Brandon Lee was on the verge of establishing his identity as an actor outside the shadow
of his legendary father when he was suddenly killed in an accident on the set of The Crow.
This is his tragic true-life story.
Brandon Lee was born on February 1, 1965, in Oakland, California, the eldest of martial
artist and actor Bruce Lee's two children.
He was very close to his father, and the two had a playful relationship throughout Brandon's
early childhood.
In 1986, Brandon told Black Belt Magazine that he and his dad used to goof around a
lot together.
Nevertheless, the serious business of fitness and martial arts was always on his father's
mind.
As Brandon told Black Belt,
"We worked out together and he would show me things.
He was always training."
"I started training with my dad really as soon as I could walk, I mean, my dad was a
really diligent trainer."
Sadly, father and son never got the opportunity to get serious about martial arts together.
As Brandon recalled,
"My dad and I used to talk about martial arts sometimes, and I remember thinking, 'I'll
get a little older and dad will quit working quite so much, and he'll have more time'...I
always assumed there would be a time when we began training more formally.
Unfortunately, we never got to do that."
Bruce Lee was only 32 when he died of a swelling of the brain on July 20, 1973.
Following his father's passing, eight-year-old Brandon moved to Seattle with his mother and
sister.
Growing up the child of the most famous martial artist of all time took an emotional toll
on Brandon Lee.
He spent much of his early childhood facing down schoolyard bullies anxious to get the
best of Bruce Lee's son, and his teen years were even more tumultuous.
However, his adversaries were no longer wannabe tough guys.
Authority itself became his number-one enemy.
He was kicked out of two high schools, and as he told People Magazine in 1992,
"I always had a pretty good knack for raising hell."
According to Jim Spalding, Lee's former chemistry teacher at the Chadwick School in Palos Verdes,
California,
"He didn't need school, and he thumbed his nose at the rules."
The charismatic Lee organized protests against the school administration, convincing his
fellow students not to attend class.
He would find himself expelled from the school for misbehavior and insubordination in the
spring of 1983, only a few months short of graduation.
Among his most notorious high school antics, and the last straw for the faculty, was driving
his car in reverse through oncoming traffic through campus.
Lee's penchant for hell-raising would eventually abate as he matured.
Nevertheless, he still had a wild side.
His close friend and fellow actor Lou Diamond Phillips described him as a, quote, "boiling
mass of energy."
Despite his rebellious ways and frequent clashes with authority, Lee was an intelligent student
with an aptitude for English and writing.
According to his sister Shannon, he was a voracious reader who constantly carried a
dictionary in case he encountered a word he didn't know.
Most impressively, he even got a perfect score on the English section of the SAT.
However, his language skills and love of books weren't enough to keep him within the confines
of a typical curriculum.
He was expelled from two high schools because of discipline issues, and he would go on to
drop out of a third.
Still, he understood the value of a diploma and pursued a GED.
Soon after, he left California to attend Emerson College in Boston, but he spent most of his
time going to New York City to pursue his dream of becoming a serious dramatic actor.
He ultimately dropped out of Emerson after a year and returned to Los Angeles.
Brandon Lee had a keen awareness of his status as the son of Bruce Lee, and he struggled
with it to varying degrees throughout his life.
As a budding actor, he knew the potential consequences of being the son of a celebrity,
so he contemplated keeping his parentage secret.
He once wrote,
"I think that I could share the fact that I am Bruce Lee's son with someone else.
It is a fact that it is both a burden and a blessing, which one it is will be determined
in years to come when I intend to share it with the whole world."
Despite his obvious love and admiration for his dad, his relationship with the legend
of Bruce Lee inspired ambivalence and often suspicion.
When asked about living in his father's shadow, Brandon told Black Belt Magazine,
"It used to be a real problem in my own head when I was younger...I would be thinking 'Does
this person like me, or is this person just screwing with me because I'm Bruce Lee's son?'"
Following in his father's footsteps was the last thing on Brandon's mind, even though
he ultimately did become an action star.
Acting, not martial arts, was his main focus.
Searching for his own identity, he avoided martial arts training for a time, putting
all of his energy into becoming a serious dramatic actor.
Nevertheless, his family name seemed to close more doors than it opened, at least when it
came to the kind of roles that he wanted.
Lee made his acting debut in the 1986 made-for-TV film Kung Fu: The Movie, which was based on
the 70s TV series of the same name.
The show starred David Carradine in the lead role, though Lee's father had also been considered
for the part.
In 1987, Brandon Lee would find himself once again involved in a Kung Fu follow-up.
This time it was a pilot called Kung Fu: The Next Generation, in which he starred as young
troublemaker Johnny Caine, the great-great-grandson of the original show's protagonist.
Unfortunately, the pilot turned out to be an unqualified misfire.
With a nonsensical plot involving arms dealers, Kung Fu: The Next Generation failed to generate
network or audience interest.
It only aired once as part of CBS Summer Playhouse, a showcase for unsold pilots that invited
viewers to call in to decide the show's fate.
This would ultimately be Lee's last major foray into TV.
"Welcome to the family business."
Like his father, Brandon Lee first found professional success in Hong Kong.
