The transcript below is from the video “The One And Only Wife Of Bruce Lee: What Happened To Her?” by Celebrity Reporter.

Celebrity Reporter:

And this is the story of Bruce Lee’s wife, Linda Lee Cadwell. Linda Lee Cadwell is the widow of Kung Fu’s finest legend Bruce Lee. Linda has had an aspiring life as a martial artist, writer, teacher, and philanthropist. In the nine years she lived with Bruce Lee, Linda describes life with the martial artist as a fantastic experience; one that she will always hold dear. Bruce’s untimely death left her devastated, but she was determined to rise above her misfortune. Linda Lee, the widow of the late Kung Fu star Bruce Lee, attends the funeral of her husband full of tears and sadness that cannot be described with words. With her husband’s demise, she was left with two young kids in her care. But, the soulful mom gracefully took the mantle and lived her life the best way she knew. Linda Emery Cadwell was born on 21st March 1945 in Everett, Washington, to a Baptist family. When she turned 5 years old, her father passed away and she had a hard time accepting that. After her father’s death, her family decided to move to Seattle. She was raised along with her sister and her mother tried her best to give her all love and support when she was at her early age.

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She is of Swedish-Irish-English-based race, which defines her outstanding beauty and poses. Linda Lee Cadwell’s height is 5 feet 7 inches. For her education, she attended Garfield High School and completed her school-level study from there. After that, she joined the University of Washington in order to become a teacher. While there, she had her first encounter with Bruce Lee. This happened when Bruce Lee came to demonstrate gung fu in a class and she was there watching. Fascinated with Bruce Lee’s talent and fluent martial art skills, she began taking class and learning with Lee while they were in the same University. Theirs was love at first sight, since they both had an instant attraction to each other. Linda and Bruce met in 1963 and tied the knot on 17th August 1964. At the time of her marriage to Bruce, Linda was nineteen years old and short of a few credits to graduate from university. While talking about her life with the coveted martial artist, Linda said this of Bruce Lee, “He was dynamic. From the very first moment I met him, I thought, this guy is something else.

Celebrity Reporter:

And what better way to attest to this than to watch Bruce Lee’s wife herself tell us all about it: The newlyweds moved to California, and Lee who had begun developing a new fighting style called Jeet Kune Do, ultimately opened three schools in Los Angeles, Oakland, California, and Seattle. He also began to pursue his acting more seriously, and landed a part in the TV series The Green Hornet. The show was based on a 1930s radio program, and Lee played the role of the Hornet’s Asian assistant, Kato. He virtually created the role, imbuing Kato with a theatrical fighting style quite unlike that which Lee taught in his schools. The show would be cancelled after one season, but fans would long remember Lee’s role. After the end of The Green Hornet, Lee made guest appearances on TV shows such as Longstreet and Ironside. His most notable role during this time was in the film Marlowe (1969) with James Garner, when he played a memorable part as a high-kicking villain. Clearly Lee had the qualities of a star; but it was just as clear that an Asian American faced limitations within the Hollywood system, which tended to cast Oriental actors in stereotypical roles.

Celebrity Reporter:

Therefore in 1971, the Lees, including son Brandon (born 1965), and daughter Shannon (born 1967) moved to Hong Kong. Here we have an exclusive footage of Linda describing the challenges face by her late husband, Bruce Lee to becoming an actor in Hollywood. What was unbeknownst to them at that time was Bruce Lee is going to revolutionize the world on how we will view martial arts. Back in Hong Kong, Lee soon signed a two-film contract, and released the movie known to U.S. audiences as Fists of Fury late in 1971. The story, which featured Lee as a fighter seeking revenge on those who had killed his kung fu master, was not original in itself; but the presentation of it was, and the crucial element was Lee. He combined the smooth, flowing style of jeet kune do that he taught in his schools with the loud, aggressive, and highly theatrical methods he had employed as Kato. With the graceful, choreographic qualities of his movements; his good looks and charm; his sense of humor and his acting ability, Lee was one of a kind-a star in the making. Fists of Fury set box-office records in Hong Kong which were broken only by his next picture, The Chinese Connection, in 1972.

