BRANDON LEE

by Douglas Jeffrey

Ask a martial artist what he or she misses most about Brandon Lee, and you will get several different answers. Ask his mother what she misses most about Lee, and you can't get an answer.

"What do I miss most about him?" asks Linda Lee Cadwell. "That is impossible to answer." It's impossible to answer because there is so much to miss. In 28 years, some of the memories include his girlfriends, school, the martial arts, hard times, good times, laughing, crying and learning how to ride a bicycle. The list goes on. "I used to have great talks with him regarding life, love, his career and the future," Cadwell continues. "He had a philosophical side. Maybe what I miss most are the great talks we used to have." That broke the ice. "He had such a terrific sense of humor," Cadwell adds. "He used to tell jokes, play jokes and he used to laugh so much. And he could always make you laugh. He used to do some elaborate things with that sense of humor, but it was always done with good taste." Lee's wonderful sense of humor developed at an early age. In the fourth grade, for example, he taped some sound effects of a monster from television and put the tape recorder in the school closet. He left the first 10 minutes of the tape blank and recorded it so the noises progressively got louder. "One of the students was making a speech when the noises started coming out of the closet," she says. "Everyone was amazed, and the teacher chuckled about it. He was, however, sent to the principal's office." Cadwell has many other fond memories of her son, who died last March 31 after being shot in the abdomen during the filming of The Crow, a $14 million movie that was being filmed in Wilmington, North Carolina. He was 28. "I remember how he matured," Cadwell says. "He was also a man with a great future in front of him, and I am proud of how he got back into the martial arts." When Bruce Lee (Brandon's father) died, Brandon repudiated the martial arts, mainly because training reminded him too much of his father, she says. "I thought it was a shame that he didn't want to train, but I was not going to force him," Cadwell says. "l figured when he is ready he would do it. When he was 18, he began training again, and I was proud of him. He was always a determined young man, outspoken and goal-oriented."

Brandon —who was born in Oakland, California, and raised in Los Angeles— demonstrated those traits early in life. "I remember very clearly when he wanted to go into acting," Cadwell says. "He was 8 years old, which is how old he was when his dad died. Maybe that is why he wanted to go into movies." Cadwell never dissuaded him from acting, but she always stressed the importance of an allaround education so he would have something to fall back on in case he changed his mind or found out that show business was not what he expected. "From Bruce's experiences, I knew that show business can be tough on your psyche," she says. "Therefore, I wanted him to consider all of his options. There were times, however, when it was tough to get Brandon to go to school because he did not see any reason to study math and science." Brandon's determination definitely paid off. He got his first professional acting job at age 20 when he appeared in the television pilot Kung Fu: The Movie with David Carradine, and his first starring role was in the Hong Kong film Legacy of Rage. In 1991, he made his American movie debut in Showdown in Little Tokyo, starring with Dolph Lundgren. The 1992 release Rapid Fire was the first of a three-picture deal Lee negotiated with 20th Century Fox. Alan Nierob, Brandon's publicist, said his client's career was just beginning to blossom. "He had a hugh future in the film buisness," Nierbo says. "Brandon had a broad mass appeal nationally and internationally. He was on his way. Not only did he have talent and looks, but he had ability." When Brandon finally made it to the silver screen, Cadwell was not surprised. "I never doubted that he would do it," she says. "He worked so hard to achieve this. He was driven. He never sat around and waited for breaks. He went out and created his own opportunities."

When she watched him perform, she usually forgot he was her son. "I remember watching him in a lead role in high school, and I thought he was a natural," Cadwell says. "He assumed the character easily, and he was believable. When I saw him on the screen, he got into the role the same way, and I would forget that I was watching my son. I was very proud of him." In Lee's final project, The Crow, he portrayed a rock star who was killed by a drug gang, but is reincarnated and avenges his death. Ironically, Brandon, who was engaged to Eliza Hutton at the time of his untimely death, was killed during the filming of the scene in which his character dies. In the scene, filmed shortly after midnight on soundstage four at Corolco Studios, Brandon walked through a doorway carrying a bag of groceries when actor Michael Massee, who played a villain, fired at him from about 15 feet away. Brandon's friends were saddened and shocked by his death. "His death was unexpected, and I was speechless," says Dan Lee, chief instructor at the Southern California Tai Chi Chuan Center in Pasadena, and a former training partner of Bruce Leel "This was Bruce's only son. It is tragic." Carradine, who stars in the television series, Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, initially thought the news report of Brandon's death was a mistake. "When one of our number goes down, it touches me deeply, especially with someone I worked with," Carradine says. "We had a lot of fun together. He was easy to get along with, and he put a lot of effort into his work. I will really miss him." No one, however, will miss him as much as his mother. "I will miss him every day of my life," Cadwell says.

