Brandon was just one of the guys.
While martial arts were Bruce Lee's first love, said his widow, acting came first for Brandon. In both disciplines, though, he learned from his father. More than 20 years ago, Bruce Lee would film fight sequences he had rehearsed with Mr. Inosanto to better choreograph scenes for his movies. Brandon adopted the same technique and would hang a video camera from the rafters of Mr. Inosanto's studio so he could analyze how different moves would play on film. He began to study his father's philosophy and writing as well. Mrs. Cadwell found Brandon's library stacked with his father's books and papers, most filled with lengthy notes.
The son's role in the 1992 action film "Rapid Fire" pulled him back to his father. "There is a scene where the character's father dies," said Jeff Imada, a stunt coordinator who also trained with Mr. Inosanto and later worked closely with Brandon on his films. "He was reading a lot of his father's writings before they filmed that."
Like his father before him, Brandon had returned to Asia to make his first feature film, the 1987 "Legacy of Rage," which was made entirely in Cantonese, which he spoke fluently. His 1991 film "Showdown in Little Tokyo," in which he co-starred with Dolph Lundgren, was his first Hollywood movie. It was followed by the lead in "Rapid Fire." Although none of the films did much to establish Brandon Lee's acting talents, the industry saw something in the young actor. He had a multi-picture deal with Carolco, and Paramount Pictures was planning to distribute "The Crow."
In "The Crow" Brandon believed he had found a vehicle that offered him more drama and less action than previous films. Based on the 1989 comic book series by James O'Barr that became a cult hit, "The Crow" is a dark story of a murdered rock star who takes on the persona of a night bird to avenge his girlfriend's death and his own. When Brandon was halfway through reading the script, he called Ms. McCormack and said, "You have to get me this part." She finds the memory particularly difficult.
Soon after Brandon met Ms. Hutton, he called Ms. McCormack and said: "Jan, have you ever met anyone in your lifetime where you just say hello and you hope they'll be in your life for the rest of your life? I met a girl like that today." Once he drove for hours into the desert outside Los Angeles to Joshua Tree, a starkly beautiful, isolated camping area where he set up a tent and iced down a bottle of champagne to surprise Ms. Hutton. He chose Venice to propose and did it on one knee, with champagne and flowers in hand. Just hours before the accident, he called Ms. McCormack to tell her that Ms. Hutton's wedding ring had just been delivered. He and Ms. Hutton had planned to bring a busload of friends down to Ensenada, Mexico, a beach town they loved, for the wedding.
Mr. Cohen, who has a young son, now fights nightmares of losing him. "I believe in some forms of higher power," he said, "like fate and, sometimes I'm embarrassed to say it, God. There is a certain sort of chaotic nature to life, and the mind rebels against chaos and wants to supplant order and reason because reason makes us safe. If I could tell you why Bruce and Brandon Lee died young, then maybe you could know how you could protect your children. But I can't.
Said Mrs. Cadwell, who spent the weekend Brandon was to be married with Ms. Hutton: "It is beyond my realm of cosmic thinking to think that it was meant to be. It just happened. I'm not beginning to make sense of it. I just think we were fortuntate that he had as many years as he did. They say that time cures anything. It doesn't. You just learn to live with it and go on."
by Betty Sharkey
The New York Times, May 2, 1993
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