His Early life

Bruce Lee was an American Born Chinese (ABC) born at the Chinese Hospital in San Francisco to his Chinese father, Lee Hoi-Chuen (李海泉) and Chinese-German mother Grace Lee (何金棠).

Names: Lee's Cantonese name, Lee Jun Fan (李振藩; Mandarin Pinyin: Lǐ Zhènfán), literally means "invigorate San Francisco (三藩市)". At birth, Bruce Lee was given the English name "Bruce" by Dr. Mary Glover. Mrs. Lee had not initially planned on an American name but deemed it appropriate and concurred with Dr. Glover. Interestingly the name "Bruce" was never used within his family until he enrolled in La Salle College, a Hong Kong high school, at 12 years of age.

In addition, Lee initially had a birth name (Li Yuen Kam)(李炫金; Mandarin Pinyin: Lǐ Xuànjīn) given by his mother, as at the time Lee's father was away on a Chinese opera tour. After several months, when Lee's father returned, the name was abandoned because of a conflict with the name of Lee's grandfather. Lee was then renamed Jun Fan. Finally, Lee was also given a feminine name, Chris Haid (細鳳, literally "small Phœnix"), used throughout his early childhood in keeping with a Chinese custom traditionally thought to hide the child from evil spirits.

Bruce Lee's screen name was Lee Siu Lung in Cantonese and Li Xiao Long in Mandarin (李小龍; Cantonese pengyam: Ley5 Siw2 Long4; Mandarin Pinyin: Lǐ Xiǎolóng) which literally means "Lee Little Dragon." These were first used by director 袁步雲 of the 1950 Cantonese movie 細路祥 in which Lee performed. It was very likely that the name "little dragon" was chosen based on his childhood name "small phoenix". In Chinese tradition, dragon and phoenix come in pairs to represent the male and female genders, respectively.

Education and martial arts training: Bruce Lee was educated both academically and in the field of martial arts. His studies of Kung Fu sparked his enthusiasm and understanding of martial arts in the development of Jeet Kune Do. Later Lee studied Karate, Judo, Jujitsu, Western Boxing, and other styles of martial arts.

Lee received his early education and Kung Fu training in Hong Kong. Because of his father's fame as a Chinese opera actor, Lee had the opportunity to appear in several Hong Kong movies as a child. He studied the Wing Chun style of martial arts at a young age and learned English, Cantonese, and Mandarin.

Having seen his father practice Tai Chi Chuan, Lee was enrolled in Wing Chun under Sifu Yip Man. Wing Chun would later formed a base for his later development and evolution of martial arts and the development of Jeet Kune Do.

At age 14, Bruce Lee entered La Salle College, a high school, under the wing of Brother Henry. In 1959, Bruce got into a fight with a feared Triad gang member's son, and his father worried, so he and his wife decided to send Bruce to the United States to live with an old friend of his father's. All he had was $100 in his pocket and the title of 1958 Crown Colony Cha Cha Champion of Hong Kong. After living in San Francisco for awhile, he moved to Seattle to work for Ruby Chow, another friend of his father's.

In 1959, Lee completed his high school education in Seattle and received his diploma from Edison Technical School. He enrolled at the University of Washington as a philosophy major. It was at the University of Washington that he met his future wife, Linda Emery, whom he would marry in 1964. Lee had two children: a daughter, Shannon, and a son, actor Brandon Lee, who was tragically killed during a film set accident in 1993.

Early acting career: A few credits short of graduation from the University of Washington as a philosophy major, Lee headed to San Francisco and then Hollywood.

In 1964 at a demonstration in Long Beach, California, the soon-to-be-famous Lee met Karate champion Chuck Norris. Lee would later introduce Norris to portray one of Lee's opponents in Return of the Dragon, aka Way of the Dragon, in a famous Colosseum fight scene.

Lee went on to star as Kato in the TV series The Green Hornet, which ran from 1966 to 1967 and afterward opened up his own Jeet Kune Do school. Later Lee would use filmmaking to demonstrate his fighting theories.

Success in Hong Kong: In 1971, unable to find acting roles and faced with stereotypes regarding Asian actors, Lee returned to Hong Kong with his family. There, he starred in martial arts movies, earning $30,000 for his first two feature films, cementing his fame.

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