His film debut was 1986's Legacy of Rage, in which he plays squeaky clean Brandon Ma,
an average guy who's framed for homicide by his drug dealer friend Michael.
Following eight brutal years in prison, Brandon takes bloody revenge on his duplicitous pal
and his gang.
Packed with gunfights, car chases, and a simple good-guys-versus-bad-guys plot, Legacy of
Rage was a hit with Asian audiences.
It even earned Lee a nomination for Best New Performer at the Hong Kong Film Awards.
Despite its international success, though, the film wouldn't be released in the United
States until 1998, five years after Lee's death.
Lee's next leading film role was the 1989 low-budget action flick Laser Mission.
Cast opposite an aging Ernest Borgnine, Lee stars as a mercenary who's tasked with rescuing
a scientist from the KGB.
Originally released under the title Soldier of Fortune, the film came out straight to
video in 1990.
Although it turned a profit, it was critically panned and regularly turns up on lists of
great bad movies.
Lee followed up Laser Mission with the somewhat more successful Showdown in Little Tokyo with
Dolph Lundgren and a breakout starring role in the action film Rapid Fire.
According to former Marvel CEO Margaret Loesch, Stan Lee wanted the actor to star as a live-action
incarnation of Shang-Chi in either a film or TV show.
Shang-Chi first appeared in the comic book series Special Marvel Edition in 1973.
He was created by Jim Starlin and Steve Englehart in response to the kung fu craze of the early
70s following Marvel's failed attempt to obtain the rights to the TV show Kung Fu.
Conceived as the son of the villainous Dr. Fu Manchu, Shang-Chi rebels against his father's
evil ways to become a hero.
According to Loesch, Stan Lee had a particular affinity for Shang-Chi.
She told Inverse,
"Stan did believe in the character.
He used that as an example of the comic that could transition into the movie and television
world."
Brandon Lee caught the iconic comic mogul's eye in the late 80s, so Stan called Brandon
and his mother in for a meeting to discuss potential Marvel characters that the young
actor could play.
As Loesch recounted to Inverse,
"Stan had great hope [for Brandon].
He thought Brandon would be a future star."
Alas, the Shang-Chi project never came to fruition.
Brandon Lee was offered the chance to play his father in the 1993 biopic Dragon: The
Bruce Lee Story.
But he turned it down, citing discomfort with the material.
In an interview on the British series The Little Picture Show, he explained his trepidation.
"I was a little scared by the whole thing, really.
It's strange to play your own father, you know?"
Career concerns and time also played a part in Lee's decision, as he noted,
"It's funny, too, because to tell you the truth, if it had come along later in my career,
I might have more seriously considered it, but as it is, it's so early in my career,
it's the kind of thing I just feel like it could be a career-ender."
So, the role would ultimately go to Jason Scott Lee, no relation, who has noted that
advice from Brandon Lee was integral to his success in the role.
As he told The New York Times in 1993,
"Brandon said something that was very simple.
He said I wouldn't survive in this part if I treated his father like a god.
He said his father was, after all, a man who had a profound destiny, but he was not a god."
The film was dedicated to Brandon Lee, as it was released less than a month after the
accident that took his life.
The greatest tragedy about the accident that killed Brandon Lee on the set of The Crow
is that it could've been avoided.
The scene seemed simple compared to many of the film's other action sequences.
Actor Michael Massee was to fire a round from a .44-caliber revolver loaded with blanks.
Lee, who was holding a grocery bag outfitted with a small explosive charge, was to react
to the simulated bullet and fall.
Initially, it seemed that Lee and Massee had nailed it all perfectly.
But then Lee didn't get up.
The actor was bleeding from a silver dollar-sized wound in his abdomen as he was rushed to the
New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington, North Carolina.
He underwent five hours of surgery to repair the damage that he'd suffered.
Surgeons discovered what appeared to be a .44-caliber slug lodged in his spine.
Despite the doctors' best efforts, Lee passed away on March 31, 1993 from massive blood
loss.
Somehow, a dummy slug used to make the prop weapon appear loaded for a close-up in a prior
scene had gotten lodged in the barrel, creating the equivalent of a real bullet.
Unfortunately, weapons specialist J.B. Jones had been sent home prior to shooting the scene,
and no one else had thought to check the weapon.
In 2005, Massee spoke with Extra about the accident.
"Since then, I am very conscious of the dangers of making a movie, and it is a dangerous proposition."
At the time of his death, Lee was engaged to his longtime girlfriend Eliza Hutton.
Their wedding was scheduled for April 17, 1993, just over two weeks after Lee's death.
His headstone would serve as a tribute to the couple's love.
Etched into the black granite monument are the words,
"For Brandon and Eliza / Ever Joined In True Love's Beauty."
That's followed by a passage from the 1949 novel The Sheltering Sky that Lee quoted in
one of his final interviews:
"Because we do not know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible
well, and yet everything happens only a certain number of times.
How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood that is so deeply
a part of your being you can't even conceive of your life without it?
Perhaps four or five times more?
Perhaps not even that.
How many more times will you watch the full moon rise?
Perhaps twenty.
And yet it all seems limitless."