Wilkipedia Entry

Early life

Brandon Lee was born in Oakland, California, to the legendary martial artist actor Bruce Lee and his wife Linda Emery. The family moved to Los Angeles, California when Brandon was three months old, but when offers for film roles became limited for his father the family moved back to his father's childhood home of Hong Kong in 1971; Bruce Lee made three films there between 1971 and 1973.

When Brandon was eight, his father died suddenly from a cerebral edema. After her husband's death, Linda Lee moved the family (including daughter Shannon, who was born in 1969) back to the United States. They lived briefly in his mother's hometown of Seattle (where Bruce Lee is buried), and then in Los Angeles, where Brandon grew up in the affluent area of Rolling Hills. According to his mother, he was "a handful" - "either the teacher's pet, or the teacher's nightmare."

He attended high school at Chadwick School, but was expelled for insubordination three months before graduating. He received his GED in 1983, and then went to Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts where he majored in theater. After one year, Lee moved to New York City where he took acting lessons at the famed Lee Strasberg Academy and was part of the American New Theatre group founded by his friend John Lee Hancock. The bulk of Brandon's martial arts instruction came from Bruce Lee's top student Dan Inosanto.

Early career

Lee returned to Los Angeles in 1985, where he worked for Ruddy Morgan Productions as a script reader. He was asked to audition for a role by casting director Lyn Stalmaster and made his acting debut in Kung Fu: The Movie, which was a feature-length television movie and a follow-up to the 1970s television series Kung Fu. The film aired on ABC on Brandon's 21st birthday on February 1, 1986. In Kung Fu: The Movie, Lee played Chung Wang, the suspected son of Kwai Chang Caine (played by David Carradine). Towards the end of the film, Chung Wang asks Caine if he is his father. The question seems somewhat ironic since in real life Brandon's father was the chief contender for the role of Caine in the original TV series.

Herbie Pilato, in his 1993 book The Kung Fu Book of Caine: The Complete Guide to TV's First Mystical Eastern Western, commented on the casting of the original Kung Fu series:

Before the filming of the Kung Fu TV series began, there was some discussion as to whether or not an Asian actor should play Kwai Chang Caine. Bruce Lee was considered for the role. In 1971, Bruce Lee wasn't the cult film hero he later became for his roles in The Big Boss (1971), Fist of Fury (1972), Way of the Dragon (1972), Enter the Dragon (1973), and Game of Death (1978). At that point he was best known as Kato on TV's Green Hornet (1966-1967). After Bruce Lee lost the part to Carradine, he went back to China, where he made The Big Boss, the film that began his legendary career in martial arts movies, (page 157).

Later that same year Lee got his first major film role in the Hong Kong action thriller Legacy of Rage in which he starred alongside Michael Wong and Bolo Yeung, the latter of whom also appeared in his father's last film, Enter the Dragon. The film was made in Cantonese, and directed by Ronny Yu. It was also the only film Lee made in Hong Kong.

Lee then went to star in another television film, titled Kung Fu: The Next Generation (1987) which was another follow-up to the television series Kung Fu. In this film the story moved to the present day, and centered on the story of Johnny Caine (Lee), who is the great-grandson of Kwai Chang Caine.

Lee then made a guest appearance in the short-lived American television series Ohara (1988) as Kenji, son of title character Lt. Ohara (played by Pat Morita).

[edit] Later career

In 1990 he starred in his first English language B-grade film, Laser Mission, which was filmed cheaply in South Africa in 1988. In 1991, he starred opposite Dolph Lundgren in the buddy cop action thriller Showdown in Little Tokyo which marked his first studio film and American film debut. Lee signed a multi-picture deal with 20th Century Fox in 1991. He had his first starring role in the action thriller Rapid Fire in 1992, and was scheduled to do two more films for them.

In 1992, Lee landed the lead role of Eric Draven, an undead vigilante avenging his murder, and that of his fiancée, in the movie adaptation of The Crow, a popular underground comic book. About his character Lee said, "He has something he has to do and he is forced to put aside his own pain long enough to go do it".

It would be Brandon Lee's last film. Filming began on February 1, 1993, which was his 28th birthday.

[edit] Death
Lee in his final film, The Crow (1994), which he was filming when he died.
Lee in his final film, The Crow (1994), which he was filming when he died.

On March 31, 1993, there were eight days left before the shooting schedule for The Crow was to be completed. The scene being filmed on this day involved Lee's character Eric Draven walking into his apartment and discovering his girlfriend being raped by thugs. This would subsequently lead to Eric being brutally killed, along with his girlfriend, by the thugs. Actor Michael Massee, playing Funboy, one of the film's villains, was supposed to fire a gun at Lee as he walked into his apartment with groceries.

Because the movie's second unit team were running behind schedule, it was decided that dummy cartridges—cartridges that outwardly appear to be functional, but contain no gunpowder or primer—would be made from real cartridges, which had been brought to the set earlier in production. Bruce Merlin, an effects technician, dismantled the live cartridges by removing the bullets, emptying out the gunpowder, detonating the primer and reinserting the bullets. This rendered the cartridges inoperative but realistic in appearance. Merlin and his propmaster, Daniel Kuttner, took initiative to create some blanks by removing live cartridges and replacing the gunpowder with firework powder; the bullets were not reinserted.

