Bruce Lee: A Life is, in addition to being the first occasion I’ve had to review two different books on the same subject, a new semi-authorized biography (which is to say, it has the approval of the Lee estate but not the direct involvement) on the actor, writer, and martial artist by Matthew Polly, a writer and martial artist himself, best known for his books Tapped Out and American Shaolin.

If you want a quick review: this book is outstanding. It’s 400 pages long (not counting the footnotes, index, and pictures which add another 100 pages), and frankly I easily plowed through it in about 2 days—it’s *that* readable. Polly did a tremendous amount of research, interviewing pretty much anyone who was close to Bruce Lee that is still alive today (ranging from his widow and daughter, to Green Hornet co-star Van Williams, to his agent and producers at Warner Bros) and obtaining as much primary source documentation as possible to paint a complex and compelling three-dimensional portrait of a man that we all know but few are truly familiar with.

Rather than  going through the book and talking about its good and bad points (because there really aren’t too many of the latter to talk about), I will instead discuss what I personally took away from the book, and what those epiphanies might teach the reader about Bruce Lee the man, Bruce Lee the idol of millions, the state of 1960s America, and martial arts on the whole.

1) Your idols are three dimensional beings

One of the things I found most praiseworthy of the book was that it did not present a hagiography of Bruce Lee, nor did it engage in the horse’s ass conspiracy theories about the “quivering palm” punch killing Bruce as the infamous first biography of the man did back in 1975 (in fact the book makes a pretty compelling case that Bruce Lee died of heat stroke). While Bruce Lee was by no means a bad person, and his impact on the world was overwhelmingly a positive, the book portrays him as the three dimensional man he was and thus acknowledges various scandals and failings on the part of himself and his family.

For example, did you know that he actually was of 3/8 European ancestry on his mother’s side? (to get into specifics his maternal great grandfather was a white man, and his grandfather, the Eurasian son of the great grandfather, had a white mistress who gave birth to Bruce’s mother, Grace Ho). While this may not seem scandalous to you, the book also pulls no punches in describing how his father, a famed Chinese opera tenor, suffered from a severe opium addiction that eventually killed him.

And certainly little Bruce was no perfect son himself (unlike his older brother Peter)—as is perhaps typical of the children of a drug addict parent, Bruce was something of a troublemaker in his youth; a poor student who got into fights with other kids, formed gangs (“the dark Triad” and all that), and at one point pulled a knife on his high school gym teacher, it’s no wonder that he was expelled from school in 1956 and sent to a Catholic school that was essentially a reform school.

While the latter school—and his studying of martial arts starting shortly thereafter—did instill some discipline in him, he still had something of a wild streak in his adulthood, partially due to associating with Hollywood celebrities but just as much due to his own personality. Namely, Bruce had two vices: the first being cannabis use—having been turned onto the drug by his friend, student, and professional rival Steve McQueen—and the other was…not being the most faithful husband in the world (the book mentions him carrying on affairs of various intensity with actresses Thordis Brandt, Sharon Farrell, Nora Miao, and Betty Ting Pei, the last of whose bed he actually died in)—but of course, the book reveals that that was hardly unique to Bruce Lee in 1960s Hollywood.

Personally, I found the candidness of this book to make Bruce Lee a much more interesting character than any conspiratorial bullshit that gets thrown around him. On a related note…

2) Anyone can redeem himself and achieve greatness

As mentioned above, Bruce Lee didn’t seem like he was destined for much of anything in his youth, but through a combination of enforced discipline and a single-minded desire to step out of his famous father’s shadow, he was capable of making something of himself. For those of you who believe in self-talk and writing down concrete goals for yourself, Bruce Lee did that exact thing:

“Bruce wrote down his life goal. Entitled “My Definite Chief Aim,” his ambitious and uncanny prophecy reads: “I, Bruce Lee, will be the first highest paid Oriental super star in the United States. In return I will give the most exciting performances and render the best of quality in the capacity of an actor. Starting 1970 I will achieve world fame and from then onward till the end of 1980 I will have in my possession $10,000,000. I will live the way I please and achieve inner harmony and happiness.” (p. 203)

3) America was NOT, in fact, a racist hellhole until, like, yesterday

This is a point that I’ve stated repeatedly, but this book serves to illustrate it further. While it does of course mention “muh desexualization of Asian men”, I get the sneaking feeling that Matthew Polly agrees with me in that this issue is overblown—for starters, he achieves the miraculous goal of only once mentioning Breakfast at Tiffany’s (and only in the context of “…Stirling Silliphant’s friend Blake Edwards was an A-List director, directing such movies as…” p. 181), which I found extremely impressive considering that Professional Asians like to blame that 50+ year old movie as the cause of all of their problems in life.