Taken from Entertainment (or Black Belt?), 1995

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RISKY BUSINESS

BRANDON LEE'S DEATH SPURS CONCERN OVER THE SAFETY ON NONUNION FILM SETS

by Tim Appelo

Would Brandon Lee be alive today if The Crow had been filming in unionized New York or California rather than in North Carolina, a nonunion, right-to- work state? Two weeks after the 28-year-old star was shot and killed on the set, apparently by an improperly loaded gun, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), Hollywood's powerful crafts union, is raising questions about the safety of moviemaking in the Tarheel State.

While on-set accidents happen everywhere, IATSE insists filmmaking at the Carolco Studios in Wilmington, N.C., is particularly perilous. The union is pointing to the multiple mishaps bedeviling the Crow set prior to Lee's death & (Entertainment Weekly, 164) as an indictment of the state's work rules, which allow productions to hire less costly, nonunion employees. The state's inexpensive workforce has helped to make North Carolina one of the top five locations for moviemaking in the U.S. Between 1980 and 1992, 190 features were shot there (including Bull Durham). But IATSE claims that such growth has a price. In addition to The Crow, the union is also leveling charges against Twentieth Century Fox's The Last of the Mohicans, which was shot near Asheville, N.C., in 1991.

"On the Mohicans set," says union organizer Bryan Unger, "I saw makeup people shaving scalps with razors and using the same razor on the next guy." According to Unger, when one actor playing a soldier fell, cut his head, and bled profusely into his wig, "He told everybody, 'I'm HIV positive, be careful,' and nobody told the costume people, several of whom handled (the wig) without gloves or anything."

Mohicans haircutter Sharon McCurry, manager of Sears Hair Express in Asheville, insists that she never saw a reused razor on the set but knew about the actor who cut his head. "He did tell them," she says, "and that was good."

Director Michael Mann says he never heard of these incidents and insists the set was "maniacally concerned about safety." He agrees nonunion shoots may be less safe, not because the personnel are inadequate but because of "an accelerated production schedule."

The lack of a union presence to enforce safety and scheduling regulations may well have contributed to the accidents on the Crow set. "This is what happens when crews are worked too hard," Unger says. "The producers' attitude is that you can go down there and do anything." Union productions average a 10-hour break between work periods; sources say the Crow crew endured a more rigorous schedule. But a representative for the film's producers, Edward Pressman and Robert Rosen, refutes the criticism: "They were not rushed and not unconcerned about safety."

IATSE undoubtedly has a vested interest in criticizing the state's nonunion stance: It's been trying to organize there since the Wilmington studios opened in 1984. A spokeswoman for the North Carolina Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) admits that The Crow has been subjected to two safety inspections (for Lee's shooting and the electrical accident that paralyzed a crew member), but those are the state's only two movie-set inspections on record since 1973.

The Brandon Lee disaster may prompt an inquiry into the state's movie industry. "I've been talking with OSHA," says Unger. "They have not yet begun to investigate, but they will soon." (The state's OSHA director did not return calls by press time.)

Moviemaking's risks should not be overstated. OSHA says the industry has fewer injuries than the apparel business. "Making a movie is not terribly dangerous work," says director John Milius (Red Dawn), "but there are dangers. Explosives go off, cars crash. Everyone is looking for a villain. The villain is luck."

Taken from ?!?

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BRANDON LEE'S LAST INTERVIEW

by William Wilson Goodson

While only 28,actor Brandon Lee has already established a reasonable track record with two American martial art/adventure films "Showdown in Little Tokyo"and "Rapid Fire". He has also done live theatre and television.

