Bruce Lee.

At age five, Bruce Lee began appearing in minor Hong Kong films including The Birth of Mankind 1946 and Fu gui fu yun 1948. His father Lee Hoi-chuen was a Cantonese opera singer, and his mother Grace Ho was of mixed Chinese and European descent. After returning to Kowloon, young Lee attended La Salle College and was beaten by a street gang, prompting him to study wing chun kung fu under Sifu Yip Man for about five years. He also became an accomplished cha-cha dancer, winning a Hong Kong championship at age 18.

Lee’s quick temper led to repeated run-ins with the police, and in 1959 his parents sent him to the United States. After landing in San Francisco’s Chinatown and working in a relative’s restaurant, he moved to Seattle, Washington. There he enrolled at the University of Washington to study philosophy and opened his first kung fu school in 1963 at 4750 University Way.

Lee’s breakout came as Kato in the 1966 television series The Green Hornet, co-starring Van Williams. Despite the show’s cancellation after one season, Lee received more fan mail than the lead. He then opened a third kung fu school in Los Angeles and trained celebrities including Steve McQueen and James Coburn. A small role in Marlowe 1969 as Winslow Wong showcased his martial arts, followed by guest spots on Longstreet 1971.

Producer Raymond Chow of Golden Harvest offered Lee the lead in The Big Boss 1971, shot in Thailand on a low budget. The film was a massive hit in Hong Kong, leading to Fist of Fury 1972, which broke box office records. Lee then wrote, directed, and starred in The Way of the Dragon 1972, featuring a famous fight with Chuck Norris in Rome. In 1973, Hollywood backed Enter the Dragon, which became his most recognized film. Lee founded Concord Productions and developed Jeet Kune Do, a philosophy emphasizing flexibility and practicality.

Lee married Linda Lee Cadwell on August 17, 1964. The couple had two children: Brandon Lee, born in 1965, and Shannon Lee, born in 1969. Lee’s father died in February 1965, just eight days after Brandon’s birth. He maintained close friendships with martial artists and Hollywood figures such as Steve McQueen, James Coburn, and Chuck Norris, whom he trained with but never formally instructed.

On July 20, 1973, Lee died in Kowloon, Hong Kong at age 32. He had taken a headache tablet called Equagesic at actress Betty Ting Pei’s apartment and later could not be revived. The official cause was cerebral edema caused by a reaction to the medication. His funeral drew nearly 30,000 mourners in Hong Kong, and a second service in Seattle was attended by pallbearers including Steve McQueen and James Coburn.

UFC President Dana White calls Lee the father of MMA. His Jeet Kune Do philosophy influenced modern combat sports. Lee received a posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was inducted into the California Hall of Fame. A bronze statue was unveiled in Hong Kong in 2005 on what would have been his 65th birthday; another stands in Bosnia as a symbol of bridging cultural divides. His impact extends to video games, with characters like Liu Kang in Mortal Kombat and Fei Long in Street Fighter paying tribute. Lee’s son Brandon became an actor but died in 1993 while filming The Crow 1994. Lee is best known for his martial arts films that popularized kung fu worldwide.