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Lee established his own film company, Concord Pictures, and began directing movies. The first of these would appear in the U.S. as Way of the Dragon. Lee was enthusiastic about his future, not merely as a performer, but as an artist: “With any luck, I hope to make the kind of movie where you can just watch the surface story, if you like, or can look deeper into it.” Unfortunately, Lee would not live to explore his full potential as a filmmaker: on July 20, 1973, three weeks before his fourth film, Enter the Dragon, was released in the United States, he died suddenly. His death was untimely and a shock to his loved ones and fans especially more so for his wife, Linda Lee. He was 32 years, and his career was at the peak till he succumbed to cerebral oedema. Lee’s death became a source of controversy. Officially the cause of death was brain swelling as a reaction to aspirin he had taken for a back injury. But the suddenness of his passing, combined with his youth, his good health, and the bizarre timing on the verge of his explosion as an international superstar, spawned rumors that he had been killed by hit men. Some speculated he had run afoul of the Chinese mafia and other powerful interests in the Hong Kong film industry, and had been poisoned.

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Throughout his life, Lee had been obsessed by fears of his early death, and some believed that the brilliant young star had some sort of bizarre “curse” on him. According to legend and rumor, when Lee bought a house in Hong Kong shortly before his death, he incurred the wrath of the neighborhood’s resident demons. The curse is said to last for three generation. Tragically, the notion of a curse gained eerie credence on June 18, 1993-a month and two days before the 20th anniversary of Lee’s death-when Brandon Lee died under equally strange circumstances. While filming a scene for the movie The Crow, he was shot by a gun that supposedly contained blanks but in fact had a live round lodged in its chamber. Like his father, Brandon Lee was on the verge of stardom. Lee gave the world an enormous artistic legacy, in the process virtually creating a new cinematic art form. By the 1990s, Enter the Dragon alone had grossed more than $100 million, and Lee’s influence could be found in the work of numerous Hollywood action heroes. For example, in 1993, Jason Scott Lee appeared in Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, directed by Rob Cohen. Actress Lauren Holly played Lee’s wife Linda, and Holly became friends with Lee’s daughter Shannon.

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Linda is the epitome of resilience. She is an attest to the statement “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” Being single with 2 children at that time, Lee had no choice but to sell of Her love life has been turbulent, apart from being married to Bruce Lee, Linda remarried several times after losing her first husband. Linda Lee and Tom Bleecker tied the knot in 1988. However, theirs was not a “forever at last” relationship. They divorced two years later, and the media was trolling Linda Lee with all reasons for gossip. Shortly after divorcing Bleecker, Linda married Bruce Cadwell in 1991 and settled in Southern California. Cadwell was by then a stockbroker and made a living out of it. To date, the couple is retired and continues to enjoy each other’s company. They spend time playing golf and travelling together. Her life as Lee’s widow has always been perceived with lots of speculations, including, “Is Linda Lee Cadwell still alive?” Outrightly, Linda is still alive and lives in Boise, Idaho, with her current husband, Bruce Cadwell. Linda is the founder of the Bruce Lee Foundation, which she co-directs with her daughter, Shanon.

Celebrity Reporter:

Linda Lee Cadwell’s wealth is estimated to be $12 million as of 2021. Most of her proceeds emanate from her successful writing career. Her best-selling book is Bruce Lee: The Man Only I Knew. Still, her inheritance of the Bruce Lee estate has been a significant source of wealth for the philanthropist who took over from her late husband. Linda Lee Cadwell is currently taking life at a slow pace. She likes the country life and has handed over the estate to her daughter. When Cadwell makes appearances at the organization, it is usually in the capacity of a volunteer. Currently, the 76-year-old is an aspiring pianist. Indeed, she is remarkable even in her later years. However, even after forty eight years of the day after the untimely death of the legend, the legacy of Bruce Lee lives on: a cultural icon of Hong Kong, a great exponent of the martial arts and a philosopher whose words continue to serve as an inspiration, bonding people of different generations and cultures across the world. Nonetheless, Linda Lee and her daughter, Shannon Lee had quite a difficult time getting along with the siblings of the late Bruce Lee.

