Bruce Lee a real gangsta!!!

Everyone knows Bruce lee. but alo people dont know he was a straight up player. this man was no square he was really a head of his time. this man waa on top of his shit in a time when asian people wernt considered shit in american media. i mean foreal after bruce lee it took 20 years for another chinese person to break out in the american mainstream. biggup jackie chan. but real talk Bruce lee waas a cold peice of work. but what i didnt know was the man died with traces of weed and Qualdes in his body. i guesshe liked to party. heres the resume off wikipedia

Bruce Lee (27 November 1940 – 20 July 1973) was a Chinese martial artist, philosopher, instructor, martial arts actor and the founder of the Jeet Kune Do combat form. He was widely regarded as the most influential martial artist of the twentieth century and a cultural icon.[1] He was also the father of actor Brandon Lee and of actress Shannon Lee.

Lee was born in San Francisco, California, and raised in Hong Kong until his late teens. His Hong Kong and Hollywood-produced films elevated the traditional Hong Kong martial arts film to a new level of popularity and acclaim, and sparked the first major surge of interest in Chinese martial arts in the West. The direction and tone of his films changed and influenced martial arts and martial arts films in Hong Kong and the rest of the world as well.

Lee became an iconic figure particularly to the Chinese, as he portrayed Chinese national pride and Chinese nationalism in his movies.[2] He primarily practiced Chinese martial arts (Kung Fu




Lee Jun Fan was born in the hour of the dragon, between 6–8 a.m., in the Year of the Dragon according to the Chinese zodiac calendar, 27 November 1940, at the Chinese Hospital in San Francisco’s Chinatown.[3] His father, Lee Hoi-Chuen (李海泉), was Chinese, and his Catholic mother, Grace (何愛瑜), was of Chinese and German ancestry.[4][5][6][7][8][9] Lee and his parents returned to Hong Kong when he was three months old. He was an American citizen by birth[10][11].


Education and family
At age 12, Lee entered La Salle College and later he attended St. Francis Xavier's College. In 1959, at the age of 18, Lee got into a fight and badly beat his opponent, getting into trouble with the police.[12] His father became concerned about young Bruce's safety, and as a result, he and his wife decided to send Bruce to the United States to live with an old friend of his father's. Lee left with $100 in his pocket and the titles of 1958 Boxing Champion and the Crown Colony Cha Cha Champion of Hong Kong.[3] He relocated to the United States through his citizenship to earn an education. After living in San Francisco, he moved to Seattle to work for Ruby Chow, another friend of his father's. In 1959, Lee completed his high school education in Seattle and received his diploma from Edison Technical School. He enrolled at the University of Washington and studied philosophy, drama, and psychology, among other subjects.[13][14][15] It was at the University of Washington that he met his future wife Linda Emery, whom he would marry in 1964.

He had two children with Linda, Brandon Lee (1965–1993) and Shannon Lee (1969-). Brandon, who also became an actor like his father, died in an accident during the filming of The Crow in 1993. Shannon Lee also became an actress and appeared in some low-budget films starting in the mid 1990s, but has since quit acting.


Names
This article contains Chinese text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Chinese characters.
Lee's Cantonese given name was Jun Fan (振藩; Mandarin Pinyin: Zhènfán).[16] At his birth, he additionally was given the English name of "Bruce" by a Dr. Mary Glover. Though Mrs. Lee had not initially planned on an English name for the child, she deemed it appropriate and would concur with Dr. Glover's addition.[17] However, his American name was never used within his family until he enrolled in La Salle College (a Hong Kong high school) at the age of 12,[16] and again at another high school (St. Francis Xavier's College in Kowloon), where Lee would come to represent the boxing team in inter-school events.

Lee initially had the birth name Li Yuen Kam[2] (李炫金); Mandarin Pinyin: Lǐ Xuànjīn) given to him by his mother, as at the time, Lee's father was away on a Chinese opera tour. This name would later be abandoned because of a conflict with the name of Bruce's grandfather, causing him to be renamed Jun Fan upon his father's return. Also of note is that Lee was given a feminine name, Sai Fung (細鳳, literally "small phoenix"), which was used throughout his early childhood in keeping with a Chinese custom, traditionally thought to hide a child from evil spirits.

Lee's screen names were respectively Lee Siu Lung (in Cantonese), and Li Xiao Long (in Mandarin) (李小龍; Cantonese pengyam: Ley5 Siu² Long4; Mandarin Pinyin: Lǐ Xiǎolóng) which literally translates to "Lee the Little Dragon" in English. These names were first used by director 袁步雲 of the 1950 Cantonese movie 細路祥, in which Lee would perform. It is possible that the name "Lee Little Dragon" was based on his childhood name of "small dragon", as, in Chinese tradition, the dragon and phoenix come in pairs to represent the male and female genders respectively. The more likely explanation is that he came to be called "Little Dragon" because, according to the Chinese zodiac, he was born in the Year of the Dragon.