His father, legendary kung-fu instructor and actor Bruce Lee(Enter the Dragon),started training Brandon in the martial arts as a small child, before his sudden death in Hong Kong when Brandon was just eight. His mother Linda, an American of Scandinavian ancestry, rised him and his sister in Los Angeles, where he decided to become an actor.

Brandon has used his athletic skills in all of his films up to now, but insists that he should be considered primarily an actor , not a professional martial artist.

Lee spoke to me on the set of his newest film, The Crow, directed by Alex Proyas. The interview was conducted in stages between takes, so often you will find Brandon picking up and elaborating on his earlier thoughts.

He is bringing to life the independent comic book character Eric Draven,(The Crow)a rock musician who returns from the dead in order to avenge his fiancee's murder by a group of gangsters. Wearing Kiss-style makeup, he relaxed between scenes as we discussed this, his first fantasy film and his career up to now.

Martial Arts Legends: Many actors draw from personal experiences when they are creating a character. How do you find the motivation for somebody like The Crow? Is he a hero, ghost, goblin, villain?
Brandon Lee: He has some powers that make him different than a normal man, but he is still a normal man. He is reacting to a very terrible tragedy which is not only his own death, but more importantly, the death of the woman he loved. The only thing that makes this remarkable is that his own death was involved and he has come back from the dead. I think you are dealing with a man who has been pushed to the limits of his own sanity by this situation that he finds himself in.

MAL: Did you do any special training or preparation for this particular character?
Lee: Well, I had some ideas about the physicality of the character. For example, I lost some weight for the part, first of all because I was kind of modelling his physicality after someone like Iggy Pop or, you know, Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes---that real skinny, gaunt, rock-and-roll look. Also because he is the man that comes back from the dead, I felt he should not have a real robust, healthy appearance, if you know what I mean.

MAL: I do. Did the make-up help you create the character?
Lee: Yeah, it really has. I was talking about how you are dealing with a man who has been pushed to the limits of his own sanity. I think in some ways what happens is, he finds himself in a situation that he, Eric Draven, is not really capable of dealing with. Somehow creating this persona of the Crow, which involves the make-up and some of the kind of totem, totemistic--is that a word, totem-like?--using some of the totems he picks up in his adventures. Like the spent shell casings he ties in his hair, and the electrical tape he applies to his body, he creates someone who is capable of dealing with the situation.

MAL: Do you think he dies at the end of the film?
Lee: I don't think that he was ever alive, not in the usual sense of the word.I think that he has been given a certain amount of time and at the end of that time he returns to where he was before.

MAL: More than once you have said that you always wanted to be an actor. What was it that attracted you to acting rather than something with a pension plan and regular meals?
Lee: I can't tell you that there was any particular decision where I chose not to follow some other career. Since my earliest memories I always wanted to be an actor and I pursued that from the time I was very young. I read somewhere that anyone that can be persuaded not to be an actor should be persuaded, and I have really never felt that there were other paths for me. It is all I have ever wanted to do, and it is all I have ever pursued. I have been fortunate enough now to start to build a career doing that.

MAL: What training have you had as an actor?
Lee: I went to theatre school at Emerson College in Boston. After that I went to New York and joined a theatre company called the American New Theatre. Eric Morris was the artistic director.

MAL: How old were you then?
Lee: Oh,18,19.Then Eric moved his company to Los Angeles. I moved with him and continued training with him for about four or five years, during which time I started getting some work. I still take acting classes today.

MAL: You did some work in off-Broadway theatre when you were in New York?
Lee: Well,if I wasn't officially off-Broadway it was off, off, Broadway. [laughter]

MAL: Do you remember anything you appeared in?
Lee: Sure. We did a play called Full Fed Beast.

MAL: Was that with the New American Theatre?
Lee: Actually, this was with a company that got started in Los Angeles. There was a writer by the name of John Lee Hancock who's now enjoying a great deal of success. He just sold a script called Perfect World that Clint Eastwood is going to direct with Kevin Costner and Eastwood [starring in it].His first play was Full Fed Beast, so it was an original work we did out there.

