Brandon Lee

Brandon Lee mini-bio: Brandon Lee was born to the legendary martial artist and actor Bruce Lee and his wife Linda Emery. The family moved to Los Angeles, California when Brandon was three months old, but when offers for film roles became limited for his father, the family moved back to his father's childhood home of Hong Kong in 1971. When Brandon was eight, his father died suddenly from a cerebral edema. After her husband's death, Linda Lee moved the family (including daughter Shannon, who was born in 1969) back to the United States. They lived briefly in his mother's hometown of Seattle (where Bruce Lee is buried), and then in Los Angeles, where Brandon grew up in the affluent area of Rolling Hills. According to his mother, he was "a handful" - "either the teacher's pet, or the teacher's nightmare." He attended high school at Chadwick School, but was expelled three months before graduating. He received his GED in 1983, and then went to Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts, where he majored in theatre. After one year, Lee moved to New York City, where he took acting lessons at the famed Lee Strasberg Academy, and was part of the American New Theatre group founded by his friend John Lee Hancock.

In 1986, Lee got his first movie role in the Hong Kong action thriller Legacy of Rage in which he starred with Michael Wong and Bolo Yeung, who also appeared in his father's last film, Enter the Dragon. The film was made in Cantonese, and directed by Ronny Yu. It was also the only film Lee made in Hong Kong. Regarding the pressures of being the son of a legendary father, Brandon said, "You only have the burdens on you that you choose to put there." Lee then had a guest appearance in the short-lived American television series Ohara (1988) as Kenji, son of title character Lt. Ohara (played by Pat Morita). 1990 saw the release of his first English language B-grade film, Laser Mission, which was filmed cheaply in South Africa in 1988. In 1991, he starred opposite Dolph Lundgren in Showdown in Little Tokyo, his first studio film and American debut. Lee signed a multi-picture deal with 20th Century Fox in 1991. He then had his first starring role in Rapid Fire, and was slated to do two more films for them. Screenwriter Jonathan Hensleigh wrote a script entitled Simon Says that was originally developed for Lee, but was later used as the blueprint for the movie Die Hard With a Vengeance .

In 1992, Lee landed the lead role of Eric Draven, an undead vigilante avenging his murder, and that of his fiancée, in the movie adaptation of The Crow, a popular underground comic book. About his character Lee said, "He has something he has to do and he is forced to put aside his own pain long enough to go do it." It would be Brandon Lee's last film. A gun used on the set was mysteriously loaded with real bullets. During one scene an actor, thinking it was a prop, shot it at Brandon, causing his death.

Brandon Lee Information: Best known as Eric Draven in "The Crow"