The transcript below is from the video “Bruce Lee the winner of dance contest!” by CurioSips.
CurioSips:
Bruce Lee went down in history as a legend of martial arts, a man who managed to be one of the most famous icons of the 20th century. Lee revolutionized action movies and spread great millennial knowledge all over the world. But apart from his successes and mysterious death, what do we really know about Bruce Lee? In this video, we will show you the lesser-known side of Bruce Lee.
CurioSips:
Bruce Lee was born on November 27th of 1940 in San Francisco, United States. His family had moved to the USA from Hong Kong due to the work commitments of Lee’s father, who was an opera singer. His mother Grace Ho was born in one of Hong Kong’s richest families but when she started dating Lee Hoi-chuen, she was punished and warned not to interact with people outside of aristocracy. However, the young woman did not hesitate and married the famous actor and opera singer being totally removed from her family fortune. And this is how Lee was born as an American citizen. Although his parents did not plan to call him Bruce, one of the nurses at the hospital where he was born, advised them so that they would not have problems with the visa. Despite this, his family still called him Sai-fon during his childhood, which is a girly name, meaning little Phoenix.
CurioSips:
Before even turning 18, Lee had already appeared in 20 feature films and which had nothing to do with the genre where we know him for. His debut on the big screen was when he was only 3 months old in the Chinese movie filmed in San Francisco called “Golden Gate Girl”, which premiered in 1941. Soon the family returned to Hong Kong and the young Lee continued to appear in various films, usually with the role of a problematic boy. That is how he became a humble child star of Cantonese cinema, with movies like [inaudible].
CurioSips:
His early years can be summed up in a street band, having various conflicts with British students and lousy school grades. However, Lee became an expert in the cha-cha after years of dance classes and fighting, but not only on the streets. He found his teacher at the age of 13 in 1953. Lee began to train kung-fu under the supervision of the legendary master Ip Man. 5 years later in 1958, Bruce Lee became champion of Hong Kong of the cha-cha and an amateur boxing champion. Despite these triumphs, a year later he was expelled from his third school in which he had studied. He had threatened his physical education teacher with a knife. At the age of 18, his parents sent him to Seattle in the US with the aim of offering him a better future. Then he started working as a waiter at a Chinese restaurant that his family friend Ruby Chow had. However, Li never saw this woman as his boss. He never called her by her last name or even respectful terms like aunt, only Ruby.
CurioSips:
Luckily, for a while Bruce was focused on his own problems and after completing a year of high school in his new American home, he entered the University of Washington, where he ended up graduating in philosophy, specializing in the principles of martial arts. During those years, Lee was dealing with his studies, teaching cha-cha and martial arts to his friends. And finally, he opened up his own martial arts school. He began to attend sessions of a Chinese martial arts society in which he nurtured different styles because at the time he only mastered kung-fu.
CurioSips:
In the 60s, Bruce Lee became an eminence of martial arts, not only having one of the first and best schools in the United States but creating his own style; the Jeet Kune Do. His new martial arts technique was a fusion of the different styles he had studied with caution, as well as some instinctive hip movements that he possessed with his mastery as a dancer. And in 1966, he played in the series “The Green Hornet”, which became so popular that quickly found people who trusted him and gave him the chance to advance his career. By the end of the 60s, Lee already focused on his career as an actor and only offered individual classes which were not cheap because he charged $270 an hour, which would be around $1,600 nowadays. However, this did not make celebrities such as Steve McQueen, Roman Polanski, the basketball player who appeared with him in his latest film, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar or Chuck Norris, let go of the privilege of having him as a teacher.
CurioSips:
Lee was also a lover of women and although he was married to Linda Emery, he once confessed that he was no saint. And for that reason, he was connected to several actresses at the time. And that they had all said that he was an exceptional lover. However, Linda was the woman of his life and according to him, his physical interest in other ladies meant nothing to his marriage. Years before his death, the actor said: If I should die tomorrow, I will have no regrets. I did what I wanted to do. You can’t expect more from my life. A sentence that perfectly describes the energetic personality of this icon.
CurioSips:
But if you thought we were going to finish the video without providing you interesting data about Bruce Lee, well you were wrong. Did you know that the 5 films shot in Hong Kong were among the films that have raised the most money in Asia? “Way of the Dragon” with $230 million worldwide, remains as the highest-grossing Asian film in history. But this is not the only Bruce Lee record, as everyone knows his superhuman physical abilities. Lee was able to embed his two fingers in a can of cola, kick a bag of 50 kg without a problem and his famous one-inch punch, which allowed him to throw his opponent who was about 70 kg even up to a few meters.
What do you think about the lesser-known side of Bruce Lee? Leave your comments below and don’t forget to subscribe to our channel and check out more videos like this one. So, until next time.