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The two sides of the family have often pursued projects devoted to Bruce separately What little communication there has been has more often come in the form of e-mail exchanges and letters from lawyers, rather than heartwarming phone calls and family gatherings. The division in the Lee family is no secret. The first factor is, distance since most live in different parts of the United States. Cultural differences also come into play, with Lee’s siblings forming a traditional Chinese family. Shannon and Cadwell, who has remarried twice since Bruce’s death, are all American. “We are not on bad terms,” Shannon said. “We just don’t communicate very often.” At the crux of the family feud are the lucrative rights to Bruce’s name, image and work. Rights issues have become an unshakable problem for the Lee family since Bruce’s death from acute cerebral edema. Records of the office of the secretary of state of California show that in 1985, Cadwell, Lee’s late son Brandon and Shannon made claims as successor-in interest to the rights of a deceased personality under California code Section 3344.1.

Celebrity Reporter:

The code offers protection of the rights to a person “whose name, voice, signature, photograph, or likeness has commercial value at the time of his or her death” for the immediate family – a surviving spouse, children, grandchildren, or surviving parent or grandparents. Public records show Cadwell claimed 50 per cent of “all types of rights” as Lee’s surviving spouse under the name Linda Lee. Brandon and Shannon each claimed 25 per cent as Lee’s surviving children. Shannon was just four when Bruce died. The Bruce Lee Foundation was established in 2002 as a charity to promote Bruce’s legacy. Shannon serves as president and it is chaired by Linda Lee Cadwell. When Bruce Lee’s movie called Bruce Lee, My Brother, is produced by the real siblings of Bruce Lee, Robert Lee and his two sisters, they received legal letters from Shannon’s lawyer before the movie was released in 2010. This is because they did not have the right to use Bruce Lee’s image or likeness as images of Bruce Lee is currently being handled by the Bruce Lee’s Foundation. When asked about this, Robert said that he tried to involve Shannon by giving her the details of the investors.

Celebrity Reporter:

“Then she didn’t want to work with me. She wanted the whole deal to herself,”. “We don’t talk as much as I would like to. They don’t want to collaborate with us. We are one family. There is no reason why we shouldn’t collaborate. We share different parts of Bruce’s life.” In another case of rivalry, when the Bruce Lee Club of Hong Kong, of which Phoebe and Robert are honorary chairman, raised the money for the iconic statue of Bruce on the Avenue of Stars in Tsim Sha Tsui in 2005, they reached out to Shannon. But she chose not to get involved. “I’m not trying to take over the Bruce Lee empire,” said Robert. “I will soon be in my late sixties and semi-retired. I’m not interested in pursuing anything. If they think I’m trying to make money, I haven’t done except for from the movie.” He says the two books he wrote about Bruce – one in Chinese, the other in Japanese – sold only 1,000 copies each. Robert said: “Our family was never sued, but received threatening cease-and-desist letters from Linda’s ex-attorney. I stopped talking to Linda.” Clarence Lee who is another sibling of the late Bruce Lee, who lives in Macau and Hong Kong, said: “I’m speaking not just for this family but for any family.

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To speak through lawyers is kind of wrong.” He said his father and aunts were frustrated, as they wanted only to share their experiences with fans interested in Bruce’s childhood. Robert recalled a family that was closer back then, supporting each other when Bruce died even though Bruce’s siblings were in the United States when the news broke. Phoebe moved to the US with her American-born Chinese husband 43 years ago. Robert lived in the US at the time and returned to Hong Kong in 1975 to build his music career. When Bruce’s mother died in 1996, three years after a tragic accident on the set of the film The Crow claimed Brandon’s life, Shannon, then 27, did not attend the funeral. “Shannon and Cadwell did not visit mother during her last months and they did not attend her funeral,” Robert said. Bruce’s siblings say it is a far cry from Bruce’s attitude to his family.

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Phoebe, who is two years older than Bruce, said her beloved brother made family his top priority. She remembered the delight of her father, Cantonese opera maestro Lee Hoi-chuen, when he learned of Brandon’s birth in the United States. “He was very happy because it was the first grandchild and a son. You know what a son means in Chinese tradition,” she said. One week later, Lee Hoi-chuen passed away in his sleep. Bruce rushed back from California to attend the funeral. Phoebe said Bruce was devastated that he could not bid farewell to his father in person. “He walked on his knees from the outside to the altar. He was in tears, and I said to him, ‘Don’t cry, brother’,” Phoebe recalled. Phoebe is reluctant to speak about her relationship with Shannon and Cadwell. She said she didn’t really communicate with Cadwell and blamed her poor English. “I just wish one day things would work out … I hope all this can be resolved before my two sisters and I die,” he said. “Let’s tear the wall down.”