Acting career
Lee's father Hoi-Chuen was a famous Cantonese Opera star. Thus, through his father, Bruce was introduced into films at a very young age and appeared in several short black-and-white films as a child. Lee had his first role as a baby who was carried onto the stage. By the time he was 18, he had appeared in twenty films.[3]

While in the United States from 1959–1964, Lee abandoned thoughts of a film career in favor of pursuing martial arts. However, after Lee's high-profile martial arts demonstration at the 1964 Long Beach Karate Tournament, he was seen by some of the nation's most proficient martial artists—as well as the hairdresser of Batman producer William Dozier.[citation needed] Dozier soon invited Lee for an audition, where Lee so impressed the producers with his lightning-fast moves that he earned the role of Kato alongside Van Williams in the TV series The Green Hornet. The show lasted just one season, from 1966 to 1967. Lee also played Kato in three crossover episodes of Batman. This was followed by guest appearances in a host of television series, including Ironside (1967) and Here Come the Brides (1


In 1969, Lee made a brief appearance in his first American film Marlowe where he played a henchman hired to intimidate private detective Philip Marlowe (played by James Garner) by smashing up his office with leaping kicks and flashing punches, only to later accidentally jump off a tall building while trying to kick Marlowe off. In 1971, Lee appeared in four episodes of the television series Longstreet as the martial arts instructor of the title character Mike Longstreet (played by James Franciscus). Bruce would later pitch a television series of his own tentatively titled The Warrior. Lee's concept was retooled and renamed Kung Fu, but Warner Bros. gave Lee no credit.[18]Instead the role of the Shaolin monk in the Wild West, known to have been conceived by Bruce,[19] was awarded to then non-martial artist David Carradine because of the studio's fears that a Chinese leading man would not be embraced by a then vastly white American public.[20]

Not happy with his supporting roles in the U.S., Lee returned to Hong Kong and was offered a film contract by legendary director Raymond Chow to star in films produced by his production company Golden Harvest. Lee played his first leading role in The Big Boss (1971) which proved an enormous box office success across Asia and catapulted him to stardom. He soon followed up his success with two more huge box office successes: Fist of Fury (1972) and Way of the Dragon (1972). For Way of the Dragon, he took complete control of the film's production as the writer, director, star, and choreographer of the fight scenes. In 1964, at a demonstration in Long Beach, California, Lee had met karate champion Chuck Norris. In Way of the Dragon Lee introduced Norris to moviegoers as his opponent in the final death fight at the Colosseum in Rome, today considered one of Lee's most legendary fight scenes.

In 1973, Lee played the lead role in Enter the Dragon, the first film to be produced jointly by Golden Harvest and Warner Bros. This film would skyrocket Lee to fame in the U.S. and Europe. However, only a few months after the film's completion and three weeks before its release, the supremely fit Lee mysteriously died. Enter the Dragon would go on to become one of the year's highest grossing films and cement Lee as a martial arts legend. It was made for US$850,000 in 1973 (equivalent to $4 million adjusted for inflation as of 2007).[21] To date, Enter the Dragon has grossed over $200 million worldwide.[22] The movie sparked a brief fad in the martial-arts, epitomized in such songs as "Kung Fu Fighting" and such TV shows as Kung Fu.

Robert Clouse, the director of Enter the Dragon, and Raymond Chow attempted to finish Lee's incomplete film Game of Death which Lee was also set to write and direct. Lee had shot over 100 minutes of footage, including outtakes, for Game of Death before shooting was stopped to allow him to work on Enter the Dragon. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, a student of Lee, also appeared in the film, which culminates in Lee's character, Hai Tien (clad in the now-famous yellow track suit) taking on the 7'2" basketball player in a climactic fight scene. In a controversial move, Robert Clouse finished the film using a look-alike and archive footage of Lee from his other films with a new storyline and cast, which was released in 1979. However, the cobbled-together film contained only fifteen minutes of actual footage of Lee (he had printed many unsuccessful takes[23]) while the rest had a Lee look-alike, Tai Chung Kim, and Yuen Biao as stunt double. The unused footage Lee had filmed was recovered 22 years later and included in the documentary Bruce Lee: A Warrior's Journey.


Challengers on the set
Lee's celebrity and martial arts prowess often put him on a collision course with a number of street thugs, stunt men and martial arts extras, all hoping to make a name for themselves. Lee typically defused such challenges without fighting, but felt forced to respond to several persistent individuals.

