Friends remember Lee in Seattle
UliliUIiMU
SEATTLE (AP) — James
DeMile recalls I ho first time
he ran into Urine Lee
It was 1*158. Asian Day on
Seattle's Capitol Hill.
A frail-looking 18-year-old Chinese kid with
thick, round glasses was demonstrating martial
arts movements.
To DeMile, a beefy, street-smart. 20-year-old for
mer Air Force champion boxer, it didn't look like
fighting.
"So I went up to him and said, 'Gee. kid. that
stuff looks good, but over here we're moan fight
ers."’
The kid challenged DeMile to try to hit him.
DeMile fired a straight right. The kill parried the
strike, then trapped both of DeMile’s arms.
“Before I knew it. boom. boom, boom! He was
hitting me on the head," DeMile rei ailed To fin
ish it off. the kid knocked on _
Those who knew him in .Seattle describe U*e as
a bit of a showboat — a look-at-me youth who cap
tured attention at parties and other gatherings hv
doing two-finger push-ups and other acrobatic
feats
loe also had a serious side to him.
"He could tell you the raunchiest |oke and the
next minute he would he spouting some deep phi
losophy," says Taky Ktmura. who became bee's
assistant instructor and his closest friend "He was
a very charismatic person."
"He would go out and find poems in Chinese
and come back to the HUH llhe University of
Washington's student center) and recite them and
ask me what I thought," said bonny Knnoko, who
Lee met at the UW "People talk about the extro
verted exterior he had. hut he was also sensitive “
While at UW. loe met and fell in love with Lin
da Emory, whom he would eventually marry
"At first I thought. 'This guy is pretlvYocky ' Hut
there's a difference between being
DeMile's forehead, as if to see if
anyone was home.
"That's when I met Brin e l.ee.
And 1 learned humility in about
five seconds," says DeMile, now a
kung-fu grandmaster who operates
a martial-arts school in north Seat
tle.
A decade later, Lee would go on
to stardom, finding fame in Hong
Kong, then in the United States as
international cinema's first mar
tial-arts box office superstar
But to DeMile and others, it was
the roughly five years Loo spent in
Seattle — his late teens and early
20s — that are among his most
revealing. The Seattle years —
largely overlooked in the recently
‘Those were
among the
happiest days we
spent together.
Bruce loved
Seattle. It was a
very peaceful and
uncomplicated
time of his life,
when life was
simple and fun.’
— Linda Lee,
Bruce Lee's widow
eo< kv and having a sense of groat
confident e." Linda says "It was
soon clear that everything he said
he could do. he < oukl do."
Linda also discovered Lee's
philosophical side
"He wasn't always making jokes
and goofing around. We could
have long serious discussions
about life.”
Though he didn't excel in
school. Linda says, Lee read vora
ciously He was especially fond of
books on Kastern philosophy, mar
tial arts and self-improvement.
"He was very focused That
enabled him to a< htuve the things
he did in his short life," she says.
released movie Drtigon The Bruce
Lee Story — are those of a brash, cocky kid who
found admiration through martial arts, peace
througli philosophy, love by chance and. ulti
mately. fame through determination
Those were among the happiest days we spent
together." says Lee’s former wife, Linda, who now
lives in Boise. Idaho. "Bruce loved Seattle. It was
a very peaceful and uncomplicated time of his life,
when life was simple and fun."
Lee was horn in San From isco in 1940. while
the Chinese opera troupe of which his father was a
member was touring the United States, l.ee spent
his childhood in Hong Kong, then returned to the
United States at age tH
After a brief stay in Californio. Lee moved to
Seattle, where his parents arranged for him to live
with Ping and Ruby Chow.
Ping was also a member of the Hong Kong opera
troupe and knew Lee's father. Ruby was a promi
nent member of Seattle's (Chinese community and
would later serve on the King County (iounr.il
"Bruce was kind of like a prodigy in terms of
kung fu When he talked, everybody listened."
says Jesse Glover. Urn's first kung-fu student "But
when he started talking about other subjects be
sounded like a typical 1H year-old "
Lee and his students opened a small martial-art*
club in Chinatown, and later in the University Dis
trict when he enrolled at the University of Wash
ington.
Leu never finished < allege and
left Seattle in 19M for Oakland. Calif ilia goal was
to start a chain of martial-arts st hools
While in California, late was "dist mured" by a
television producer named William Dozier He
was cast in the short-lived series T/ir Cri’rti Hot
ne/.
law was later considered by Warner Brothers for
the lead role in the TV series kim^ hi . hut was
passed over in favor of David Carradine Col
leagues said l.ee was infuriated at the snub.
It wasn't until he returned to Hong Kong that
he fount! stardom in martial-arts films
He made just a handful and was in the midst of
filming his last, Gaitw of Death . when he died July
2(1, 1973, in Hong Kong The official cause of death
was a brain aneurysm in the vicinity of the i ent
hral edema. Tabloids in Hong Kong and elsewhere
raised more sensational theories, ranging from
death by drugs to a murder carried out by Hong
Kong gangs known as triads.
Nearly two decades later, l.ee's son Brandon
would also die under mysterious circumstances
Brandon. 2H, was filming a movie in North Car
olina when he was fatally shot with a prop gun
that was supposed to lie loaded with blanks.
The tombstones of Bruce and Brandon stand
side-by-side in Lake View Cemetery on Seattle's
Capitol Hill. Tlie dirt around them is well-trodden:
every day brings a steady trickle of friends and
admirers, well-wishers and tourists.
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