MAL: This was in Los Angeles?
Lee: This was in Los Angeles.

MAL: In '86,you played the son of Kwai Chang Caine in Kung Fu: The Movie. Was that your first TV appearance?
Lee: That was my first professional job.

MAL: I think you played Caine's grandson in Kung Fu: The Next Generation?
Lee: Yeah. It was a strange experience because I was essentially playing my own grandson, I think. If I was Kwai Chang Caine's son in Kung Fu: The Movie and then I was playing a descendant of Kwai Chang Caine in the present day, then I was also playing my own grandson somehow.

MAL: Were you approached about the new series?
Lee: No!

MAL: The most popular Chinese character in America is Kwai Chang Caine and he has always been played by a person who is not even Eurasian, David Carradine. Does that cause any resentment among the Chinese actors?
Lee: Yes, I think that it does. You had the same thing when Joel Grey played the Korean character in Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins. The fact of the matter is that when my dad was over here, during the years he was doing the Green Hornet, he eventually had to go to Hong Kong to pursue his career because he ran up against this barrier that existed at that time. This was thirty years ago, where there was not a Chinese leading man working in either film or television. There still is not a Chinese leading man working in America today-not one. There are some very fine actors, but no Chinese leading men, no one somebody would bank a film on who is Asian in America.

MAL: Do you think maybe you will be the first?
Lee: Well,half of the first anyway.[laughter]

MAL: Like your father, you also went to Hong Kong to make your first feature film?
Lee: Yeah. I worked on one. It was called Legacy of Rage.

MAL: That was in Cantonese. Do you speak Cantonese?
Lee: Well, I speak it well, but my vocabulary has suffered a lot over the years.

MAL: Did you meet any of your aunts and uncles while you were working in Hong Kong?
Lee: Yes, I saw my uncle Peter, my father's older brother. I didn't [actually] meet them; I knew them all, of course. I grew up in Hong Kong until I was nine years old.

MAL: In 1990, you played a martial arts-trained spy in Laser Mission with Ernest Borgnine, who's one of those character actors that everybody remembers.
Lee: Oh, he was a wonderful man...very kind to me, very helpful. I enjoyed working with him a lot.

MAL: That file wasn't made in Hong Kong?
Lee: That was made in Namidia [formerly Angola].

MAL: Then in 1991, you made Showdown in Little Tokyo with Dolph Lundgren. Was that your next film?
Lee: Yes, that was the first film I made in the United States.

MAL: In 1992,you both starred in and were fight coordinator for Rapid Fire.
Lee: Along with Jeff Imada -- we both did the fight choreography.

MAL: Gentlemen's Quarterly once quoted you as saying that a fight scene might be used to help reveal character. Can you give me an example from your work of a fight scene helping to reveal character?
Lee: Certainly. For example, in this particular film [The Crow],I have the unique opportunity to play someone who is essentially invulnerable, and you have to take into account this fact when you are choreographing [fights] for this character. He is going to approach any kind of violent situation in a very different way than a normal man would, due simply to the fact that he has very little concern for being hurt.

MAL: In Rapid Fire, your character did not seem to enjoy hurting people, but I could not put my finger on how you were giving that impression. Was there something you thought out to help do that?
Lee: I simply felt that this was a young man who was a highly trained martial artist, but someone very much like myself, or most people, who is not accustomed to finding himself in violent life or death situations. This, once again, was an aspect of his character that had to be shown in the choreography. He was mostly out just to survive, to preserve his own life. Given an opportunity in any situation, he would certainly just as soon run, or get away from the conflict, because it was not a conflict of his choosing.

MAL: On a television interview, you mentioned you have a videotape where you put together a compilation of your favorite fight scenes. Could you tell me some of the scenes on there?
Lee: A lot of my dad's stuff. A lot of Jackie Chan's stuff. There are some other actors from over in Hong Kong , like Samo Hung, Yuen Biao and a director named Tsui Hark. Aside from my dad's films, its mostly all Chinese films.

MAL: No John Wayne?
Lee: Nope, no John Wayne. Did you ever hear the story about John Wayne when he was in Greatest Story Ever Told?