Bruce Lee seems to have come to the same conclusion I did, another half century later, in that his solution to the “desexualization problem” was to make himself so overwhelmingly masculine and sexual that nobody would dare confuse him for the “shirking, buck-toothed yellow faggot” stereotype:

“‘He was the first man I had ever been with who had such a beautiful body. Those abs—his muscles were so defined, it was as if they were chiseled’ Sharon [Farrell] recalls. ‘Bruce was the most incredible lover I’ve ever been with. He was just so knowledgeable about a woman’s body.'”

(On the topic of Bruce’s “extracurriculars”, I can’t help but feel that his sleeping around was at least in part motivated by the desire to prove to himself that, as an Asian man, he was sexually viable and could bag any woman he wanted—again, if my own college days were any indication).

Leaving sex behind, in reading the book I felt that Bruce was not particularly concerned with racial identity politics. While he was more than willing to put his foot down when it came to not portraying what he felt were stereotyped roles—successfully lobbying the producers of The Green Hornet to showcase his martial arts abilities and have Kato be more of an equal partner to Britt Reid, amongst other things—he didn’t have the enormous chip on his soldier in regards to white people that many Asians today have—he was very good friends with white movie stars like Steve McQueen and James Coburn (so much so that those two men were pallbearers at the funeral, to say nothing how they influenced Bruce’s overall sense of style and charisma), his syncretic martial art style of Jeet Kune Do took several influences from Western martial arts like boxing and fencing, and he would ultimately be buried in the USA.

And conversely, while executives may have balked to an extent, fan response to his work started immediately: “Despite the overall gloom, there was a silver lining for Bruce Lee. Kato proved to be a more popular character than the Green Hornet. His character received way more fan mail from kids, like Ricky McNeece of Clinton, Iowa, who asked for a Kato mask for a school project in the hopes his teacher would give him an “A.”

So, yes, perhaps we have become more “woke” in the years between the 60s and now, but as I always say, it wasn’t like people were running around screaming I HATE SHITSKINS all the time—there was nuance, and while he had to work at it, people in the 60s and 70s were willing to accept an Asian man as a leading man.

(As  a side note, before The Green Hornet, Bruce was contracted to a TV pilot in which he would play Charlie Chan’s #1 Son investigating the murder of his father—a role that producer William Dozier envisioned specifically to give an Asian man a chance at being a leading man, and Bruce considered the role of Kato to initially be a step down. Food for thought for anybody who REEEEEEEs over the Charlie Chan franchise)

4) Related to the above, “muh desexualization” can be overcome

I keep hammering this over and over, but only because it has to be said: you may have to work harder at it, but the “Asian beta male” stereotype can be overcome. And the fact that it still exists to a large extent just shows that more people need to learn from Bruce’s example. It’s not like there’s some shadowy cabal of evil white men sitting around a table plotting to desexualize you—the reason why there hasn’t really been a studly Asian leading man since Bruce Lee is because nobody has stepped up to fill his shoes. If there was one, they’d be casting him in stuff!

5) Find what you’re good at, and perfect it

“Phoebe [Bruce’s sister] recalls, “What I remember most clearly is that Bruce said to Dad: ‘I’m not good at studying. But I’m good at fighting. I will fight to make a name.’ ” And when he came back to America as an adult, he became a sifu to the stars, getting his foot into the Hollywood door by appearing at the Long Beach International Karate Championship and impressing Jay Sebring, the famous Hollywood hairstylist (who would unfortunately become most famous for being murdered by the Manson Family along with Sharon Tate) , who hooked Bruce up with his clients that would be interested in kung fu lessons. Bit by bit his reputation built up until he managed to lobby himself into some acting roles, which began a new process that finally bore leading man fruit after Lee’s untimely death.

And finally, very closely related to the above…

6) Always form and use your connections

See above.

Whether or not you’re into martial arts, or Hollywood history, I cannot recommend this book enough. Read it!

You can buy it here