Date of Birth
1 February 1965,
Oakland, California, USA
Birth Name
Brandon Bruce Lee
Height 6' (1.83 m)
Trivia
Killed while filming the movie The Crow (1994) by a projectile shot from a gun firing blanks.
Lived in Hong Kong for a couple of years as a little boy.
Spoke Cantonese.
At the time of his death, was engaged to Eliza Hutton.
Mother is Linda Lee Cadwell
Brother of Shannon Lee
Interred at Lake View Cemetery, Seattle, Washington, USA.
Had blonde hair as a baby.
His Chinese star sign is the Dragon. He was born on Chinese New Year's eve, last day of the dragon.
Was first asked to play the role of Bruce Lee in his father's biopic. The role was later given to Jason Scott Lee.
Was in talks with filmmakers about making Rapid Fire 2.
Was to be married in Mexico on April 17th 1993.
Dedication at the end of Lee's last film, The Crow, reads "For Brandon and Eliza (Hutton)".
He is of Chinese, Swedish descent, English and German descent.
Since his father (Bruce) is of German-Chinese descent and his mother (Linda) is of Swedish and English descent (she has blonde hair and blue eyes), Brandon was born with blond hair which is very unusual for a person of mixed race. However, as he aged, his hair color changed to brown.
The apple never falls far from the tree: Brandon played the character "Jake Lo" in Rapid Fire (1992); his father Bruce Lee played the character "Billy Lo" in Game of Death (1978).
Grandson of actor Hoi-Chuen Lee.
Growing up in Bruce's shadow wasn't always easy for the younger Lee. As a child, Brandon was about to sign up with a local martial-arts studio...until he noticed a large poster of his dad on the wall; Brandon ran from the dojo in tears. Later, as a teenager, he dropped out of two different high-schools (once, after an "altercation" with the vice-principal).
He was a troubled youngster but an outstanding surrogate-parent. When his actress-sister Shannon Lee and a friend were arrested for underage- joyriding in their mom's car, Brandon sat her down and gave her a classic "It's Okay To Have Fun But Don't Ever Take It Too Far" lecture. Indeed, Shannon claims that if Brandon had lived to see her wedding day, he would have walked her down the aisle.
Personal Quotes
"I don't want to be remembered as 'the son of Bruce Lee'"
"I always had a pretty good knack for raising hell."
"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."
[About "The Crow"] "It's a story about justice for victims."
[About "The Crow"] "I've done other films with violence in them, but I must say I've never done anything where I felt the violence was as justified as it is in this...This is justice."
"I've done my work and I'm happy with it...I respect my father very much, but I'm a very different person than he was."
"I don't know if I was destined to play this role, but I feel very fortunate to be doing so." (on his last film, "The Crow")
"The trip reinforced my suspicions that, despite my Pacific Rim heritage, I'm about as American as you get." (explaining that he feels no particular affinity for Asia and does not want to live there)
"It's either in the genes, or I watched too many of his movies as a kid" (on why his film roles echo those of his dad)
"It's such an intensely personal thing for me.. I'd probably have been a little too crazy." (on why he refused the role in "Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story")
"A fight can express things people might not be able to say with words."
"It's funny, [...] for that sequence the director just said, say something insulting to him, it doesn't matter what. So I said something pretty insulting, and they didn't subtitle it, and they never asked me what it meant. [..] (Laughter)" (on the insult he says in Cantonese in the movie "Rapid Fire")
"You only have the burdens on you that you choose to put there."
"All I can tell you is that you cannot make choices in your own career, either career choices or choices when you're actually working as an actor, based on trying to downplay or live up to a comparison with somebody else. You just can't do that. You have to do your own work based on your own gut, your own instincts, and your own life."
[About "The Crow"] "It's a story about justice for victims."
[About Eric Draven] He has something he has to do and he is forced to put aside his own pain long enough to go do what he has to do."
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