MAL: No.
Lee: Well, there he is at the bottom of the cross, Christ is dying, and I believe his line was, "Truly he was the son of God".So he said the line and the director came over to him and said,"You think could you do that with a little more awe?" He said,"Sure",and so they roll the cameras for a second take and he said,(Brandon assumes a Texas twang) "Aweeee, truly he is the son of God".[laughter] It's supposed to be a true story, I don't know.

MAL: Do you have a regular exercise schedule?
Lee: Yes [pausing].It includes working out at the martial arts academy, the Inosanto academy, the same one I have been going to since I was about 13.And then the rest of it pretty much depends on the film I am doing.

MAL: Like gymnastics for Showdown?
Lee: Yeah. Or weight training. I did some weight training for Rapid Fire. I haven't done any for this, but I have done a lot of cardiovascular work. Just boring everyday stuff like jumping rope and running, stairmaster and life cycle, and stuff like that because, like I said, I wanted to lose some weight.

MAL: So, your primary martial arts instructor is still Dan Inosanto? He was one of your father's students, wasn't he?
Lee: He was one of my dad's students and he was a real close friend of the family when I was growing up. After my dad died and we moved back to the United States, I didn't really train at all for about five years. And then when I felt the urge to get back into it I naturally went to Danny's school.

MAL: People Weekly reported that you had an encounter with a real knife-carrying burglar about five years ago. Was that true?
Lee: I came home and I found somebody in the middle of robbing my house, yeah.

MAL: Nearly everybody who has studied the martial arts, including me, wonders what would happen if they had to use them for real. Did instinct take over? What do you remember of the incident?
Lee: I am very pleased to say that instinct took over quite completely. We do knife-fighting drills down at the academy quite frequently and not just static knife-fighting drills, but the kind where one person will wear a fencer's mask and the other person will come at him quite vigorously with a rubber blade, and try and score. I really just clicked right back into [that training].I am back at the academy, what should I do? It was a relatively brief encounter, I took the knife away from him, broke his arm, dislocated his shoulder, broke his nose and his jaw, then the police came and took him away.

MAL: Did you have to appear as a witness?
Lee: I had to show up, but I didn't have to say anything because he plead guilty.

MAL: This sounds somewhat foolish, but I wonder why you didn't get into trouble for beating the guy up?
Lee: No, not at all. When the police first came they cuffed us both, you know, but I understood that. It took about two or three minutes to figure out what was going on, and some of my neighbours came out and collaborated my story. At that point they let me go and were very polite about the whole thing.

MAL: I know you don't usually discuss your father because he died while you were quite young. Do you have any feelings about Dragon, the new film biography that is coming out about him?
Lee: Well, I haven't been real closely connected with the project. Mostly, I am glad they are making a film about him because I think he had a huge impact in his short life. There is a contribution that he made that certainly deserves to be remembered. So I am glad they are making a film and I truly hope they do a wonderful job.

From Martial Arts Legends, August 1993

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BRANDON LEE -- HIS FINAL DAYS

By Herbie J Pilato

Brandon Lee's rise to stardom was cut short with horrific consequence.
The 28-year-old son of martial arts icon Bruce Lee was shot in the abdomen, March 31, 1993, while filming the now-cult-action-movie, The Crow, in which the actor portrayed "Eric Draven", the comic-book-based rock musician who retunrs from the grave to avenge his own murder. It was to be Lee's breakthrough film performance. Instead, it was his last.
Investigators concluded that the tip of a real .44-caliber bullet, placed in a prop gun for a close-up scene, had become lodged in the barrel. No criminal charges were filed in a most dire happenstance, which was ruled "accidental" because Lee was shot by a gun that was supposed to shoot blanks. The result, unfortunately, was the death of Lee, who was not your average martial arts star. As an Asian-American performer, he had charisma, accomplishments diversity, the moves, the looks, and personality. Far from one-dimensional on-screen or in real life, he had it all together. He retained modesty and discretion, and remained unaffected and level-headed with his position as a movie-star and a movie-star's son, even as the ghosts stories as his father's turbulent life and career continued to haunt him through his life.
According to Scott Siler, who befriended Brandon on assignment as a driver and assistant during the filming of The Crow for Carolco Studios, in Wilmington, N.C., Lee was "a great guy. My father died when I was young, and that was the bond that Brandon and I shared. He knew what I went through, and I knew what he went through."

