Bruce Lee, orig. Lee Yuen Kam, (born Nov. 27, 1940 , San Francisco, Calif., U.S. —died July 20, 1973 , Hong Kong), U.S. film actor. The son of a touring Chinese opera star, he spent his childhood in Hong Kong, where he acted in several movies. He returned to the U.S., and in 1966 he landed a role in the television series The Green Hornet. In the early 1970s he became a popular star of martial-arts action films, including Fist of Fury (1972) and Enter the Dragon (1973), which gained an international cult following. His career was cut short by his sudden death at 33 from a brain edema suffered after taking a pain killer. Nevertheless, his films remained popular and became widely imitated. His son Brandon Lee (1965–93) was emerging as an action-movie star when he died in a shooting accident on a movie set.
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