Bruce Lee Death
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Bruce Lee Death,
- Birthplace: San Francisco, California
- Death: 20 July 1973 (brain edema)
- Best Known As: Star of Enter the Dragon
Bruce Lee Death
Bruce Lee's untimely death shook Hong Kong and Martial Arts fans all over the world, as well as people who respected and admired this aspiring legendary hero. The end of his life was considered to be under the strangest of circumstances, and still draws sensationalism and controversy, with a number of theories surrounding his tragic death. Rumours concerning the cause of his death range from Lee being killed by Hong Kong triads (gangsters) because he refused to pay them protection money, to his being killed by an angry martial artist's dim mak (death touch) strike for having angered the martial arts community by revealing ancient secrets to foreigners, to drug use. Many people also claimed that it was the work of Oni (Japanese for Demons or evil spirits), while others believed he was cursed. The theory of the "Curse of Bruce Lee" carried over to the equally tragic death of his son, Brandon Lee, who was shot and killed during the filming of The Crow in 1993.
On July 20, 1973, Lee was due to have dinner with former James Bond star George Lazenby, with whom he intended to make a film. According to Lee's wife, Linda, Bruce met producer Raymond Chow at 2 pm at home to discuss the making of the movie Game of Death. They worked until 4 pm, and then drove together to the home of Betty Ting Pei (丁珮), Taiwanese actress who was to also have a leading role in the film. The three went over the script at her home, and then Chow left to attend a dinner meeting.
A short time later, Lee complained of a headache, and Ting pei gave him a tablet of analgesic. At around 7:30 pm, he lay down for a nap. After Lee didn't turn up for the dinner, Chow came to the apartment but could not wake up Lee. A doctor was summoned, who spent 10 minutes attempting to revive him before sending him by ambulance to Queen Elizabeth Hospital. However, Lee was dead by the time he reached the hospital. The ensuing autopsy found traces of cannabis in his stomach. There was no visible external injury; however, his brain had swollen considerably, from 1,400 to 1,575 grams. Lee was 32 years old.
A similar incident had occurred a few months before. On May 10, during the final dubbing of Enter the Dragon, Lee suffered a sudden attack of seizures and a cerebral edema which was not fatal. The neurosurgeon who saved his life in May, Dr. Peter Wu, said that he removed a considerable amount of hashish from Lee's stomach. Bruce, whose entrained paranoia grew with his international fame, had been chewing hashish to calm himself. Dr. Wu, who is renowned for his cerebral edema research in Asian males, said that various neurological problems associated with hashish had been recorded in Nepalese men. Bruce was very vulnerable to the effects of drugs due to his extrememly low body fat. Dr. Donald Langford, Lee's physician in Hong Kong, said that Bruce's body had less than one percent body fat, that "it was obscene how little body fat he had." Bruce Lee weighed only around 128 pounds at the time of his death.
Dr. Langford says that, "This man was muscled like a squirrel, spirited as a horse. I've never seen anybody as physically fit as Bruce. Analgesic is prescribed in the million-dose range every day in Asia. Nobody dies from one tablet of Equagesic. No analgesic killed Bruce. In my opinion, the cause of Bruce Lee's death is obvious. Every time I saw him after May 10, he was further and further into his own hype. I don't think that Bruce thought that there was anybody in the world who knew what was good for him except Bruce Lee. That's what killed him. Dr. Wu agrees: "I think that Bruce was fully convinced that he was invincible, that he was immortal. This is what brought him down."
Cerebral edema was recorded as being the result of an allergic reaction to the analgesic he took combined with medicine he took for back pain that he sustained after pinching a nerve in his lower back while doing deadlift exercises without properly warming up—a condition that left him in a wheelchair. Fortunately, contrary to his doctor's prognosis that he would never kick again, Lee regained his athletic prowess, better than ever. Yet, it left with him a lifelong pain in his back.
He is interred in Seattle's Lake View Cemetery.