A Stepping-Stone to Greatness
As Siler explains, Lee envisioned The Crow as a innovative achievement. The actor wanted to get away from being known "just as a guy who could do martial arts. He saw The Crow as a stepping stone into a mainstream movie career. He enjoyed working on the film a lot, put in tons of hours, and was always there on the set when he needed to be, with his lines memorized and ready to go. He was a trooper. There were days when it was 32 degrees outside, and he never complained. There he was with no pants, no shoes, no shirt, slushing through the rain (scenes), and laying on the ground. He was really into doing the movie."
Siler remembers Lee saying, "I hope (James O'Barr, The Crow's creator) thinks I'm doing a good job with his character, because I'm fascinated with this project." In one of his final interview, Lee said of the film, "I'm really enjoying it. It's an opportunity for me…a plum role. It's got a haunted quality that I really like."
"And even before the move was over," Siler adds, "they were talking sequels" (which was attempted to less than positive results with 1996's The Crow, Part 2).
On one day off, Brandon invited Siler and co-star Ernie Hudson (Ghostbusters, Congo) over for dinner and a game of ping-pong, one of Lee's favorite pastimes and tension relievers. (Brandon had rented a house adorned with expensive and rare items, so the actual version played was Nerf-ping-pong.)
"We just stood there and played for hours," Siler remembers. "Brandon was an excellent player. He'd do shots off the dish that was hanging on the wall, and have it come back to my side of the table. There probably wasn't a thing he couldn't do with the game."
When not in the house, playing ping-pong with his chauffeur/pal, or working all day on his The Crow feat, Lee would hear the latest music, in the van, courtesy of Siler, who says, "Brandon really appreciated that. Listening to some new songs was not something he could usually have time to do. He genuinely enjoyed it."
As Lee did his craft.
"You could tell he loved acting," Siler determines. "It was something that he really wanted to do."

Dragon His Feet
As when Lee granted an interview to "Entertainment Tonight", which set up shop at a nearby television station, to which Siler shuttled him. During the talk, Lee addressed the 1993 bio-film about his father, Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, and why he turned down the lead role (which was played by Jason Scott Lee, no relation).
From what Siler ascertains, there was "no way Brandon would have done this film," though he did mention to the actor how "cool" it would have been for him to play his dad. "That way," Siler says, "he would have at least done it the way he wanted it to be done. And I told him that."
"Naw," Brandon told him. "Let someone else do it. I don't even want to see the movie when it comes out."
With such responses, Brandon would showcase somber moments.
Periodically, after a long day's shoot, Siler says, "Brandon would get in the car, be so tired, and pull his hat over his head."
The limo would then arrive at his temporary home. He would hop out of the vehicle and say, "Thanks, guy. I'll see you tomorrow."
One "tomorrow" was Lee's last conscious day, when Siler drove him to the set of his final night on The Crow.
Approximately 90 minutes before Brandon was shot, his driver remembers him being "real chipper and excited" about the movie, and his intended nuptials to his then-29-year-old fiancé Eliza Hutton.
Hutton, a one-time story editor for Kiefer Sutherland's Stillwater Productions-cum-Hollywood casting assistant with whom Lee shared a Beverly Hills home, had been transporting between Los Angeles and Wilmington to spend time with Lee.
The wedding was to take place April 17 in Mexico, seven days after The Crow wrapped. Lee's employment would have soon been completed, and the work week ahead had appeared somewhat effortless.