Later, a cartridge with only a primer and a bullet was fired in a pistol; this caused a squib load, in which the primer provided enough force to push the bullet out of the cartridge and into the barrel of the revolver, where it became stuck. The malfunction went unnoticed by the crew, and the same gun was used again later to shoot the death scene, having been re-loaded with blanks. However, the squib load was still lodged in the barrel, and was propelled by the blank cartridge's explosion out of the barrel and into Lee's body. Although the bullet was traveling much slower than a normally fired bullet would be, the bullet's large size and the nearly point-blank firing distance made it powerful enough to severely wound Lee as cameras were rolling at the Carolco Studios in Wilmington, North Carolina. Seconds later, director Alex Proyas stopped the scene, but Lee remained on the floor. Stuntman Coordinator (and Lee's friend) Jeff Imada ran over to him with a paramedic, and discovered a thin slit an inch below and to the right of his navel. By this time, Lee had slipped into unconsciousness and was rushed to the hospital where doctors discovered that a bullet was the cause of the damage. They fought for five hours in an attempt to save him, but at 1:04 PM he was pronounced dead at the age of 28.

His funeral was held several days later; he was buried next to his father in Lake View Cemetery, Capitol Hill, Seattle, Washington. The following day, a memorial service was held in Los Angeles, California. Jeff Imada, Lee's closest friend; and Eliza Hutton, Lee's intended bride, were so shocked they couldn't speak, while his mother, Linda Lee, reminded everyone, "Brandon would want this to be a happy occasion; we are here to celebrate his life." The footage of the incident was soon destroyed without ever being developed.

The shooting was ruled as an accident, although many fans suspected foul play. (Bruce Lee's own death in 1973, at the age of 32, apparently from a reaction to an analgesic he had taken, was also considered suspicious.) Bruce Lee's character in the 1978 version of Game of Death is shot in a similar fashion. His character, like that of his son in The Crow, returns from the dead to get revenge on his adversaries.

Some fans also suspected that Lee's death was all part of the theory of the curse which was also suspected when Lee's father died. The tragic circumstances surrounding Lee's death also eerily mirrored what had happened to his father as Lee had died nearly 20 years after his father; both deaths were very mysterious and Brandon would also die before the release of a film that would have been his breakthrough role.

Legacy

After his death, his fiancée Eliza Hutton and his mother supported director Alex Proyas' decision to complete The Crow. At the time of Lee's death, only eight days were left before completion of the movie. A majority of the film had already been completed with Lee and only a few scenes had to be done.

To complete the film, a stunt double (Chad Stahelski), who was a friend of Lee's at the famed Inosanto Academy was used as a stand-in and special effects were used to add Lee's face onto the stunt double. Another stunt double named Jeff Cadiente was also used to complete the movie (Cadiente was already Brandon Lee's stunt double on The Crow and they were also good friends). These scenes were filmed after Lee's death:

* Eric Draven's death in flashbacks (this was the scene Brandon was filming at the time he had died);

* a scene with Eric walking into his apartment after returning from the dead was digitally composited from a scene of Lee walking into an alleyway with raindrops added (the rest of the scenes in the apartment were all done with the double);

* Lee's face was digitally composited onto the stunt double when Eric puts on make-up in front of a mirror and walks towards the broken down window of his apartment;

* When Sarah (Rochelle Davis) visits Eric, his face is not seen as it is actually the stunt double.

* When Eric Draven plays his guitar on the rooftops it is one of Brandon Lee's body doubles.

* During T-Bird's demise Eric Draven does not speak, nor is his face shown; the close-up of Draven's face was from a deleted shot.

* After the shootout at Top Dollar's the scene where Eric Draven is running on the rooftops from the police was filmed with a double and his escape in Officer Albrecht (Ernie Hudson)'s car.

The Crow was released in May 1994 and became a box office hit. The film is dedicated to Lee and his fiancée Eliza Hutton. They were to have been married on April 17, 1993, in Mexico. Lee is survived by his mother and sister.
The grave site of Brandon Lee and his father, Bruce Lee
The grave site of Brandon Lee and his father, Bruce Lee

In an interview just prior to his death, Brandon quoted a passage from Paul Bowles' book The Sheltering Sky that he had chosen for his wedding invitations; it is now inscribed on his tombstone:

"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, and a very small number really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, an afternoon that is so deeply a part of your being that you cannot 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..."

The Interview can be seen on VHS and DVD of the The Crow.

[edit] Personal life
Brandon Lee and his Fiancée Eliza Hutton in 1992.
Brandon Lee and his Fiancée Eliza Hutton in 1992.

In 1990, Brandon met Eliza "Lisa" Hutton at director Renny Harlin's office, located at the headquarters of 20th Century Fox. Hutton was working as a personal assistant to Harlin, and later became a Story Editor for Stillwater Productions, in 1991. Lee and Harlin shared an agent at the time at William Morris Agency. Lee was immediately smitten, and soon the two were very much in love. They moved in together in 1991 and became engaged in October of 1992.

They were to be married in Mexico on April 17, 1993, a week after Lee was to complete filming on The Crow - just 18 days after he died. At the time of Lee's death, Hutton was working as a Casting Assistant and was on set of his film The Crow so much that she was later credited with being Brandon's on-set assistant. After his death, Hutton petitioned to have gun safety regulations tightened on film sets.