Bob Wall, USPK karate champion and co-star in Enter the Dragon, recalled a particularly serious encounter that transpired after a film extra kept taunting Lee. The extra yelled that Lee was "a movie star, not a martial artist," that he "wasn't much of a fighter." Lee answered his taunts by asking him to jump down from the wall he was sitting on. Bob Wall described Lee's opponent as "a gang-banger type of guy from Hong Kong," a "damned good martial artist," and observed that he was fast, strong, and bigger than Bruce.[24]

Although Lee is best known as a martial artist and actor, he majored in philosophy at the University of Washington. He was well-read and had an extensive library. His own books on martial arts and fighting philosophy are known for their philosophical assertions both inside and outside of martial arts circles. His eclectic philosophy often mirrored his fighting beliefs, though he was quick to claim that his martial arts were solely a metaphor for such teachings. He believed that any knowledge ultimately led to self-knowledge, and said that his chosen method of self-expression was martial arts.[65] His influences include Taoism, Jiddu Krishnamurti, and Buddhism[66]. Lee was an atheist. When asked in 1972 what his religious affiliation was, he replied "none whatsoever," and expressed disbelief in God.[67]

The following quotations reflect his fighting philosophy.

"Be formless... shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle; it becomes the bottle. You put it into a teapot; it becomes the teapot. Water can flow, and it can crash. Be water, my friend..."
"All kind of knowledge, eventually becomes self knowledge"
"Use only that which works, and take it from any place you can find it."[68]
"Do not deny the classical approach, simply as a reaction, or you will have created another pattern and trapped yourself there
Death
A foreshadowing of events to come occurred on 10 May 1973, when Lee collapsed in Golden Harvest studios while doing dubbing work for Enter the Dragon. Suffering from full-body seizures and cerebral edema, he was immediately rushed to Hong Kong Baptist Hospital where doctors were able to reduce the swelling through the administration of mannitol and revive him. These same symptoms that occurred in his first collapse were later repeated on the day of his death.[82]

On 20 July 1973, Lee was in Hong Kong, due to have dinner with former James Bond star George Lazenby, with whom he intended to make a film. According to Lee's wife Linda, Lee met producer Raymond Chow at 2 p.m. at home to discuss the making of the movie Game of Death. They worked until 4 p.m. and then drove together to the home of Lee's colleague Betty Ting, a Taiwanese actress. The three went over the script at Ting's home, and then Chow left to attend a dinner meeting.

A short time later, Lee complained of a headache, and Ting gave him an analgesic (painkiller), Equagesic, which contained both aspirin and a muscle relaxant. Around 7:30 p.m., he went to lie down for a nap. After Lee did not turn up for dinner, Chow came to the apartment but could not wake Lee up. A doctor was summoned, who spent ten minutes attempting to revive him before sending him by ambulance to Queen Elizabeth Hospital. However, Lee was dead by the time he reached the hospital. There was no visible external injury; however, his brain had swollen considerably, from 1,400 to 1,575 grams (a 13% increase). Lee was 32 years old. The only two substances found during the autopsy were Equagesic and trace amounts of cannabis. On 15 October 2005, Chow stated in an interview that Lee died from a hypersensitivity to the muscle relaxant in Equagesic, which he described as a common ingredient in painkillers. When the doctors announced Lee's death officially, it was ruled a "death by misadventure."

Dr. Langford, who treated Lee for his first collapse, stated after his death that, "There's not a question in my mind that cannabis should have been named as the presumptive cause of death."[83] He also believed that, "Equagesic was not at all involved in Bruce's first collapse."[84] Professor R.D. Teare, who had overseen over 100,000 autopsies, was the top expert assigned to the Lee case. Dr. Teare declared that the presence of cannabis was mere coincidence, and added that it would be "irresponsible and irrational" to say that it might have triggered Lee's death. His conclusion was that the death was caused by an acute cerebral edema due to a reaction to compounds present in the prescription pain killing drug Equagesic.[85] Another doctor, Peter Wu's preliminary opinion was that the cause of death could have been a reaction to cannabis and Equagesic. Dr. Wu would later back off from this position however:

"Professor Teare was a forensic scientist recommended by Scotland Yard; he was brought in as an expert on cannabis and we can't contradict his testimony. The dosage of cannabis is neither precise nor predictable, but I've never known of anyone dying simply from taking it."[86]
The exact details of Lee's death are a subject of controversy.

His wife Linda returned to her home town of Seattle, and had him buried at lot 276 of Lakeview Cemetery. Pallbearers at his funeral on 31 July 1973, included Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Chuck Norris, George Lazenby, Dan Inosanto, Taky Kimura, Peter Chin, and his brother, Robert Lee.

His iconic status and young and unusual death fed many theories about his death, including murder involving the Triad society[87] and a supposed curse on him and his family.

The curse theory was extended to his son Brandon Lee, also an actor, who died, 20 years after his father, in a bizarre accident while filming The Crow at the age of 28. It was released after his death and gained cult status, as his father's last film had been, and did. (The Crow was completed with the use of computer-generated imagery and a stunt double in the few but critical scenes that remained to be filmed.) Brandon Lee was buried beside his father.