And Then He Was Shot
Nearly all the scenes left to shoot were flashbacks to happier times for the fictitious "Eric Draven". There would have been no drench of downpour, no late-evening frigid exterior shots, and not as much filming in the weighty, maudlin make-up Lee would have usually applied. The scene awaiting Lee on that faithful night of March 31, 1993 promised something more difficult—a scene in which his character was to be gunned down by Masse's "Funboy" character.
Meanwhile, Siler remembered the fiercely-passionate performer saying, "Man, I can't wait to get married."
AND THEN LEE WAS SHOT.
"There wasn't one person who was involved with The Crow, including myself," Siler discloses, "who wasn't there at the hospital after the accident. We all spent the entire night just waiting."
The next morning, Siler had a scheduled run to the airport.
Later in the afternoon, he arrived home, and got word of Brandon's passing.
"I was devastated at what happened," he says. "I saw him in the ambulance, and he was white as a sheet. They were pumping his chest, and he had lost a lot of blood."
And the world a major talent and a kind soul.
If Siler had ever showed up at Lee's doorway in L.A., he says, "Brandon would never have pushed me away. He would have invited me in, and wondered how I was doing. He was that type of guy."

Tabloid Treatment
Siler still gets upset when he thinks about the way the media treated Brandon's death. How the tabloids, programs, and talks shows encouraged rumours of everything from a vendetta by the Chinese Mafia to the alleged "death curse" that supposedly plagued Bruce Lee (who died at 32, of a brain edema, when Brandon was eight), and how it then continued with his son. As some record history, Brandon's real life death scene bore a ghostly affinity to a less-than-respected 1979 kung-fu film, entitled, Game of Death, which spliced together the hindmost, disconnected cinematic reels ever recorded of Bruce Lee.
In Game, Bruce is an actor who is gunned-down after mobsters replace a fake bullet with the real thing on a movie set. In the days that followed Brandon's passing, a small core of Bruce-fanatics began to interpret the Game as a foreboding of Brandon's demise and set out to revitalize the "Lee family curse."
According to Siler, "That's just a lot of junk," and Brandon's premature passing, at the peak of his career, "was just a horrible, horrible mistake."
Following the sophomoric prattle of apocalyptic myths and legacies, the rationale surfaced that Brandon's demise was indeed no more enigmatic than a grievous error.
As was once assessed by a Carolco Studios' freelance firearms consultants James Moyer, the metal tip of one of the dummy bullets was packed into a gun, which Michael Massey was instructed to showcase for a close-up, and had somehow tugged free from its brass encasement. When the dummies were ejected and substituted with blanks, the metal tip became lodged in the back of the gun's cylinder. When the blank was fired, its combustible impetus catapulted the dummy tip through the gun's barrel—and into Lee's brawn-bound form.

It Was Too Late
A short time later, Siler spent several hours on the phone with Eliza Hutton who, upon learning of the accident, immediately flew to Wilmington. When she arrived at the hospital, Lee was in the trauma-neuro intensive care unit, and it was too late.
At 1:04 p.m., he was gone.
(According to a source, the cause of death was disseminated intravascular coagulopathy—unstoppable internal hemorrhaging caused by the blood's failure to clot.)
Before Hutton left The Crow's location set, she gifted Siler with the ping-pong table upon which he and Lee played endless games.
"She thought it was something that Brandon would have wanted me to have," Siler says. "It was very sweet of her, as she is a very sweet person."
Lee's body was then flown to Seattle where, on Saturday, April 3, 1993, he was laid to rest alongside his father in Lakeview Cemetary. The following morning over 400 of those closest to Brandon convened to eulogize him during a service at the Hollywood Hills residence of actress Polly Bergen.
The assembled included Hutton, Brandon's mother, Linda (who flew in from Boise, Id., where she abides with husband, businessman Bruce Cadwell), his now 27-year-old sister, Shannon (a singer who lives in New Orleans), and fellow martial arts stars Steven Segal and David Carradine, the latter with whom Brandon starred in the 1986 CBS TV-film, Kung Fu: The Movie, in which he played Carradine's son (a legimately ironic development, since Carradine beat out Bruce Lee for the lead in the original 1972-75 ABC-Television network Kung Fu series, on which The Movie was based).
Now, five years after Brandon Lee's untimely death, a legendary truth resonates with the reality of his snuffed-out integrity, career potential and much-too-brief life. Or as Scott Siler puts it, "I was glad to have known the man. He would have been a superstar. But more than that, he was a great human being."

From Inside Kung-Fu, April 1998

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